For example, I downloaded Tor network and using it for illegal activities. Can my govt track me? Can US govt track me? I know it encrypts something but if I remember correct, FBI was able to find some Tor users before.
Note: illegal activities was for example. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m just planning to serve my instance with a onion address.
I fully agree with you ;) .. Although a lot of animals are curious as well. But I mean it's one of the weakest links in terms of security. The human is the weakest link.
On a serious note, if I’m not mistaken, most cases of Tor users identity being uncovered is via information the user either unintentionally leaving information public, or privately told another user, which was made public due to a betrayal or a security breach.
In most other cases involve security flaws in Tor clients not the network, again if I’m not mistaken.
I said “fiasco” because they did not share the backend server repo for a while and did not make any statement about it. Maybe a little overreaction than it should be. But for an app that promises privacy, it’s kinda annoying.
Signal went closed source for ages, just simply stopped publishing their source code. Happened with the server and the client. Pretty shitty thing to do if your whole ad spiel is about how you can trust them because they’re so open and transparent.
Or maybe it was the weird blockchain coin thing they added into Signal, that left a bad taste as well.
Short answer: In theory, pretty much anything you’re doing on the modern internet can be traced back to you. It’s just a question of how much effort, sophistication, and time someone’s willing to invest in the tracing. Tor is a pretty high bar for them to clear, so it’ll protect you against a pretty high bar of attempting to track you down – but that’s only true as long as you’re not doing anything careless to compromise your own security, and it’s pretty easy to do something careless (especially in the long term).
This DEFCON talk goes into a lot of the nitty-gritty details and reality. The speaker sold drugs on the dark web for quite a while, but eventually got caught and went to federal prison, so he knows both sides of it.
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