So Anonymous:<p>- Downloaded a bunch of child porn.<p>- Released a useless list of psudonyms extracted from the forum's DB.<p>- Claim to have used a timing attack against Tor to find the physical location of the machine hosting the CP, without providing any details. Tor <i>is</i> vulnerable to timing attacks but I don't think any are trivial enough for any "Anonymous members" to handle.<p>- Also, if they had the level of access to Freedom Hosting's server which they claim to, they should have reverse-connected across the non-Tor Internet and located the machine (and presumably the machine's hosting provider and datacenter) that way. Given the amateur-looking setup illustrated in the Anonymous press-releases, I highly doubt the Freedom Hosting machine was firewalled from connecting back across the normal Internet.<p>- Then Anonymous removed the machine from service so it can't possibly be located by real law enforcement and the real owners can't be found.<p>It sounds like this is a net loss in any kind of real battle against CP - I'm all for removing obvious distribution points for CP when they're found, but doing so in this manner makes it much harder to track down and prosecute the actual producers and consumers of child porn.<p>Also, the linked article is poorly researched and written - The Examiner doesn't report anything; it's a pay-per-pageview CMS that anyone can write for, with limited-to-no editorial oversight. The original author should be cited instead.
For anyone who hasn't used Tor before, I'm going to clarify some of the inaccuracies/FUD in the article.<p>- A darknet did not 'grow out' of the Tor software. The ability for anyone to host websites on their computer anonymously is a standard feature of the Tor network.<p>- Tor is not strictly a set of browser plugins. Tor is routing software that routes over TCP/IP. Any program can use it assuming they have set the proxy settings on their computer/program correctly. There is a plugin for Firefox, but the functionality of that is limited to one-click setup of the correct settings, and changing some default Firefox settings to increase anonymity and security.<p>- The site the article mentioned called 'Hard Candy' is a standard wiki page hosted on the Hidden Wiki. The purpose of the Hidden Wiki is to be a huge directory of all the sites on the Tor network, as search bots are impractical. As distasteful as it is, it would be impossible to enforce those links to be removed.<p>- As far as I'm aware Freedom Hosting never had a normally accessible domain name, so the article claiming things about WHOIS data is almsot certainly irrelevant.<p>EDIT: These are my own views, and not those of any other person/organisation. I have experience with the Tor network due to my pet interest in Anonymous networks, and how they function.
While I support the vigilante destruction of child porn sites, I do want to point out that in doing so, they may have interrupted an ongoing investigation. Outing the names may embarras the users, but it may also make it harder for authorities to prosecute them or to move up the food chain.
Since they've hacked numerous police departments and government agencies of those pursuing them, how do we know they haven't inserted some of the names of those people into the list?
POLL: Does this improve your impression of Anonymous?
<a href="http://www.wepolls.com/p/4088470/Now-that-Anonymous-has-taken-down-a-huge-child-porn-ring%2C-are-you-more-supportive-of-what-they-do" rel="nofollow">http://www.wepolls.com/p/4088470/Now-that-Anonymous-has-take...</a>
What I find really scary in this article is the existence of the "darknet" that contains pedophile website and also apparently an assassination service. This creates many questions: how many people get access to this hidden network? who created it? Had the authorities knowledge of its existence?
While this could give topic for science fiction books, I also makes me feel insecure.