Mozilla Dusts Off Old Servers, Lights Up Tor Relays

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Mozilla Dusts Off Old Servers, Lights Up Tor Relays

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 29, 2015 @07:09AM from the good-citizenship dept.

TechCurmudgeon writes According to The Register, "Mozilla has given the Tor network a capacity kick with the launch of 14 relays that will help distribute user traffic. Engineers working under the Foundation's Polaris Project inked in November pulled Mozilla's spare and decommissioned hardware out of the cupboard for dedicated use in the Tor network. It included a pair of Juniper EX4200 switches and three HP SL170zG6 (48GB ram, 2*Xeon L5640, 2*1Gbps NIC) servers, along with a dedicated existing IP transit provider (2 X 10Gbps). French Mozilla engineer Arzhel Younsi (@xionoxfr) said its network was designed to fall no lower than half of its network capacity in the event of maintenance or failure. The Polaris initiative was a effort of Mozilla, the Tor Project and the Centre for Democracy and Technology to help build more privacy controls into technology."

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LOL ... what? by gstoddart · 2015-01-29 07:13 · Score: 3

three HP SL170zG6 (48GB ram, 2*Xeon L5640, 2*1Gbps NIC) servers
LOL ... geez, I wish I had something like that just laying around in a cupboard.
Sheeee-it.

--
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
1. Re:LOL ... what? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:28 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  three HP SL170zG6 (48GB ram, 2*Xeon L5640, 2*1Gbps NIC) servers
  
  LOL ... geez, I wish I had something like that just laying around in a cupboard.
  Ah, but it comes with a catch. These are Mozilla servers.The AX (Administrator Experience) team has made regular improvements to them every month. As of this writing, the case has been modified so that it has no front-panel status display (not even a status bar of LEDs to show temperature and system load), and the case has been modified so that the power button is operated by a foot pedal, and next week the fiber/ethernet ports will be covered over with a 2-inch thick layer of beautifully minimalistic white epoxy laboriously hand-polished to a glossy sheen.
2. Re:LOL ... what? by gstoddart · 2015-01-29 07:32 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Ah, but it comes with a catch. These are Mozilla servers.The AX (Administrator Experience) team has made regular improvements to them every month. As of this writing, the case has been modified so that it has no front-panel status display (not even a status bar of LEDs to show temperature and system load), and the case has been modified so that the power button is operated by a foot pedal, and next week the fiber/ethernet ports will be covered over with a 2-inch thick layer of beautifully minimalistic white epoxy laboriously hand-polished to a glossy sheen.
  *bites lip* Oh, keep talking nerdy to me.
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
3. Re:LOL ... what? by NotBornYesterday · 2015-01-29 08:36 · Score: 2
  
  It's older gear that is not that expensive. Not bad, but not exactly bleeding edge.
  I'm not criticizing; this is more than I've donated to the cause.
  
  --
  I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
4. Re: LOL ... what? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 09:28 · Score: 0, Insightful
  
  Don't feel bad, tor is a Fed honeypot. You're already supporting them with that income tax they're so very fond of.
  Besides, as Snowden has already demonstrated, they don't need your donations, they need your secrets, your contacts, your entire private life as far as the internet is concerned. Don't want to give them what they want? No problem, they'll take it. Doesn't matter if it's legal, doesn't matter if it affects someone outside their borders.
  So yeah, I wouldn't be too broke up about not being able to financially support Tor, you're already doing it. In return the world gets a tool designed to funnel sensitive traffic through a supposedly "anonymous" path...something that researchers have demonstrated can be overcome with off the shelf hardware from Cisco (running netflow in particular).
5. Re:LOL ... what? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 10:03 · Score: 0
  
  *bites lip* Oh, keep talking nerdy to me.
  Oh help me! I cannot get that image out of my mind now. Damn you!
6. Re:LOL ... what? by TeknoHog · 2015-01-29 10:06 · Score: 1
  
  *bites lip* Oh, keep talking nerdy to me.
  Time to "dust off" the old "server", I presume?
  
  --
  Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
7. Re:LOL ... what? by FuegoFuerte · 2015-01-29 11:08 · Score: 1
  
  That's the best they could come up with from their scrap pile? *puke* They'll pay more for power over the next 3 years than it would cost them to buy some decent enterprise-level servers with real switches.
  The EX-4200 is great, for a basic SOHO or OOB switch, but I wouldn't use it where any real connectivity was required.
8. Re:LOL ... what? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 12:35 · Score: 0
  
  *bites lip* Oh, keep talking nerdy to me.
  Multiple ports on a single server rack are clearly not required by the majority of our user base. We covered over the fiber/ethernet ports with the 2" thick epoxy because our telemetry and metrics indicate that only 5% of Mozilla users ever use more than one Ethernet port on any computer. The figure drops to 0.2% when we include mobile users!
9. Re:LOL ... what? by epyT-R · 2015-01-29 13:59 · Score: 1
  
  tor clients connecting to these servers will need the 'classic tor restorer' plugin to restore basic functionality.
10. Re:LOL ... what? by rickb928 · 2015-01-30 07:25 · Score: 1
  
  You had me at Mozilla
  
  --
  deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:15 · Score: 0, Interesting

This is a confusing move to me. While Tor does have some legitimate uses, governments and law enforcement agencies hate it, and criminals and criminal-perverts love it. It's not that I disapprove of Tor or Mozilla's actions - it's just that I think they've become an enemy of most world governments because of this, and I don't see that as a wise move.
1. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by clonehappy · 2015-01-29 07:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Mozilla has just given the world governments very own honeypot a great boost in capacity. Why would that make them an enemy?
2. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:23 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  I see the propaganda has worked well on you, and you actually believe that Tor is only used by criminals.
3. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:32 · Score: 0
  
  "governments and law enforcement agencies hate it"
  Surely, this is the whole point of doing it. Or did you think the state had your best interests at heart?
4. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:37 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Why make enemies of governments?
  Short answer: Because they're there.
  Long answer: What you don't seem to understand is that none of us owe any of the world's governments a goddamn thing. They govern with our sufferance. Their continued existence depends entirely on our reluctance to face the consequences of overthrowing them. They need us more than we need them. Therefore, the world's governments should remember their place while they still have one.
5. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by TheCarp · 2015-01-29 07:43 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Because when the state makes its enemies based on whether or not their legitimate use of technology annoys them, then the state deserves enemies.
  You are evaluating the situation in a vacuume. If everyone took that approach then the government just gets whatever it wants out of fear. Giving in to that and making decisions based on it, encourages such rule by fear attitudes.
  
  --
  "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
6. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by sumdumass · 2015-01-29 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  Do you see how your statement defeatz itself in context?
  He did not say only criminals use it, he said criminals love to use it. Also, as long as that is the theme being pushed by the governments (propaganda), his point is still valid as governments and law enforcement are demonizing it and it will make them the enemy.
7. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Flavianoep · 2015-01-29 07:49 · Score: 2
  
  [satire]Hooray! Now "someone" can access childporn faster![/satire]
  It's not that only criminals use Tor, it is more like criminals use only Tor.
  
  --
  Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
8. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by dcollins117 · 2015-01-29 07:52 · Score: 2
  
  So what? Tor is perfectly legal. The use of Tor doesn't say anything about you other than you are using Tor. Anyone who thinks it implies something nefarious or criminal is going on is fucked in the head.
9. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 08:03 · Score: 0
  
  Pretty much everyone in this conversation appears to have been taken by at least some aspect of the propaganda surrounding TOR.
  If government(s) really want to bring down TOR, they can do so quite quickly - by bringing conspiracy charges against the owners or operators of any machines which they observe connecting to the TOR network in any capacity.
  There are, of course, reasons this doesn't happen. The questions you ought to consider are: "Why don't they do this?" and "Who is paying for all of this?"
10. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 09:20 · Score: 0
  
  Because the governments have made enemies of the people.
11. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 09:24 · Score: 0
  
  So is carrying and delivering packages if we leave it at that. However, the moment you agree to take someone's contraband, hitlists, or other hot stuff, cover your tracks as best you can [to try to actively thwart any investigations into the matter], and insist that you know nothing if and when you get caught, then you have a legal problem on your hands.
  Assuming you're an American, the only 'defense' you could give would and should greatly complicate any case arising out of the use of TOR (since the authorities are quite complicit), but it wouldn't actually make you innocent.
12. Re: Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 09:35 · Score: 1
  
  Funny how all the Tor apologists claiming the government as enemy number one always gloss over the fact that the project was initiated by and receives funding from the US government. It's in the american's best interest to play it publicly like Tor is some dangerously effective tool...Anonymous members, the Silk Road, all kinds of arrests being made and information being collected. All from a tool that purports to provide anonymity to a user that follows a careful list of instructions on how to browse "safely." As if they're somehow immune from bugs and security flaws.
  Tor is a weapon of the real enemy, the US and the rest of the "Five Eyes." Trust it at your own peril.
13. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by BronsCon · 2015-01-29 10:04 · Score: 1
  
  Even TFS says that law enforcement bots are constantly scanning TOR for new content. New content means new leads, more leads mean more arrests. They have no interest in stopping people from committing crimes, because if they put an end to crime, they lose their budget; if they're catching more people committing crimes, the get a bigger budget, so it's in their best interest to leave TOR as it is and keep using it to catch people in the act.
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
14. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 10:10 · Score: 0
  
  You'd be mistaken to believe that everybody in government hates Tor. There are certainly people within government everywhere that hate Tor (if they even understand what Tor is). Sadly these people tend to misinformed and uneducated. Don't let yourself be part of that group.
  There really isn't that much to fear by running a Tor exit node unless your already attracting your governments attention. The worst thing that seems to have ever happened is one person got arrested, and convicted based on his "support" for some group his government didn't like. He spent a short stint in jail- but nothing terribly long. They had no real evidence or law to use against him- but attacked him based on something he said. The lesson to be learned is don't say you don't care that your service is/may be/etc used by a group the government is persecuting.
15. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 12:42 · Score: 0
  
  I see the propaganda has worked well on you
  Uh back a few years ago I fired up a few tor nodes. Figuring I was 'helping out'. Then I dug around a bit. It did not take long to find some seriously shady crap. I took down my 2 nodes that day.
  I am not helping them out. They can make their own nodes...
  I know it is used by others for good things. But the 99% case is not good stuff.
  I dont know perhaps my values do not condone that junk... *YOU* may be cool with it. I am not going to stop you or even try to convince you otherwise. I personally was not cool with it. Perhaps you could respect that?
16. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 13:42 · Score: 0
  
  Well, the short answer is a bit off. A government made up of the governed people can be a good thing and bring benefit.
  The problem is that almost by definition the government attracts people who want to be elected, and most of the people who are best qualified to participate in government do not want to be elected.
  The question was, "Why make enemies of goverments?"
  And the answer is, it was not our choice. They decided to eavesdrop on everything, and became enemies of the people. Snooping, even for good ends, was identified before 1776 as being a not-good thing, and it continues to be so. Supporting encryption and anonymity tools is the obvious choice of any citizen, even if that citizen's government does not recognize ideals like freedom of speech or protection from arbitrary searches.
  At this point, this is not making an enemy - it is a natural response to actions undertaken. If you see it as making an enemy, and ask the utility of such, then maybe you're not cut out to understand the whole conversation here.
  If you play chess, this is an obvious defence to an attack. If you prefer cyber analogies this is a hardening of an exposed surface.
  If you prefer the idea that angering a government is a bad thing, then shoot yourself right in the head, because it should never be a bad thing to present the government with ideas it does not like. Sure you may be imprisoned and tortured, but someone has to start. If it's not going to be you then you are, like most people, a coward, and you are giving the government the idea that it is representing the people.
  I am, of course, a coward, but I do vote and I try to educate people when possible. But I make clear to the officials that I am not happy.
17. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by epyT-R · 2015-01-29 14:03 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, why resist tyranny? You might lose your watered down beer and tv football privileges.
18. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-30 00:17 · Score: 0
  
  > Why make enemies of goverments?
  They started it.
19. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by flappinbooger · 2015-01-30 01:24 · Score: 1
  
  I have a balaclava (ski mask) that I have used when outside in the winter. Keeps my face warm. I like it.
  Also criminals use them because it hides your face well. From eyes as well as the cold.
  So if I'm out walking around wearing a ski mask don't assume I'm a criminal.
  Oh wait, this is slashdot - I should have made a car analogy!
  
  --
  Flappinbooger isn't my real name
20. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by sumdumass · 2015-01-30 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  And I bet you have throwing stars and walk around pretending you are a ninja too.
  No one said if you use TOR you would be a criminal. They said criminals use TOR so governments dislike it. Now, do you think the corner drug store clerk doesn't like you walking in wearing your ninja mask? I would bet he has no problem with you personally, just when you dress up like a crook trying to rob the store.
21. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by flappinbooger · 2015-01-30 07:31 · Score: 1
  
  And I bet you have throwing stars and walk around pretending you are a ninja too.
  No one said if you use TOR you would be a criminal. They said criminals use TOR so governments dislike it. Now, do you think the corner drug store clerk doesn't like you walking in wearing your ninja mask? I would bet he has no problem with you personally, just when you dress up like a crook trying to rob the store.
  ok, lets continue the analogy.
  If I walk into a store wearing a ski mask, and don't take it off, I think it would make most people nervous. It's strange behavior.
  If I visit a website using TOR, what happens? For one, they won't know who I am unless I have cookies or log in.
  Will they freak out? Will they be nervous?
  
  --
  Flappinbooger isn't my real name
22. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by sumdumass · 2015-01-30 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  Still doesn't prevent anyone from not liking TOR. But you are correct, no one would know who you were which was the point- you are not a criminal because you use it, but it still allows people to dislike it.
  Oh and it might make some people a little more than nervous if you walked into a store wearing a ski mask.
23. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-30 10:08 · Score: 0
  
  Let's improve the analogy a bit:
  How about when 20 people walk into the store wearing ski masks, with one of them there to rob it?
24. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by sumdumass · 2015-01-30 13:45 · Score: 1
  
  It doesn't really matter as it is outside any point made. 20 people, one person, or no one at all, it does not make someone a criminal but it doesn't mean the clerk or store owner can hate ski masks.
25. Re:Why make enemies of goverments? by flappinbooger · 2015-01-30 15:46 · Score: 1
  
  the AC's extension of the analogy is actually really good - It's probably a pretty good way of looking at encryption, VPN, and TOR.
  Say it's really really cold out, like an "arctic vortex" kind of condition, which is the state of the internet right now with surveillance and monitoring.
  So everyone needs to wear their ski masks to go out, if they're smart. So it would be wrong to prevent people from walking around in ski masks.
  But someone ... likely there IS someone ... is up to no good who is ALSO wearing a ski mask.
  What do you do?
  
  --
  Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Payed by who? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:19 · Score: 2

"Whom surely", sorry couldn't resist.
But seriously, did they do this out of the goodness in their hearts, or did someone pay for it? Yahoo payed them enough to switch the default search engine, what three letter agency would pay for them to do this and get free monitoring, of a huge tor network chunk?
1. Re:Payed by who? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 10:20 · Score: 0
  
  The Tor network is already pretty large. This won't have a significant negative impact in the way you think. There are quite a few other large entities which are proving significant amounts of bandwidth to the Tor network. Plus they can't see whats being transmitted through there node anyway. You can see that they've acted properly too so even if they have malicious intent they're actually helping the network. The network is designed such that your adversaries can participate in it and your anonymity still won't be compromised (unless you make an effort to compromise it by not listening to the Tor developers). There is a reason Tor users are told to use Tor Browser and make sure that they are connecting to https:// or otherwise using encryption or an onion. Tor also can't deal with stupidity. If you give your address to somebody over Tor and then accept a package that contains something illegal- all bets are off. Tor isn't designed to protect against that. It may help make life difficult for law enforcement, but it won't stop law enforcement.
2. Re:Payed by who? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 11:13 · Score: 0
  
  Perfectly acceptable Australian English.
  They don't go for silly Latinisms masquerading as English.
Re:Ah, Tor.... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:24 · Score: 1

the system designed by government to protect against other governments
FTFY
48GB of ram? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:27 · Score: 0, Funny

So that's why mozilla developers don't care about memory leaks in firefox!
1. Re:48GB of ram? by rxtc · 2015-01-29 07:38 · Score: 2
  
  well, if you use Chrome and have more than 5 tabs open, I will believe you
2. Re:48GB of ram? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:39 · Score: 0
  
  Can we stop this myth already? Google's Chrome actually has higher memory usage, yet I never, ever see anyone complain about that. Only Firefox, for some reason. Why, it's almost like people spout biased, uninformed opinions as if they are fact.
3. Re:48GB of ram? by gstoddart · 2015-01-29 07:41 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Honestly, lately I find Firefox to be more of a memory pig than Chrome ... as of the last update to Firefox grows to using 2GB of RAM after a few hours, instead of staying under 1GB after several days.
  Because every developer apparently feels that all of my memory is there for just them.
  Yeah, Mozilla, I'm looking at you guys -- that's just sloppy.
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
4. Re:48GB of ram? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 08:26 · Score: 1
  
  I bet you'd be the first to complain if Firefox capped it's cache at 256MB making it unusably slow.
5. Re: 48GB of ram? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 09:40 · Score: 0
  
  More likely it's a matter of "someone's being paid to bash Firefox on every site that will accept comments." What's "funny" is the amount of anonymous criticism of Firefox increasing on Slashdot in particular...not long after Mozilla announced their Yahoo deal.
  Follow the money and you'll almost inevitably find that the trail ends at some corporate scumbag, politician or both.
6. Re:48GB of ram? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 10:40 · Score: 0
  
  I think there actually were some problems with v35 they've been fixing for their next release, unless I misread the reports on their bug tracker. Regardless, you can usually figure out what's using the RAM by going to about:memory and doing a measurement. I've seen people complaining about Firefox RAM usage and it turned out to be a bad version of an addon (YouTubeCenter is often a problem, sometimes AdBlock Plus), or it's a strange issue with video drivers or their plugin-container process. Might be worth investigating, rather than assuming it's a specific common problem they're fixing.
48GB of ram? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:34 · Score: 0

so what my workstation has 54 Gigabytes and i care
Re:Ah, Tor.... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:35 · Score: 0

Ah, of course - a system which is vulnerable only to one government but no others.
Relays, not exit nodes by Solozerk · 2015-01-29 07:43 · Score: 5, Informative

It should be noted that those are relays, which transit data inside the tor network, not exit nodes (which provide exit points to the general network and can be a large risk for their operator should any illegal content be accessed). Relays still help with the general obfuscation of the network as well as for hidden services, though.
Apparently, Mozilla is considering eventually deploying exit nodes as well though.

Finally, for those that will scream "child porn", it should be noted that a very, very small minority of tor traffic is actually linked to that type of content, despite what the DoJ says; the best estimates from the tor project is around 1.5%. This move by Mozilla is a good thing - amongst other things helping countless defenders of freedom in oppressed regimes speak up in safety.
1. Re: Relays, not exit nodes by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 09:49 · Score: 0
  
  Nobody in an "oppressed regime" is trusting the tool of the world's greatest oppressive regime. Let me ask you this, since you obviously didn't think about it...if Tor is so good at protecting privacy and traffic, how does the DoJ know what percentage of ANYTHING is going through it? Your own words are a red flag, to say nothing of the US government involvement in the project.
  Trust Tor with anything important and you'll regret it. Proof? Criminals aren't using it any more. Not the smart ones anyway. Think the Silk Road would have set up shop if Ulbricht knew how easily a "hidden" service could be revealed? Nope. If criminals don't use Tor for fear of getting caught, why would someone in an "oppressed regime" trust it to save them from a beheading? In some countries being gay is still punishable by death, it's considered a crime whether or not it's right. Think any of them are using Tor to keep safe? Not likely. It's too easy to watch exit nodes, analyze traffic and unmask a supposedly anonymous Tor user...even more easy when companies like Cisco are selling them the equipment to do it.
2. Re:Relays, not exit nodes by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 09:49 · Score: 0
  
  > Apparently, Mozilla is considering [ycombinator.com] eventually deploying exit nodes as well though.
  We need enough groups like Mozilla with the money for lawyers to fight the inevitable Department of (in)Justice attacks on them. Let that happen enough and we'll eventually get precedent so that regular people who happen to have gigabit ISPs don't have to run their own exit nodes.
3. Re: Relays, not exit nodes by Solozerk · 2015-01-29 10:23 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  how does the DoJ know what percentage of ANYTHING is going through it
  That's an easy one: they make that number up, to spread FUD about it. And read the article I linked, BTW (and the source it links): the number in question has been easily disproved, with a relatively simple analysis of hidden services' hostnames resolution. Tor is not the USA's tool - it is an open source, publicly available software that was originally financed by part of the US government, period.
  
  I realize all the Snowden revelations have made lots of people a bit paranoid (which is a good thing, mostly); but the fact is, it is extremely unlikely that tor is compromised in any serious way. Barring human error, tor works, mostly - there are some attacks possible, and there are demonstrated attempts by the NSA and others to compromise it (with some extremely limited results, both in their scope and in their duration); however, I have not seen any shred of evidence suggesting that it has been compromised in any serious way. This growing meme that "tor is broken for good", and the larger one that "if it's connected to a network, it's accessible by the NSA" is simply bullshit.
  
  The thing is, in all likelihood, tor works. GPG works. If you encrypt something with GPG and the key is not available to them, even the most powerful security agency on the planet will not be able to read it. The advances both in basic mathematics and/or computing required to break those are so extreme that it would be very, very hard to hide it. And nothing in the Snowden leaks has suggested that those have been broken - quite the contrary, in fact, since several of the revealed documents suggest that tor and the growing encryption usage are a serious problem to those agencies.
  
  That doesn't mean that it'll stay that way, mind; personally, I think that some sort of quantum computing might be in reach of those same agencies in a few years (and they are dumping and storing all the encrypted, non-breakable traffic they can in the meantime, I imagine waiting for this day) - and even that personal opinion will seem paranoid and far fetched to most experts in the field. But in the meantime, the most likely hypothesis is simply that those encryption algorithms and protocols are still secure. If you have any shred of evidence that is not the case, please link those - I'd genuinely appreciate it.
  
  And finally, about Ulbricht and the other dark net markets taken down more recently: all of those have been clearly linked to human error, from corroborating testimonies from several parties. So sure, you can believe that this is entirely parallel construction, and you can also believe that Obama and most of the five eyes countries are bitching about encryption more and more to present a plausible deniability front while decrypting everything in the background; but right now, once again, there's nothing public even hinting at that.
4. Re: Relays, not exit nodes by Solozerk · 2015-01-29 10:27 · Score: 1
  
  Reading my post again, I should add: tor (very) likely works, as long as it is used for accessing hidden services, staying inside the tor network. As a bridge to access the general Internet, given the wide scope of monitoring by the NSA and co (shit, given the Snowden docs they seem to be able to view almost the entire network), there are several signs that timing analysis could semi-reliably de-anonymize specific users for a limited time.
5. Re:Relays, not exit nodes by Solozerk · 2015-01-29 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed. This network of organizations does exactly that - providing exit nodes with the money and the lawyers to fight the bullshit. Hopefully the fact that Mozilla is joining the party means others might follow.
6. Re: Relays, not exit nodes by Carnildo · 2015-01-29 15:15 · Score: 1
  
  Let me ask you this, since you obviously didn't think about it...if Tor is so good at protecting privacy and traffic, how does the DoJ know what percentage of ANYTHING is going through it?
  That's easy: you set up an exit node and watch the traffic going by.
  Tor only promises to protect the data as it travels between your computer and the exit node. If you want protection after that, you'd better use SSL.
  
  --
  "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
7. Re: Relays, not exit nodes by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 22:33 · Score: 0
  
  According to their most recent financial statements, TOR remains the US government tool it always has been:
  https://www.torproject.org/abo...
  As for the compromise of TOR, one need only determine how many exit nodes are either owned outright by your intel agency of choice (+allies) or at least are on snooped networks. This, taken together with known attacks on TOR, should tell you how well events on the network may be correlated.
  Add to human error, zero-day attacks and compromised services.
  Oh, and by the way, if any government really wants to go after you, all they really need to do is prove that you operate a TOR relay, then press conspiracy charges against you, since the traffic is known to be quite hot.
8. Re:Relays, not exit nodes by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 22:51 · Score: 0
  
  Actively thwarting any investigation into that 1.5% child porn could have some dangerous consequences, even if your role is *just* handling it for the perverts and covering their tracks.
Where are all you Mozilla haters now? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:43 · Score: 0

where?
1. Re:Where are all you Mozilla haters now? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 07:54 · Score: 0
  
  Mozilla has done plenty of good things last years. Maybe they should try making a decent web browser too.
Can we please get the fuck off TOR by nimbius · 2015-01-29 07:46 · Score: 4, Interesting

TOR has never been more than an interesting proof of concept. it took a little while for the spooks to catch on, but these days theyre so good at poisoning exit nodes and injecting malicious content that TOR is less of an anonymous network and more of a cautionary tale.

You should be using I2P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
and while we're on the subject, Mozilla has gotten too chummy with advertisers for me to be comfortable with anymore. They started out on a mission to protect the internet, and now they have video chat, targeted advertising tabs, and a fat paycheck from google every month. Firefox is fast turning into the realplayer of the 21st century. What we should be doing instead of looking for corporations to help us is working to Opt out of global data surveillance programs like PRISM, XKeyscore and Tempora.

--
Good people go to bed earlier.
1. Re:Can we please get the fuck off TOR by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 08:48 · Score: 0
  
  What we should be doing instead of looking for corporations to help us is working to Opt out of global data surveillance programs like PRISM, XKeyscore and Tempora.
  
  So, in other words, we should be looking for companies that operate exclusively outside of the US, and have zero connections routing through US networks?
  Your first mistake here is assuming that any US-based corporation would not be forced to comply with any LE request because they are a US corporation. (And under gag order, so consumers have no idea it even happened.)
  Your second mistake was using the term "opt out" when discussing state-sponsored surveillance programs, as if a single citizen ever used the term "opt in" to describe their current enrollment status.
  None of this is voluntary. Not for US citizens, and certainly not for US corporations. And trying to use cost as the breaking point to shut them down is laughable. About as laughable as thinking there was ever a limit on the billions spent to build the damn thing.
2. Re:Can we please get the fuck off TOR by StikyPad · 2015-01-29 08:53 · Score: 2
  
  I2P is (or seems) good for anonymously accessing eePsites, but it's not particularly useful for general browsing. And as of now there only seems to be one outproxy, which makes it even worse.
  
  --
  https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
3. Re:Can we please get the fuck off TOR by rahvin112 · 2015-01-29 09:11 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  There is nothing wrong with TOR other than not enough people are providing capacity. The biggest reason the government can attack TOR is that the number of relays and nodes is so pathetically small as to make it trivial to attack it for a large well funded organization. And your suggestion is to reduce the effectiveness of TOR even more AND put your trust in a system in which the developers themselves can't guarantee it's secure because it's never been audited, unlike TOR, and operates on the exact same principles and methods.
  You sir are a fool.
  Of I2P, freenet, Tor and all the others TOR is the only one with good financial backing and an audited codebase that more than 3 people have looked at. I2P on the other hand is built on Java with literally one developer and is even smaller of a network, and likely suffers the exact same weaknesses as TOR, the most important of which is that the smaller the number of machines connected the easier it is to crack and track the network encryption and routing.
4. Re:Can we please get the fuck off TOR by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 09:17 · Score: 0
  
  Um, Mozilla moved to Yahoo and tried adding relatively benign ads to wean themselves off of the Google teat. But then again it sounds like you just want to bitch about the inevitable, rather than helping out. Because if you REALLY cared, you would be working to alternative revenue sources for Mozilla, not conveniently ignoring what they still do to help the web just because you dislike a few things they've done. But then I guess you'd rather they give up entirely, and leave us with just Microsoft, Google, and Apple to drive the web? Or maybe you sincerely believe that the community could make a better browser and have influence on those companies, despite copious evidence that no one else wants to even try?
5. Re:Can we please get the fuck off TOR by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 09:57 · Score: 0
  
  >They started out on a mission to protect the internet,
  > and now they have video chat,
  Free, non-proprietary, point-to-point video chat is good for the internet.
  > targeted advertising tabs,
  Not targeted, not tabs. Just user-defeatable "blank" page. And while I would totally like to see them pure from advertising, unless you can propose viable alternate forms of funding, we have to live in the world we are in, not the world we wish we were in.
  > and a fat paycheck from google every month
  (1) They've been taking money from google since practically the very beginning
  (2) They stopped taking money from google in order to take money from Yahoo. they did this despite the fact that Google offered them a bigger check. If they have to take money from evil, at least they are doing their part to reduce the concentration of evil on the internet. What have you done?
  > prism-break.org
  Funny how Tor is right there in the first category of what to use and support to opt out of global data surveillance.
6. Re:Can we please get the fuck off TOR by ThatsMyNick · 2015-01-29 11:15 · Score: 2
  
  I2P cant be used to access google and the general internet. Tor can be. So you should be using Tor, just keep in mind that anything unencrypted can and will usually contain malicious content. Even if not by the spooks, people change stuff for lolz, and monitor stuff for research and lolz. It doesnt mean tor is not good. It is just something you have deal with.
7. Re:Can we please get the fuck off TOR by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 11:56 · Score: 0
  
  No, you should be using Phantom or CJDNS or GnuNet or MaidSafe or something that hasn't been written yet... so your interface to the darket will be an IPv6 private address tunnel interface so you can run whatever apps you already have today right over it. Instead of dragging ass waiting for new network specific apps to be written to utilize the network (I'm pointing at I2P here).
  Anybody can be an "exit" and bind OpenVPN to their darknet provided IPv6 and route it out to their internet as an exit service for people if they want.
  So stop using built in "exit" as a feature comparison, it's invalid.
8. Re:Can we please get the fuck off TOR by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 15:12 · Score: 0
  
  Tor was developed by spooks, for spooks.
  Open-source intelligence gathering divisions have a vested interest in keeping Tor healthy and safe.
9. Re:Can we please get the fuck off TOR by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 15:34 · Score: 0
  
  TOR doesn't even work in China, so exactly what is it useful for if not avoiding censorship and snooping? The world's most populous country with 1.3 billion people and heavily censored Internet, and TOR can't even be used. What's the point? Talk about a useless privacy network, it can't even get past the official censors.
10. Re:Can we please get the fuck off TOR by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-30 01:55 · Score: 0
  
  yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, HELL, YES. Tor was INVENTED by the government!
Can we please get the fuck off TOR by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 08:30 · Score: 0

1) There is nothing wrong with video chat. If you don't like it, don't use it.
2) What are "targeted advertising tabs" ??? I'm always running the most recent and have never seen or heard of such a thing.
3) Firefox has been accepting fat cheques from Google since it's foundation. It actually accepts LESS nowadays since Chrome has come into existence.
Still, by far, the best browser out there.
No astroturfing. Just disappointed users. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 11:18 · Score: 0

Do you have any actual evidence that this mysterious "someone" who is engaging in this alleged "astroturfing" actually exists?
I don't think there are any conspiracies here. The problems at hand are quite obvious: Mozilla repeatedly makes idiotic decisions that Firefox users hate, Mozilla refuses to listen to the Firefox users when they object to these bad decisions, and then Mozilla goes on to make more dumb decisions that Firefox users don't like.
Google, Apple, Microsoft and even Opera don't have to do a damn thing for people to be angry with what Mozilla has done. They don't have to pay anyone to "bash" Firefox. The legitimate Firefox users who have been screwed over by Mozilla time and time and time and time and time and time and time again are the ones angry with what's happening and are speaking out against it!
For example, I recently saw this screen shot posted by somebody else in some other discussion here about Firefox a few weeks ago. I've seen something similar happen with recent versions of Firefox on my Linux system. So when I hear people from Mozilla saying how Firefox's memory leaks have been fixed, or how its performance is improved, I remain very skeptical. My experience shows the opposite of what Mozilla and its supporters claim.
Of course, I know I'm not alone. All we need to do is look at Mozilla's own Firefox feedback results. Right now, 87% of the reports are "sad", while only a mere 13% are "happy". While not all users will be happy, obviously, that's a massive discrepancy between the number of happy users and the number of sad users.
Face it, Firefox users aren't happy with what Mozilla has done to Firefox over the past few years. Mozilla is fucking over a lot of Firefox users, and these users are vocally expressing their displeasure with Mozilla's stupidity. These people aren't being paid to express their displeasure. They're just really damn unhappy with how Mozilla has crapped all over them!
1. Re: No astroturfing. Just disappointed users. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 12:05 · Score: 0
  
  Nice opinion shill, how much do they cost?
Victory for Anonymity? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-29 21:55 · Score: 0

I wonder if anyone took the time to figure out which network those exit nodes will be sited before publishing the story.
After all, a snooped node is [almost] as good as an owned node, assuming its operator is not already in cahoots with the local spy agency...
link please by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-30 04:30 · Score: 0

so whats the onion of mozilla.com to download latest latest firfox?