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MIT Says Their Anonymity Network Is More Secure Than Tor (pcmag.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via PC Magazine: Following the recent vulnerabilities in Tor, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne have been working on a new anonymity network that they say is more secure than Tor. While the researchers are planning to present their new system, dubbed Riffle, at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium later this month, they did say the system uses existing cryptographic techniques, but in new ways. A series of servers are what make up Riffle, each of which "permutes the order in which it receives messages before passing them on to the next," according to a news release. "For instance, messages from senders Alice, Bob, and Carol reach the first server in the order A, B, C, that server would send them to the second server in a different order -- say C, B, A. The second server would permute them before sending them to the third, and so on." Nobody would know which was which by the time they exited the last server. Both Tor and MIT's anonymity network use onion encryption. Riffle uses a technique called verifiable shuffle in addition to onion encryption to thwart tampering and prevent adversaries from infiltrating servers with their own code. Last but not least, it uses authentication encryption to verify the authenticity of an encrypted message. The researchers say their system provides strong security while using bandwidth much more efficiently than similar solutions.

8 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Stop breaking the law by aliquis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you're not breaking the law

    The problem is that spreading ideas and information isn't legal.

  2. Latency must be bad... by mi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "For instance, messages from senders Alice, Bob, and Carol reach the first server in the order A, B, C, that server would send them to the second server in a different order -- say C, B, A."

    The communication latency must be even suckier than that of Tor then... Oh, well...

    Now, is it really a great new tool for privacy, or does it have inherent back doors and the announcements are to lure us away from Tor, which authorities have found too difficult to break? Will we even ever know?

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  3. Sorry, MIT... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...but after what you helped the U.S. government do to Aaron Swartz, i.e. drive him to the brink of suicide and then over the edge, I find any claims you make regarding your abilities to be suspect at the very least.

    Sad, really, that the name in education that has been synonymous with "hackers" for decades, now serves as one of their worst enemies. Much like CMU aiding the FBI in "discovering" the locations of hidden Tor services (http://www.teaparty.org/academics-accused-helping-fbi-unmask-anonymity-web-users-129406/), MIT and their graduates have shown their true colours...by bending over and taking it from the fascists in Quantico and Washington, by using their talents and their education to take freedom _away_ from the world rather than give. All for the same sort of fat government cheques they were getting in the 80's, making bold claims about how they could implement artificial intelligence sophisticated enough to power Reagan's insane "Star Wars" missile defense system. This in _spite_ of the fact that full debugging of such software would _require_ a world-ending, nuclear war to occur.

    Fuck MIT and their shitty software. Say what you want about traitors, most people accept that they aren't to be trusted.

  4. Re:Stop breaking the law by Locke2005 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Isn't illegal... yet. Trump cold still get elected in November, and anybody that can think rationally really pisses him off!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  5. Re: Stop breaking the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While I might dislike ISIL propaganda and the anarchists cookbook or Mein Kampf. I don't believe it should be illegal to distribute or read. To say otherwise is starting down the slippery slope of thought crime.

    I may not agree with what you say, but Ill defend to the death you're right to say it.
    - Kim Jong Il

  6. Re: Stop breaking the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If we're going to make ideas illegal to distribute I'd love to start with your idiotic ones.

  7. Re: Stop breaking the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hey faggot, how about we ban all religious texts while we're at it? Look at all the horror and death that's happened because of religion? Also ban all books on science and technology, since that knowledge can help people create weapons. Also all chemistry and biology books, since chemistry and biology can help you make things like bombs and poisons. Also all books about plants, since there are poisonous plants, and sticks from trees with good dense wood can be sharpened into weapons. And all books about geology, since rocks can be used as weapons. Cookbooks are right out, too, since you can make things with commonly found ingredients to make people sick. Any book on medical science is practically a sin, since it involves cutting into people (surgery), injecting things (drug use), and the icky, indecent innrer working of the human body -- only God should know those things! Scout manuals are next, since it's all about making weapons, setting things on fire, etc. No sewing books, either! Needles and scissors are sharp and can be used to KILL PEOPLE, so no clothes for you, either. Any book on self defense should be a jailable offense for obvious reasons. In fact let's remove people's hands and feet, since they're natural weapons. Like medical or biology books, any book talking about nasty, indecent SEX is outlawed -- as is sex itself, since it's just so icky and gross and SINFUL..

    Oh, what the hell, let's just outlaw the human race in general. Into the ovens with all seven billion of them! Then there won't be anyone around to possibly offend anyone else, commit any crimes, upset anyone, or otherwise stir up trouble. Problem solved! AC please report to the nearest people-disposal oven immediately, we wouldn't want you setting a bad example!

  8. Re: Stop breaking the law by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Spoken like a true cry-bully SJW who wants to dump the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments into the gutter.

    Go start your own fucking country, asshole. You obviously don't understand this one.