Foreign Policy is just discovering Tor -- and I really don't think they're getting the story right, but then, one of the authors of this piece is John Hudson, who deliberately pranked John McCain in cahoots with a pro-Kremlin propaganda outlet to embarrass him politically -- as "journalism" -- so I don't expect more.
I've been debating the moral and political issues of Tor for five years.
My reply to Harris and Hudson:
I think there's some contradictions and omissions in this story.
First, there was the premise promulgated by Greenwald and company -- although never really proven with documents to the satisfaction of encryption experts -- that the NSA had essentially built back doors into all software by tampering with encryption standards. And that therefore the NSA could crack anything, seemingly.
Now you're claiming -- again only on Greenwald's say-so and only some documents from the NSA out of context -- that the NSA can't get at the Navy's monster-out-of-control, Tor.
Well, which is it, guys?
Sure, I realize that using browser exploits or sniffing packets isn't the same technical act as banging on code to crack it, but even so, you have to think of the philosophical contradictions in your premises here -- the NSA is all powerful, oh, wait, no, it's not, a band of script kiddies can defeat it.
Second, you're missing the work of the original Navy Tor developers themselves, which has increasingly shown the vulnerability of Tor as I explain -- now they are presenting a paper soon that shows 100% of users in one location can expect to lose their anonymity over three months. Not exactly the invincible crypto kids that Greenwald and co. want to celebrate:
http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2013/10/should-the-navy-appear-on-the-same-platform-with-wikileaks-jacob-appelbaum-in-berlin.html
Third, you don't seem to be willing to examine the greater philosophical problems surrounding the very premise of Tor -- which essentially involves the immorality of the military using human shields and turning a blind eye to criminals if they're "our bastards." And when you stay in the tank with the "progressive" NAF, you're not acknowledging a wider critical perspective.
The FBI defeated Tor handily despite everything you're writing here in the Irish child pornography ring bust and the Silk Road arrest -- and in the first they shut down half of the Tor nodes, several thousand, and in the second they seized still more plus Bitcoin accounts. In the first case, Jacob Appelbaum -- the controversial figure you don't address -- was blamed by the innocent Tor users for failing to manage the publication of exploits and the whole system, really, which is an ecosystem that isn't just software. He was too busy helping Snowden and running to Germany from where he won't return because he faces questioning by the WikiLeaks grand jury.
You're going to see a huge drop-off of Tor users -- and it already is not the preferred tool because of how slow and wonky it is, and because of the negative features of the open-source software cult surrounding it, with its Benevolent Dictators for Life and its harassment and heckling of Twitters with the unleashing of Anonymous attacks and spambots. There are other commercial software options more people use.
The policy isn't just what NAF says it is and not only they and the State Department Obama appointees should get to decide this in a democratic society. Tor isn't only about the free flow of information and ideas and the free Internet; it's about the war of the anarchist faction for absolute encryption and lack of accountability under the rule of law. Law-enforcement and its ability to access the highway for crime control is legitimate, too in a democratic society yet they do not concede this.
In my view, Tor is not a tool but a faction. It's a faction that led to WikiLeaks and Snowden, two of the most harmful assaults in our nation's history and certainly among the most serious
Accordingly, I think its funding should be suspended, Congressional hearings should be heard on all sides of the question by all government agencies involved and by members of the public not just the coterie in this political faction like EFF and NAF but other experts and critics.
The cost has been way, way too high for the handful of Iranian or Chinese dissidents who ostensibly benefited from this tool especially given that we have no solid reporting on whether it is their preferred tool or will remain so.
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