Positioned alongside a stationary platform, under simulated sea conditions, the USV Sea Fox receives fuel from a robotic fluids transfer arm via magnetic refueling fitting. Photo by Naval Research Lab. The NRL also researches circumvention on the Internet because it is a series of tubes.
So what's up with the Navy and Tor, the controversial circumvention tool made by a coders' collective where Jacob Appelbaum, a core member, is under investigation by a grand jury in connection with WikiLeaks? I've been writing about it here and started a debate about it on Stanford University's Liberationtech list.
I've constantly heard over the years so many times that Tor was invented and used by the Navy and then given over to the private sector to develop further -- because they basically needed more bodies (cannon fodder?) to spread around all the activity so that online, the exiting from the secret organizations wouldn't be visible. The principle of these capers involves having more users rather than less -- Anonymity loves company" is the concept. There was this "altruism" implied -- "either secrecy for everybody, or secrecy for nobody". I had to wonder about that...
Time and again in arguments, I've seen this military origin of Tor become a kind of implied blessing, and a deflection of criticism, and an implication that "nothing could possibly be wrong with this outfit because they even originated in the military!".
Of course, people can take up different attitudes to this fact of military origin and possible continued informal involvement. Some anti-American types, especially suspicious conspiracy types abroad, might find any connection to the US military to be tainted. I wouldn't say that because I don't see the US as evil or authoritarian, and I believe it is a legitimate democratic state. I don't see some inherent evil in the US armed forces, although I am critical like many people of the wars abroad.
Others might find, even so, that connection of a civic movement to anything related to military security/secrecy would just not be a good idea, especially if you plan things like anti-war protests. I would tend to agree. The commingling of military/civic in this project raises questions for me.
Still others might find it appalling that anyone promoting WikiLeaks and stumping for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, as Jacob Appelbaum has been doing, would have any endorsement from our nation's military forces, past or present. It makes no sense. And I raise questions about this because *I just don't understand it*. It's...perplexing. And I can't believe that it's moral.
So what *does* the Navy really have to do with Tor *now*? Do they still use it themselves? Why would they use an open-source hacky thing anyway? Don't they have their own better stuff by now? Are they golf-clapping Jake because they have enemies in the army or State Department? Is there war not only in cyberspace but in the branches of government?
I saw a reference on Cryptome to the three original developers as all being in the Navy last year -- a year ago -- with the nrl.navy.mil emails (note: the message is posted a year ago, and I've seen references to these three here and there, but I don't know if the dates of the messages is the same as the dates when they were still in the Navy):
Creators of TOR:
David M. Goldschlag <goldschlag[at]itd.nrl.navy.mil>
Michael G. Reed <reed[at]itd.nrl.navy.mil>
Paul F. Syverson <syverson[at]itd.nrl.navy.mil>
Naval Research Laboratory
So I decided to write to all of them to see if I could get any comments on Tor, WikiLeaks, and Appelbaum.
Two out of the three emails bounced.
The emails of Goldschlag and Reed now bounce from nrl.navy.mil. I confirmed that Reed is no longer with the NRL.
Syverson's e-mail goes through, he is still there, and he responded to me, but basically told me to take my inquiries to the public affairs office because he had no comment and couldn't comment on the Navy's work or his own work.
I dug up Reed's personal email and reached him, and he replied basically "no comment" as well, that he was no longer working on the project.
I couldn't locate Goldschlag. Anybody?
Founder Roger Dingeldine's paper explains more.
This is the question asked at Cryptome (and there's another interesting summary of this and discussion here):
On 03/22/2011 12:08 PM, Watson Ladd wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Joe Btfsplk<joebtfsplk[at]gmx.com> wrote:
>> Why would any govt create something their enemies can easily use against
them, then continue funding it once they know it helps the enemy, if a govt has absolutely no control over it? It's that simple. It would seem a very bad idea. Stop looking at it from a conspiracy standpoint& consider it as a common sense question. Because it helps the government as well. An anonymity network that only the US government uses is fairly useless. One that everyone uses is much more useful, and if your enemies use it as well that's very good, because then they can't cut off access without undoing their own work.
So Michael Reed answers:
BINGO, we have a winner! The original *QUESTION* posed that led to the invention of Onion Routing was, "Can we build a system that allows for bi-directional communications over the Internet where the source and destination cannot be determined by a mid-point?" The *PURPOSE* was for DoD / Intelligence usage (open source intelligence gathering, covering of forward deployed assets, whatever). Not helping dissidents in repressive countries. Not assisting criminals in covering their electronic tracks. Not helping bit-torrent users avoid MPAA/RIAA prosecution. Not giving a 10 year old a way to bypass an anti-porn filter. Of course, we knew those would be other unavoidable uses for the technology, but that was immaterial to the problem at hand we were trying to solve (and if those uses were going to give us more cover traffic to better hide what we wanted to use the network for, all the better...I once told a flag officer that much to his chagrin). I should know, I was the recipient of that question from David, and Paul was brought into the mix a few days later after I had sketched out a basic (flawed) design for the original Onion Routing.
The short answer to your question of "Why would the government do this?" is because it is in the best interests of some parts of the government to have this capability... Now enough of the conspiracy theories...
Well, yeah, I get all that "too clever by half" stuff. And I have to say I have a tad more concern than these seemingly ethics-free coders do about drugs, children, etc. But I want to ask this question a little more precisely. Why would a government continue to use, develop, and promote a product that had been used against that government in WikiLeaks? (Tor was used to move WikiLeaks, correct?)
More to the point, why would the armed forces of a government continue to tacitly or actively support a project where a "core member" was under investigation for his relationship to a case involving WikiLeaks and the theft and publication of classified documents?
I mean, this is really basic stuff here. This isn't "trolling" or "slander" or "bullying" as all the cadres at libtech retort to me. It's just normal, open-society type questioning.
I know for a fact that there are sympathizers to Bradley Manning's *plight* in the State Department, and belief that he is mistreated by some. They don't seem to readily share the sentiment expressed to me by a former JAG lawyer: "Manning is right where he needs to be." There's a lot of...muddle... on this in some quarters.
Yes, there should be good treatment of Manning. Yes, Juan Mendez, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, should immediately be allowed to see him, without guards present, under the usual UN conditions. But his arrest was lawful because he is charged with what are indeed unlawful acts, and the judges continue to be unmoved by arguments of the defense.
But let's not confuse any issues of his treatment or the failure to let in a UN monitor with exonerating the act of vandalizing the army's computers and then stealing classified documents to harm the United States and its sources.
Once again, I'll remind you that I am not a technologist, and have no relationship to Tor, Ultrasurf or any other circumvention device or project or outfit. I'm a blogger asking questions. In doing so, I'll make mistakes and I'll not understand anything. It doesn't matter. I'm relevant to the issue of the day. I have a right to know along with the rest of the public.
And I have to say I am hugely troubled and saddened at contemplating all the moral dimensions of this ethics-free hacking here. The DOD was happy to unleash drug sales, revolutions in repressive countries with dubious outcomes, piracy, and exposure of children to porn (or worse, feeding exploitation of children in porn) all for the sake of providing cover to do intelligence work under that? Again:
The *PURPOSE* was for DoD / Intelligence usage (open source intelligence gathering, covering of forward deployed assets, whatever). Not helping dissidents in repressive countries. Not assisting criminals in covering their electronic tracks. Not helping bit-torrent users avoid MPAA/RIAA prosecution. Not giving a 10 year old a way to bypass an anti-porn filter. Of course, we knew those would be other unavoidable uses for the technology, but that was immaterial to the problem at hand we were trying to solve (and if those uses were going to give us more cover traffic to better hide what we wanted to use the network for, all the better...I once told a flag officer that much to his chagrin.
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