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Most people don't realize that if the US government and its allies wanted to end #Tor they could coordinate to do so very easily. Tor operates it's routing logic of circuits through a centralized mechanism of 9 directory servers. These servers dictate which nodes are allowed on the network. The 9 servers are all within 14+ eyes countries (none are in a BRICS-affiliated country, I wonder why?), and who have all coordinated with each other in the past on drug busts and recently Tornado Cash and Samourai wallet devs. Once the 9 directory servers are shutdown the Tor network would begin to crumble. Seems like a very odd killswitch that not many are aware about as to just how centralized Tor is in reality.
Luxas's avatar Luxas
When you use a run-of-the-mill VPN with "military grade" encryption. NSA:
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You'll be hard pressed to find literally anything that's not under some kind of surveillance or intelligence sharing agreement like the 14 eyes or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. When you consider that, the fact the servers are operated by some good people, and understand the role of the directory servers then it's not a huge deal. moria1: MIT tor26: Karsten Loesing gabelmoo: Leibniz Universität Hannover dizum: Peter Palfrader tonga: The Tor Project dannenberg: The Tor Project maatuska: CCC (Chaos Computer Club) faravahar: Amini Ghafoor bastet: Nicholas Merrill, The Calyx Institute Instead, you should consider the other problems with Tor. It's susceptible to a variety of attacks. Client Attacks: Induced Tor Guard Selection: Manipulating a user's selection of Tor guards to increase the chances of using compromised nodes. Low-resource Routing: Forcing traffic through low-bandwidth nodes to facilitate timing analysis. P2P Information Leakage: Exploiting peer-to-peer applications to reveal a user's real IP address. Plug-in Based Attacks: Using browser plugins to bypass Tor protections and expose user identity. Raptor Attacks: Analyzing traffic patterns to identify hidden services. Torben Attacks: Monitoring and manipulating guard relay selection to deanonymize users. Unpopular Ports Exploitation: Targeting less common ports to track specific traffic. Server Attacks: Caronte Attacks: Using false circuit-level information to intercept and manipulate Tor traffic. Cell Counting and Padding: Analyzing the size and timing of Tor cells to deduce user activity. Off-path MitM Attacks: Intercepting communication between Tor nodes without being directly in the path. Tor Cells Manipulation: Injecting or modifying cells within the Tor network to track users. Network Attacks: Denial of Service: Disrupting Tor nodes or the network to degrade service. Malicious Relays: Operating Tor nodes with the intent to spy on traffic. Sniper Attacks: Overloading specific relays to take them offline. Tor Bridge Discovery: Finding and blocking Tor bridges to prevent bypassing censorship. Traffic Analysis: Examining patterns and volume of traffic to infer user activities. Timing Attacks: Correlating the timing of traffic entering and exiting the Tor network to track users. Website Oracles: Website Oracles: Using various public infrastructure and data points to infer the websites visited by Tor users.