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cmu

The Tor Project claimed last year that researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) were behind an assault on Tor that was used to unmask users. CMU released a vague statement that strongly implied that the FBU had indeed subpoenaed the university for its inquiry, and now we take confirmation. A court filing from one of the associated criminal cases explains how Carnegie's Software Technology Institute (SEI) helped the FBI track downwards some wanted Tor users.

In Nov of concluding twelvemonth, Tor managing director Roger Dingledine wrote a post explaining that a number of malicious nodes had been operating on Tor for most six months in early to mid 2014. He accused CMU of hacking Tor in collusion with the FBI. Dingledine said CMU was really paid $1 million to perform the hack, simply that has never been substantiated. What we practice know is that the work of SEI did indeed lead to at least one prosecution, that of Silk Road two.0 staff member Brian Farrell.

Farrell'southward lawyers filed a motion for discovery of evidence used to identify the defendant's IP accost. After being identified by law enforcement, Farrell was arrested and charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. The document explains that yes, CMU was subpoenaed for the information collected by SEI while it was running those Tor nodes to exam its hack. That method was fix to exist discussed at Black Hat in 2014, merely the talk was abruptly canceled after the subpoena was issued.

The filing too explains why the FBI believes the information nerveless by SEI can legally be used in court. Basically, collecting Farrell'south IP accost didn't violate the Quaternary Amendment considering Tor users have no reasonable expectation of privacy. That'south a assuming merits when Tor'due south entire reason for existence is to provide anonymous connections. According to the FBI'southward argument, Tor users accept to disclose their IP accost to the nodes in Tor in order to be routed to a destination. These nodes are supposed to be encrypted and used to bounciness packets around to conceal the source, but they are run by individuals unknown to the user. Therefore, the user is taking "a significant take chances."

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This is all based on documents that are part of the public record, but in that location are more than that are still sealed. Information technology's not clear what those might contain, but Farrell's lawyers have been trying to get details on the advice between SEI and the government, which funded the original research via a Department of Defense grant. The nature of any communication could brand the program seem more than like a paid hack and less like bookish research. If SEI's goal was simply to prove hacking Tor was feasible, why specifically monitor IP addresses accessing the vendor section of Silk Road? That sounds an awful lot like law enforcement activeness.

This is just the first case where nosotros know for sure Carnegie Mellon University is responsible for unmasking the defendant. A number of other Silk Road 2.0 figures and unrelated night Web users were swept up effectually the aforementioned time. CMU has refused to comment further on the situation, but information technology'south possible information technology is not legally able to discuss its office in what could be many ongoing cases.