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Former Tor Developer Created Malware To Hack Tor Users For The FBI (dailydot.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the insider-information dept.

Patrick O'Neill writes: Matt Edman is a cybersecurity expert who worked as a part-time employee at Tor Project, the nonprofit that builds Tor software and maintains the network, almost a decade ago. Since then, he's developed potent malware used by law enforcement to unmask Tor users. It's been wielded in multiple investigations by federal law-enforcement and U.S. intelligence agencies in several high-profile cases. The Tor Project has confirmed this report in a statement after being contacted by the Daily Dot, "It has come to out attention that Matt Edman, who worked with the Tor Project until 2009, subsequently was employed by a defense contractor working for the FBI to develop anti-Tor malware." Maybe Tor users will now be less likely to anonymously check Facebook each month...

4 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Despicable traitor by ptaff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Acting for your own paycheck instead of thinking about what's best for humanity, Matt? You're a despicable little traitor, Matt. Let's hope you like the surveillance society you contributed to, Matt, and I hope you already know you'll be stalked by the FBI for the rest of your life, Matt.

    1. Re:Despicable traitor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Technically, any security software should be made with the assumption, and hardened or designed against, any of it's developers working for another team. Nothing security wise can make assumptions based off human social standing.

  2. We are all bounty hunters now by bretts · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Whoever pays the highest rate wins our (temporary) loyalty. Welcome to society where no one agrees on a set of values.

  3. Re: Oh please by meerling · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And you're just the type of person they want to hire. Someone who believes that the ends justifies the means, just like Stalin, and Hitler, and Mao, and Pol Pot, and so many others... Sure, they were a bit more violent, but they didn't start off with murdering people they don't like in the dark, they started off by convincing people that the ends justified the means.