Re: [tor-talk] Harvard student used Tor to send bomb threats, gets caught by old-fashioned policework

[Tempest <tempest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

DeveloperChris:
> I haven't been following this conversation so please excuse me if I am
> covering old stuff here, but this situation is something I have been
> very concerned about since the silk road was busted. I found the excuses
> given as to how the silk road was busted as far far too flimsy.

they aren't flimy at all. read the filed criminal complaints that came
out of maryland and new york. just as in the harvard case, standard
police work led to the arrests of people. if you are using tor, but
happen to give your home address to a law enforcement agent, and you
also happen to know the physical location of a server, or servers,
connected to acriminl enterprise, tor won't do you any good. if people
who you work with connect to those servers without using tor, tor does
them no good.

in the harvard incident, if you use an email provider that appends a
personal ip address as an x-header in the outgoing message, which can be
easily distinguished as a tor exit node by using a common search engine,
if you fit a common investigatory profile that would have a motive to
issue a bomb threat (which students and employees would certainly fall
into), it is hardly surprising that anyone who identifiably connected to
the tor network on the harvard campus would be interviewed.

this really should not be spun as bad pr for tor. rather, it proves that
tor, in and of itself, is not something that can absolutely shield
criminals from discovery and prosecution. the people opposed to tor
constantly state the opposite, that tor makes it impossible for law
enforcement to catch criminals. yet, we now have multiple very public
examples of how good and standard detective work can prevail.

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