Dishonest Tor relay math question - tor-talk is to lazy

coderman coderman at protonmail.com
Fri Oct 15 10:03:49 PDT 2021


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‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Friday, October 15, 2021 12:09 AM,
 PrivacyArms <privacyarms at protonmail.com> wrote:

> To clarify my question: Is there an anonymous network (GPA)
> for secure/private messaging better than Tor?

privacy loves company, so the unpleasant answer to your question
is: no, there's nothing remotely as popular as Tor that is also
a GPA resistant mix network.

... remember when people ran mixminion? :P
[ https://github.com/mixminion/mixminion ]



> Regarding the other question: What can criminals can do
> to stay anonymous which is outside the law (hacking/stealing
> computers/wifi), more?

one time, a retired person noticed someone connected to their WiFi
that was not a client name nor MAC ID recognized.

curious, they broke out the directional antenna and packet sniffer
to find out the signal was coming from the next door neighbor.

odd! being retired, and knowing that they neighbor, they went next
door to ask if they were having network trouble, and how they managed
to leach the WPA passphrase?

alas, the neighbor was none the wiser! their computer was wired into
the router. yes, it had a WiFi card, but Ethernet was easier. the
 neighbor not so technically savvy after all.

the retired one taks a look at the desktop. behold! a trojan process.
the retired one worked in tech, and knew how to use a disassembler.
but it wasn't even that hard - it was a compiled script, and the source
was sitting in memory.

- ---

next the retired person geolocated the command and control host.
it was in europe, another country away, but our retired friend also
has friends in many countries. time for a visit!

arriving on a flight to brussels, a travel agency office was observed
at the C&C end. they lease a dedicated line for internet, it was
setup a decade ago by the owner's son. they don't know how it works,
but it costs 160 euros a month.

"mind if i take a look at your router?" the retired one asks?

 ' sure thing.'

a static forward is provisioned between the public port and a private
internal address. checking the DHCP/IP assignments (there is a static
one assigned to a mystery client) the retired one finds a client
associated over wireless, another hop: this one a coffee shop across
the street.

- ---

in the cofeee shop our retired one followed the signal analyzer to
its natural conclusion : a USB powered SoC under a table with an
antenna in the direction from whence just travelled!

but where does it go? a dual radio SoC, not unsimilar to a pineapple,
the local side was leeching coffee house WiFi for upstream.

*sigh* time to tear apart the sdcard ...

 [ break for refreshments ]

"damnit! a wireguard tunnel to a bullet proof hosting server!"

our retired person is again compelled to travel. this time a friend
of a friend who runs the hosting service for bitcoin and monero.

sheer luck we happened to have a contact!  calling in a favor,
our retired adventurer found the customer. there is no contact or
registrar info, of course. but this IP address looked familiar!

- ---

back at the coffee shop, with a new MAC ID to hunt for,
a woman in the rear corner of the store sticks out as signal source.


"excuse me, are you a hacker?", our retired friend asks.

   'yes.. i saw you looking for something. i thought it might be me',
    she says with a sly smile.

   'how did you find me?'


[ our retired subject explains the process of recusion ...
  after many minutes, reaching the terminus in this tale. ]


    'ah, that explain it.' she says satisfied.
    'my threat model was law enforcement, not batshit crazy!'


THE END.
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