Tor network vulnerable to NSA spying

[Half Monk 697]

Do you use the Tor network? If you're not familiar with the project, it's "free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis." In short, end users setup nodes and then Internet traffic goes through these encrypted nodes, making it difficult for people to eavesdrop on what you're doing.

 

 

In the wake of the NSA spying program, it appears that the network may not be as private as we thought. Robert Graham, a security researcher, has concluded that three quarters of all Tor nodes use only 1024-bit Diffie-Hellman keys, and it's generally agreed upon that the NSA can crack these keys in hours using dedicated

 

hardware. The latest release candidate for Tor, version 2.4, switches from the standard Diffie-Hellman key exchange to ECDHE, which are Elliptical-Curve Diffie-Hellman keys, which may greatly increase the privacy of the Tor network. Unfortunately, this version is not yet finalized and may not be as stable as the current release.

Of course there's no guarantee that the NSA hasn't already found an easy way to crack ECDHE, but considering it's not currently as common as other encryption techniques, for now there's a greater chance that it's more secure.

 

[Saran999 288]

As I'm always saying, real security it's to cut the NW cable. But, even if gov orgs like NSA may crack TOR, it's still far more secure, and difficult to track, than a single VPN. In fact, what's the article fail to mention it's the fact that, to achieve the prospected cracking, NSA must search and track a defined peer. So, unless we are already in their radar, TOR remain a good privacy, that's not security, option IMHO. Good article HM, many thanks!

[Tech 425 3,942]

I will have an update about the dang NSA soon.

 

Right now i'm in Spain hehehe not really - oh dang I wish I was in Spain