-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Von: Christian Adam hirnwurst@t-online.de An: tor-relays@lists.torproject.org Betreff: Re: [tor-relays] I'm Running A Tor Exit But Never Initiated It Datum: Mon, 30 May 2016 22:14:51 +0200
Dear Percy,
I read all of your messages very carefully and, please, believe me, I don't mean to be rude, but just want to provide you a little bit of relief.
First of all, I have to share that I AM in fact a schizophrenic for 16 years now, but fully therapied to the extent I do a job as a system administrator and get certified for being a data security officer this week. This won't reveal any competence on my side, but gives a clue about my functional level which is, after all, related to sanity.
Why do I tell this? Because you don't seem to know much about computers AND because 60% of the population experience states during their lifetime resembling mine while diagnosed, but nobody minds and it goes away and was just triggered by external circumstances and internal attributions.
I tell this, because my delusional system did not involve at all any technical devices, but was completely interpersonal and cultural, which is a little seldom in western countries.
So, I learned that even if improbable, it helps keeping a harmless, maybe also annoying, possibility in mind.
Read Foster-Wallace, This Is Water?
So, let's have a clue at the facts. You moved to a new region. So, you were not yet closely related to your new environment and the old one you left might have been more and more distant, which makes people sometimes do morally questionable things.
You don't know anything about computers, so, someone must have installed your linuxes.
I also do that for people. My 73-year-old mom uses linux. And a former friends mother. I do remote administration via Teamviewer as I prefer users being graphically informed I am on their box after their consent.
Maybe the girl or guy who installed your linuxes has enabled SSH remote access combined with a DynDNS name resolving to remotely administrate (and spy) you (out).
Maybe things got socially weird, not technically. Maybe the computer shutdown at the library was just coincidence, as this also happened to me at a university terminal which might have been poorly maintained.
In my educational company, the public PCs are the most poorly maintained and I know that because I am in charge of that and not every library is financially well off.
The config you posted reveals two things:
- NOT an exit.
- You don't know that.
Let me explain. The hash symbol # comments out lines, i.e. these lines don't contain config, but human readable remarks. Of course, in a default config file, you can include commented out options because the easily can be activated by removing the #. Lines beginning with # are just nothing.
The second thing is, that your "hard drive is partitioned". Every hard drive is partitioned. Operating systems don't use the raw physical devices, but the partitions made up on them containing the file systems.
On the most basic Windows installs, there's at least one partition which you might know as device C:. Personally, when I install linux, I separate system and user data which results in two partitions at minimum, one containing /, the root directory ("file system" in your file browser), and /home containing the users' personal folders.
Next thing is that /var/lib/tor contains among others sensitive statistical data concerning the relays users and are therefore is only accessible as root via a sudo command. If you type "sudo -i" and "cd /var/lib/tor", you should be able to access it as sudo provides you with administrator privileges which are called root privileges on linux. You cannot do "sudo cd /var/lib/tor".
If this folder was normally accessible, someone could just use a vulnerability in your firefox and learn from where your users originate and if he knows your record of connections, he would know what the people from region X do with your connection: accessing a relay or a bridge, which sets users not only in other jurisdictions at risk of uncontrolled data collection by whoever it is.
I asked my mom whether she wants to run a bridge. She didn't and so I did not install one. I asked my CEO if he wants to run a bridge. He didn't and so I did not install one. I just got the job because I told everything an employer is not allowed to ask here in Germany, because I told them that they first have to decide whether to trust me as I will have highest privileges on the entire network including their private PCs.
What is true that remote administration is great for saving time and miles to do people a quick favour. But it can be used irresponsibly.
Maybe the one providing you your installs decided you won't even notice and you get that relay, period. Not nice. Not responsible. Morally highly questionable. But after all, quite probable, as every device has a partitioned hard drive and real adversaries have a keen eye on you not noticing never ever you have been compromised, except ransomware tricking you into sending money via Western Union or Bitcoins.
Criminals want to do criminal business, except ransomware tricking you into sending money via Western Union or Bitcoins, and agencies want to prosecute, but scaring you is not an aim of either if you're not an agent yourself.
In my house are 8 appartements. Two of us are schizos. We integrate well (public health system) and our neighbours like us, but, of course, we use linux and of course, we have paranoid passwords and of course... you understand, I guess.
I have never ever been hacked. But in my company, I can access every computer without prompting for consent as everybody finds that comfortable cause they know about that. I'm in the network at 3 a.m. and I can turn on half of the workstations while laying in my bed.
I know how that feels. My diagnosis reads "paranoid-hallucinatoric schizophrenia" and I know how it feels to have a perspective not even one of 7 billion people share.
Sensitivity is paranoia's beautiful sister. I strongly suggest someone just wants to mock you.
Given my experience with newbie users, paranoia and system administration, what you wrote seemed quite normal and you didn't provide (as far as I remember) any unusual technical details.
Maybe what just happened was a lack of informed consent resulting in a tasteless prank.
I don't want to do injustice to you, but since Edward Snowden, we're all used to question every system crash and honestly, our times seem to be hysterical and violence-saturated.
The rule is simple. When a user thinks he's infected, he's almost always not. If he's infected, he wouldn't notice.
Hugs, I hope you find peace again soon.
Please don't feel offended, I only told my story based on the facts you gave.
And kind regards,
christian
Am Montag, den 30.05.2016, 13:25 +0200 schrieb Christian Pietsch:
Hi GDR!
On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 12:54:41PM +0200, GDR! wrote:
On Sun, 29 May 2016 15:23:24 +0000 "krutt@anche.no" krutt@anche.no wrote:
I can't image a single reason why Tor should be configured to run a relay without the system admins knowledge.
Debian did this - I'm not sure if it does that any more.
This bug is not present in current and recent versions of Debian.
`apt-get install tor` used to run an exit relay unless you uncomment "ExitPolicy reject *:*" in torrc. I had the same problem a few years ago, suddenly captchas started appearing everywhere after installing tor.
Do you mean this bug in Tor 0.1.0 which was fixed in 2005?
-------------- begin quote from the Debian changelog --------------
tor (0.1.0.11-1) unstable; urgency=high
- New upstream version (closes: #316753):
- Fixes a serious bug: servers now honor their exit policies - In 0.1.0.x only clients enforced them so far. 0.0.9.x is not affected.
- Build depend on libevent-dev >= 1.1.
- Urgency high because 0.0.9.10-1 did not make it into testing after like 3 weeks because of an impending ftp-master move. So I might just as well upload this one.
-- Peter Palfrader weasel@debian.org Mon, 4 Jul 2005 17:53:48 +0200
-------------- end quote from the Debian changelog --------------
Cheers, Christian
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