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Tor Is Building the Next Generation Dark Net With Funding From DARPA

Posted by Soulskill on from the seek-and-go-hide dept.

Patrick O'Neill writes: After years of relative neglect, Tor has been able to dedicate increasing time and resources to its hidden services thanks to funding in part by DARPA, as well as an upcoming crowdfunding campaign. DARPA's funding lasts 1-3 years and covers several projects including security and usability upgrades that close the gap between hidden services and the everyday Internet. "Next-generation hidden services may be run from multiple hosts to better deal with denial of service attacks and high traffic in general, a potentially big power boost that further closes the gap between the Dark Net and normal websites. ... Hidden services, which make up about 4 percent of the entire Tor network, have until recently been relatively neglected when it comes to funding and developing."

14 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. So..... by clark0r · · Score: 2

    Services running from multiple hosts... load balancing? Wow, what an achievement.

    1. Re:So..... by NotInHere · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, This is pretty much press bloat. Improving hidden services has been a long time goal of them, read their blog. This is just a press release that they've got funding, and actually started working on that.

      There are multiple problems with hidden services, for example you can't delegate your domain, meaning that you can't keep a root key containing your master keys offline, and have a VPS or similar server (which you don't trust) run the onion page.

    2. Re:So..... by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      You can not hide anything on a fibre optic network, photons most definitely are not free. You can of course hides all sorts of stuff in other places, the electrical grid, fresh water supply pipework and digital radio transmissions and of course what ever is left over of the copper phone network. Anything that can conduct an electric signal can conduct all sorts of hidden stuff at varying frequencies.

      Most likely they want to keep on talking to the stuff they have managed to hide in networks all over the world, as well as criminally insert new stuff. The problem is they still feel they own the whole world and demand full spectrum dominance. In the end, it might be their cables that just end up being cut. Fuck with things enough and simply cutting the cable will be the solution everyone reaches for.

      Keep being dicks and the undersea cable will start having accidents all over the place.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  2. Trus but verify... not by Cornwallis · · Score: 5, Informative

    So, the gubmint agency that built the Internet... "owned" by the same gubmint that built NSA wants to build the new TOR to increase privacy?

    Sounds trustworthy to me.

    1. Re:Trus but verify... not by Xenna · · Score: 2

      P'haps they wanna fix it till it's broke...

    2. Re:Trus but verify... not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "The government" isn't one big entity. There are a lot of agencies in it and some have very conflicting goals. Even in the NSA itself some will be working on securing everything more so that their government is safe from spying while others will be working on breaking everything more, so that other governments can be spied on.

      And isn't this just really a grant? Its not like darpa controls the implementation, they just point out what they want to be worked on, no?

    3. Re:Trus but verify... not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A large chunk of DARPA do not like NSA.

      Hell, a large chunk of NSA don't like NSA either.

      Not everyone agrees with the shit they have been doing to (not) catch criminals.

    4. Re:Trus but verify... not by fulldecent · · Score: 4, Informative

      Speaking with experience on the receiving side of DARPA contract negotiations.

      DARPA projects are not like kickstarter (BYO vision and get money) or like NIH (have reputation and get money); rather they do require actual competency and demonstrated ability to win them. The projects are managed like real engineering projects, requiring lots of documentation up front, thorough project planning, and plenty of checkpoints. However, aside from this good accountability, they do not exert direction on the projects, prescribe technical solutions or gain direct contact to your engineers for day-to-day operations.

      --

      -- I was raised on the command line, bitch

    5. Re:Trus but verify... not by meta-monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The truly gifted insight of the Founding Fathers was that pretty much everybody who wants power is sociopath, so they split up the powers of government into different branches, offices, and institutions, all with checks and balances on each other. Essentially saying "maybe regular people can just get on with their lives while the sociopaths over here fight it out with the sociopaths over there." Even different parts of the DoD have different budgets and competing interests, so there's hope.

      That said, what I found truly, pants-crappingly heart-stoppingly terrifying about the Snowden revelations was the reactions of politicians in the aftermath, that they were all basically united. So far off script. If Obama announced he liked ice cream, I'd expect John Boehner to hold an immediate press conference about how evil secret muslim atheist communists like ice cream, and real Americans eat their apple pie no "a la mode" which sounds French, and therefore cowardly. But when that shit came out? No blaming Obama for "stealin' yer freedoms!" from the Repubs, and no "Nuh uh, huh uh Bush did it!" from the Dems. Just lockstep "Everything's fine here! Programs are all legal, and well over-seen! Bipartisan, too!"

      When Obama, and McCain, and Feinstein, and Cheney, all agree on something, be very, very afraid...
       

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    6. Re:Trus but verify... not by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 3

      The new Tor network, funded by the government, and with no back doors! Really, we promise!

      Tor has always been funded by the government. The part that built Tor wants a secure way to communicate with undercover government operatives and foreign dissidents. the government isn't homogenous with one goal it has competing faction with their own conflicting goals.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  3. Isn't the most likely hack by Cafe+Alpha · · Score: 2

    Not of the code but of the keys?

    If they have the private keys of the master keys then can play man in the middle and control the list of servers you see, and what keys you see for them too.

    Of course you'd only use that on an occasional target, not on a whole population.

    To target the whole population they would simply supply a majority of the server power to Tor. Then if you were unlucky enough to pick all compromised hops they've got you.

  4. Re:More criminality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Exactly right. The drug war and the 'think of the children' meme are two of the worst things about the US. We could stop a lot of harm if we abolished them both.

  5. Re:More criminality by Maritz · · Score: 2

    Don't worry, the jackbooted goose-stepping fascist future you yearn for is closer than ever. Keep the faith. And keep whinging about paedos and terrorists, it's working.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  6. Re:Your Government Inaction/In Action by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

    torrents != tor != Tor (Sci-fi book company) != Tor, regular in Ed Wood movies, along with Vampirella and Bela Lugosi

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.