Well.. Tor can create trouble for you as well, or at least it did for me. I used to sometimes go through Tor to visit competitors' websites when I used my work computer, just because I didn't want to leave a trail of my company's domain in the competitor's logs. That was quite innocent I thought. Then my sysadmin informed me that the national security monitor (or whatever it was called), which my company was connected to, got an alarm on that. Turns out they had a trigger on Tor connections because they considered it as something used for malicious purposes. It's even triggered if a passive Tor application is running on a mobile device connected to the wifi guest network, b/c it may sometimes probe a node even if not in use. So, uninstall it is. If it's that easy to monitor that someone is using Tor I don't see how it can actually be used by anyone anywhere, where it matters (for something more important than what I used it for).
Yes Tor usage by default is trivial to detect because the list of Tor nodes your client connects to is public. The EFF has a nice interactive graphic that shows what different actors see if you use Tor [0] You can make that harder to detect by using a bridge. https://bridges.torproject.org/
That’s why we need to make it the default that people use Tor whenever they search for anything connected to health or politics — topics that others might want to discriminate against you on.
Women looking for abortions in the US just learned the hard way why this is an essential practice.
Yes. Various countries, including the US, mandate isps install equipment for easy wire tapping. Google "CALEA". There is a whole consultant industry supporting compliance with such laws.
Came here to post about this seconds after you did.
Not only CALEA, but telecoms, ISPs, and other providers work hand in hand with governments who request data, whether those requests are via NSLs, warrants, subpoenas, court orders or just government employees asking nicely for the data.
Many companies, including for example Apple who is open about this, are happy to hand over private information via simple requests from law enforcement that they are not legally bound to respond to like they are with warrants or subpoenas.
I'd assume by scratching law enforcement's back, the government scratches compliant companies' backs, as well, considering the contracts they get and favorable treatment they get from regulators.
Comments
Well.. Tor can create trouble for you as well, or at least it did for me. I used to sometimes go through Tor to visit competitors' websites when I used my work computer, just because I didn't want to leave a trail of my company's domain in the competitor's logs. That was quite innocent I thought. Then my sysadmin informed me that the national security monitor (or whatever it was called), which my company was connected to, got an alarm on that. Turns out they had a trigger on Tor connections because they considered it as something used for malicious purposes. It's even triggered if a passive Tor application is running on a mobile device connected to the wifi guest network, b/c it may sometimes probe a node even if not in use. So, uninstall it is. If it's that easy to monitor that someone is using Tor I don't see how it can actually be used by anyone anywhere, where it matters (for something more important than what I used it for).
Yes Tor usage by default is trivial to detect because the list of Tor nodes your client connects to is public. The EFF has a nice interactive graphic that shows what different actors see if you use Tor [0] You can make that harder to detect by using a bridge. https://bridges.torproject.org/
[0] https://www.eff.org/de/pages/tor-and-https
That’s why we need to make it the default that people use Tor whenever they search for anything connected to health or politics — topics that others might want to discriminate against you on.
Women looking for abortions in the US just learned the hard way why this is an essential practice.
Recommended watching: The NSA surveillance doesn’t scale — Constanze Kurz at Euro Python 2014: https://archive.org/details/EuroPython_2014_kSFzmDYc
What is this? Are governments mandating that corporations install government monitoring modules in their networks?
Yes. Various countries, including the US, mandate isps install equipment for easy wire tapping. Google "CALEA". There is a whole consultant industry supporting compliance with such laws.
Came here to post about this seconds after you did.
Not only CALEA, but telecoms, ISPs, and other providers work hand in hand with governments who request data, whether those requests are via NSLs, warrants, subpoenas, court orders or just government employees asking nicely for the data.
Many companies, including for example Apple who is open about this, are happy to hand over private information via simple requests from law enforcement that they are not legally bound to respond to like they are with warrants or subpoenas.
I'd assume by scratching law enforcement's back, the government scratches compliant companies' backs, as well, considering the contracts they get and favorable treatment they get from regulators.