Slashdot Mirror
Interviews: Ask Executive Director Andrew Lewman About Tor and Privacy
samzenpus writes Andrew Lewman wears many hats: biologist, advocate against domestic violence, programmer, Executive Director of the Tor project and a member of the board of directors. He works to preserve the right to speak and read freely online by fighting laws and technology that threaten anonymity. Just how hard that has become is much clearer now that the NSA's interest in Tor has become public. Andrew has agreed to give us some of his time and answer any questions you might have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
Can TOR be trusted and how can I truly know that?
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Why hasn't TOR moved towards a connectionless routing between the client and the exit node? A permanent connection is being established each time with the same pattern: computer -> entry node -> middle node -> exit node -> website. This can lead to a traffic pattern analysis, given an observer with enough "peer exchange nodes" under his monitoring. In some cases all the connections could be monitored with only country/continent level entry points.
Wouldn't a bunch of state-less P2P like connections between the client and the exit node be better suited against such traffic inspection?
News stories I've read lately seem to indicate that the Tor exit nodes have been and still are being compromised by organizations and some oppressive governments. What are you doing about this?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
We haven't heard any solid proof of a complete failure of Tor's privacy to catch a criminal through a serious exploit. There's a theory out there that a government agency wouldn't blow their cover just to arrest some copyright infringer or small time law breaker on a hidden service. They instead are passively spying to covertly and constantly catch terrorists who think they're protected or they're preparing for a gigantic sweep and mass arrests. What do you think is the likelihood of a situation like that being true, where the NSA or something similar has completely broken Tor and we just don't know it yet?
Do you know how the takedown of so many "darknet" sites was accomplished recently, or do you at least have some suspicions? The government seems to by lying about how they took down the original Silk Road site, and I'm wondering if you believe this is to: a) Hide a technical solution that they have at their disposal, or b) Hide the egregiously illegal/inadmissable things they did to accomplish this, or c) some of each.