DEFCONConference
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2015–2024
50:59 · 219K views · Dec 30, 2014
Adrian Crenshaw's DEF CON 22 talk gives an overview of Tor and I2P, then goes through real cases where darknet users were caught. These include Silk Road and its operator.
HN points to it to show that most Tor busts came from poor operational security by the user rather than a flaw in Tor itself.
6 comments from Hacker News
Not sure why I can't edit my original comment, but whatever. Here is the presentation Adrian Crenshaw gave at DefCon 22 called "Dropping Docs on Darknets: How People Got Caught" Great presentation: this video
Most cases are closed on circumstantial evidence. Weird to see the same podcast that hosts freeross information as also hosting bitcoin podcasts. Adrian Crenshaw the security researcher has a good defcon talk on how ross went down for SR. Don't post your tech problems for an illegal service on stackoverflow! this video
In case anyone feels like doing something like that, this talk is worth a listen: this video A talk on how Tor users got caught. In a nutshell: it wasn't Tor's fault, but bad OPSEC on the part of the users.
"VPNs opened" was poor wording. Clarifications provided by the guys below seem to match what I remember from listening to talks on Tor by the project's developers. Operational security and Tor is such an interesting and frankly, quite scary subject. I've mainly used and instructed people on Tor for read-only uses of the web. For my own needs, masking the origin of an actively participating persona is out of scope. I generally warn people about doing anything that requires sign-on/nicknames etc without very careful research. I recognize that my lack of a need for serious anonymity for basic political activism etc is a huge privilege. So I try to give back by running a bunch of Tor middle relay myself. For serious anonymity, I'd really be strict about using a forensically clean Tails USB boot environment, on varying public Wi-FI hotspots with a dedicated laptop that never has touched my regular network. The laptop must not ever be powered on near my house. Lots of systems, like Cisco Meraki business Wi-Fi APs take note of all nearby Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices for 'location analytics'. Javascript and stuff must be disabled of course. Carrying any cell phone, burner or otherwise is out of the question. The reasons are many, but for starters, you don't want to be identifiable as the only person at your location making Tor connections, if you're doing something important. Here are some good points on the subject. this video My approach for promoting Tor to regular people around me is
I remember Adrian Crenshaw doing a speech at Def Con 22 about how people got busted using Tor. Even then he point out in most of the cases, it was bad OpsSec by the person, and had nothing to do with Tor. How applicable do people think this information is now 9-10 years later? DEF CON 22 - Adrian Crenshaw- Dropping Docs on Darknets: How People Got Caught this video