Jacob Appelbaum is probably getting more news coverage than he has ever gotten in his lifetime right now -- and a lot of it is because most journalists aren't playing his video-taped speech at the aptly-named 30th Chaos Computer Club Convention all the way through -- to hear the really loony bits about how the NSA now is able to zap enemies like Hugo Chavez with bursts of energy. I'll return to his speech in another post, but for now while I have it in front of me, I want to talk again about just how criminalized Tor is in its mentality, because it's important to understanding the entire saga of Manning, Assange, Snowden, etc.
At least some people get this! I came across a good comment on yet another breathless tech piece about Appelbaum's "revelations" from someone nicknamed "Secular Investor" which I'll reproduce in full here:
I never cease to be amazed how people are taken in and get so hot under the collar at this hypocritical, anti-NSA, anti-US propaganda from a group anarchist, left wing, anti-capitast, paranoid, malcontent, criminals and traitors like Assange, Snowden and Applebaum.
Applebaum a criminal? Yes, he is a self confessed anarchist and hacker, with a record as long as your arm. In my book private hackers are criminals because they are breaking and entering into private property. Those like Assange and Snowden who aid and abet terrorists and criminals and the US’s enemies, should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Like many I regard them as traitors. Theft of sensitive security information and anti-hacking legislation by private individuals and members of organisations like the anarchist “Anonymous" and “Cult Of The Dead Cow" sects, needs to be considerably tightened up.
According to Wikipedia Applebaum "gave a talk with Ralf-Philipp Weinmann titled Unlocking FileVault: An Analysis of Apple's Encrypted Disk Storage System.[14][15] The duo subsequently released the VileFault free software program which broke Apple's FileVault security.” This may explain why he singled out Apple for criticism? Did Apple try to prosecute him?
These anarchists masquerade as being publicly spirited and concerned for loss of privacy, which strikes a cord with many journalists who bridle at the thought that anybody can compromise their sources.
However, their actions clearly indicate that, in fact, they are hypocrites with far more sinister motives.
* Firstly: their attacks are aimed almost exclusively at NSA, and by extension Congress and the US government. They conveniently ignore the fact that EVERY security service in world are doing the same thing! Even if they were successful in their aim of castrating US internet security efforts ALMOST ALL other security services would CONTINUE USING and developing the same sort of security methods. That would leave the US extremely vulnerable handing a a huge advantage would be handed over to many foreign governments who are human rights monsters and wish no good for the US and their allies.
* Secondly, the anarchists conveniently overlook that numerous private companies, as well as their kindred private hackers, who are intruding and harvesting huge amounts of private and confidential information, both from private individuals and companies. Google’s almost entire business model depends on their ability to data mine and place adverts according to user data. Google give away Android for free and it beggars belief that they do not delve into every nook and cranny of every Android device to collect private and confidential information. (this may explain why the Chinese government has actively encouraged Chinese OEMs to use forked versions of Android which lock out Google). Time and again Google has proved that they do not respect other peoples privacy. They even hacked into Safari and Explorer to overcome privacy settings to steal private internet usage data. They also sent fleets of camera equipped vehicles around the globe, which harvested private data from any wi-fi signal that they could. But Google is not alone. Many other companies are highly motivated to collect private and confidential information, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, and others.
Ironically Apple is the one company which has a track record of trying to protect user’s information and preventing Apps from harvesting private information without informed consent of iOS users. Yet they were singled out by Applebaum….LOL
* Thirdly it is no confidence that these anarchist con artists, while claiming that they are fighting for liberty and individual rights, seek sanctuary from states with appalling records of civil rights abuse and suppressions of oppositions.
The sad fact is that we live in the Big Brother 1984 world which was forecast by George Orwell (wasn’t the internet invented around that time?). There was a huge debate in the UK about CCTV cameras, which had by far the highest density in the world. The BBC and Guardian and liberal left were up in arms about the threat to privacy. However the public overwhelmingly supported CCTV because it had a proven effect of reducing crime and terrorism, resulting increasing rates of successful investigation and prosecutions.
It is likely that the furore kicked up about NSA’s internet surveillance will not strike a cord with the public, who will see the loss of privacy to intelligence services as a worthwhile price for greater security from terrorism and the prosecution of criminal gangs. There may be a need for better independent judicial oversight, but few can argue that US security services have a remarkable success record of snuffing out terrorist attempts.
Personally, I welcome the added sense of security from actions of terrorists. I am far more concerned by the massive invasion and loss of privacy by Google and their ilk.
Indeed.
So to follow up -- here's a Twit debate I had with Runa Sandvik, one of Tor's most aggressive developers, who tweeted this gem:
The arrested Silk Road mods all sent Ross Ulbricht, alleged Silk Road admin, daily and/or weekly status reports. Bet it was all unencrypted.
— Runa A. Sandvik (@runasand) December 20, 2013
See, the Silk Road kingpin was taken down when the FBI caught him at the public library with the administrator pages open. The feds claimed to find a big social media trail where they could tie together his various pseudonyms, so now Sandvik picked out the fact that likely he didn't follow "good hygiene" when using her product, Tor, which is why he got caught.
You know, user tips from the dev.
Naturally, she is busy defending Tor even when the feds raid it because it is such a nest of illegal activity -- with huge child pornography and drug busts recently -- but more to the point, you get a window into how she thinks -- concern about tradecraft (she instantly recognizes Dulles' classic when someone else recommends it to her) is more important than morals or the law.
So I challenged her -- because I think it's creepy that people are using US tax dollars still paid out by the Department of Defense and the State Department to take such a disinterested attitude toward crime and such a professional disinterested interest in encryption, regardless of the content.
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@runasand@BlogsofWar so I take it you were for encrypting illegal drug sales to keep out law enforcement? -
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@runasand@BlogsofWar of course you did. What's the plan for law enforcement access? Like Lavabits? -
@catfitz@BlogsofWar I pointed out operational security related mistakes, that does not mean I approve of what they have done. -
@runasand why are you so worried about the operational security mistakes of drug dealers? What's the plan for law enforcement access then? -
@runasand what is most creepy is that you think technology exists in a pure realm unalloyed w human action and is always exonerated then -
@runasand@BlogsofWar we are to worry about crypto for drug dealers just in a pure mathematical sort if way right? -
@catfitz I think you are reading far too much into my previous tweets. I never said I was worried, nor do I attempt to defend these guys.
Runa A. Sandvik 
CatherineFitzpatrick Well, sure, one could be "reading too much" into Sandvik's casual criminal-mindedness -- but I hardly think so. Just read her TL, filled with anti-American, anti-NSA crap although she just got her permit to work in the United States at the US-government-funded Tor (parole card), and has applied for permanent resident (a green card). She even purports to find something creepy in the "prison-like" word "parole," heedless of the fact that this is the term that has been used for decades, and comes from the French word. Oh, well.
My US employment authorization and advance parole card just arrived in the mail. Yay!
— Runa A. Sandvik (@runasand) December 26, 2013
Now that she's got her papers in order, @runasand is busy trying to FOIA the NSA, and asking for donations to help:
Please match my $35 donation to help Project SpyLighter obtain contracts between the NSA and Glimmerglass Networks: https://t.co/ltzk0qmQmv
— Runa A. Sandvik (@runasand) January 2, 2014
It's not just that Runa -- like all her anti-government colleagues at Tor -- is viciously anti-US and wants to take down the NSA -- that's allowed foreign visitors because this is an open society. What can you do? People bite the hand that feeds them.
But this is worse -- she refuses to take any responsibility for Tor users whatsoever -- and refuses to monitor them in any fashion, so as to prevent this community from being a cesspool. Here's a typical response:
@DonnchaC @a_greenberg @EileenOrmsby You mean keeping a log of hidden services requested by #Tor users? No thanks.
— Runa A. Sandvik (@runasand) November 15, 2013
Except, why not? You are government-funded, but you won't cooperate with the government in taking down child pornography and drug selling sites maintained with the use of your software? Really, guys? Why? You are superior beings? The FBI has to hack and crack to get at these criminals without your help in any fashion -- and you even tweet hygiene tips to other would-be felons? She didn't answer my question about how to cooperate with law-enforcement on legitimate cases -- and of course she's going to find few legitimate.
Of course Runa is feted by Forbes, which for some reason, apparently out of extreme libertarianism (one hopes it isn't out of extreme technocommunism, but there is small difference these days), loves to publish her:
@paulxharris My two most popular @Forbes stories involve #Tor and surveillance technology used by the NSA.
— Runa A. Sandvik (@runasand) December 20, 2013
If it were just this one tweet, perhaps one could blame *me* for "reading too much". But read the whole interchange with everybody here. Runa goes on to point out that Dread Pirate Roberts made another OPSEC mistake by bringing his old team on. "Hard to build a solid, trusted team without hiring anyone already involved in the operation," she points out, like an, um, hard-nosed CEO. Which of course, she isn't, she's just a young woman who codes obsessively and has learned a lot of Internet lore. "Wonder if they did that because they know the person or because they just wanted to be paid," she further speculates -- like she's a biz dev expert who needs to offer tips for Silk Road's successful business because they use her software. But remember, this is about a billion-dollar illegal drug operation whose managers ordered assassinations to be paid in BitCoins -- which aren't legal, and which she touts as a way of donating to Tor, as well.
Why is our government funding this operation?
Runa of course is busy defending Jeremy Hammond, and peddling the story that ostensibly the FBI sicced him on foreign websites, a claim she bruits about on Twitter with other anarchist operatives, Griffin Boyce and Asher Wolf.
If it were just Jake, or just Runa, perhaps one might conclude that "not all" Tor was like this. But of course it is (and I go back years and years following the criminal-mindedness of Tor, long before Manning and Snowden surfaced.) Take the spoutings of another Tor developer named Andrea Shepard with whom I locked horns recently on Twitter.
Greenwald was being assailed by people even harder to the left than he is -- or wherever he is on the spectrum -- and he replied as follow -- that was his way of implying that Tor has approval from the USG:
@puellavulnerata @RancidSassy @barryeisler Maybe you've heard that the Tor Project receives funding from the US Govt?
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 29, 2013
Andrea was mad that funding from the USG means that Tor has to work on things of priority for the State Department, like circumvention tools for Iranian or Chinese dissidents. That bores and annoys her, however, so she bitches:
@BorzoiBystander @0xdeadbabe @ggreenwald @RancidSassy @barryeisler The grants come with contracts and deliverables, that all focus on...
— Andrea (@puellavulnerata) December 29, 2013
@BorzoiBystander @0xdeadbabe @ggreenwald @RancidSassy @barryeisler So we end up spending dev cycles on performance tweaks...
— Andrea (@puellavulnerata) December 29, 2013
@BorzoiBystander @0xdeadbabe @ggreenwald @RancidSassy @barryeisler ...while stuff that is IMO more important like next-gen hidden services..
— Andrea (@puellavulnerata) December 29, 2013
@BorzoiBystander @0xdeadbabe @ggreenwald @RancidSassy @barryeisler ...gets less priority.
— Andrea (@puellavulnerata) December 29, 2013
See, she'd rather being staging a crypto revolution in America with "next-gen hidden services," not fighting real tyrannies by making her crappy software even work better for what is supposed to be its main purpose.
I really hate that attitude, which is why I tweeted:
@puellavulnerata @BorzoiBystander @0xdeadbabe @ggreenwald @RancidSassy @barryeisler This is in fact why Congress should investigate you.
— CatherineFitzpatrick (@catfitz) December 30, 2013
@catfitz @BorzoiBystander @0xdeadbabe @ggreenwald @RancidSassy @barryeisler Congress should go die in a fire.
— Andrea (@puellavulnerata) December 30, 2013
Ok, then, I shouldn't have to keep explaining what we're dealing with here. Hard-core criminal-minded hate. Why are our tax dollars going to support this?
BTW, note that despite all the talk about how there are only male coders and Silicon Valley doesn't allow women into the code cave, there's a good example of two female coders -- and there many more. Perhaps they aren't the top earners, but if you had any illusions that bringing more women into coding might make it a kinder, gentler, metaverse, you'd be deeply mistaken, as these two indicate.
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