Attackers wield Firefox exploit to uncloak anonymous Tor users (ars technica)

Posted Aug 6, 2013 19:01 UTC (Tue) by job (guest, #670)
In reply to: Attackers wield Firefox exploit to uncloak anonymous Tor users (ars technica) by brouhaha
Parent article: Attackers wield Firefox exploit to uncloak anonymous Tor users (ars technica)

How can you tell? I wouldn't expect the NSA to front their own network when running clandestine black hat operations on the public Internet. Not surprisingly is this IP address part of a big netblock of unnamed commercial customers of a large Tier 1. So how does one know?

Attackers wield Firefox exploit to uncloak anonymous Tor users (ars technica)

Posted Aug 6, 2013 21:16 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (2 responses)

The NSA folks aren't fools. I think that this attack was designed to be discovered, along with the NSA address, because it would have been so easy to use a machine anywhere on the net, or more than one, to receive the unique IDs. I can think of two possibilities: to scare people away from Tor, or to make it appear as if the NSA is the culprit.

Attackers wield Firefox exploit to uncloak anonymous Tor users (ars technica)

Posted Aug 6, 2013 22:03 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

> The NSA folks aren't fools.

These folks aren't super-human either and secrecy hides much incompetence, sure they _could_ have done what you say but isn't it more likely that the person who set this up just didn't think about it or didn't personally have access to budget for new resources to hide this.

Attackers wield Firefox exploit to uncloak anonymous Tor users (ars technica)

Posted Aug 6, 2013 23:02 UTC (Tue) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

Then tell me how it was discovered. Because I do not see it.

Yes, because of the comparably restricted payload and the nature of the websites it is likely it there is some law agency behind it, probably North American. There leaves us with a handful, plus whatever private contractors that offer these services.