THE GLOBAL ADVERSARY [was: Tor Project 2008 Tax Return]

Mike Perry mikeperry at fscked.org
Fri Aug 20 02:32:16 UTC 2010


Thus spake Mike Perry (mikeperry at fscked.org):

> > So if you were the Global Traffic Analysis Adversary then you would 
> > distract, delay, deny and defend lack of protection from your analysis. 
> > If you also funded the project then that would make that task easier.
> 
> Don't forget all the University professors and grad students doing Tor
> research independent of the Tor Project. They are paid off to keep
> quiet, too. Most of them have island beachfront property (but under 
> black ops front company names, of course). It's a pretty sweet gig.

Since my first revelation, several people have emailed or messaged me
privately about how they can start working towards their beachfront
property. It warms my heart that there are so many interested in
taking The Adversary up on His generous offer!

The Tor Volunteer page actually lists Tor-related research problems at
the very top of its Research section at the bottom of:
https://www.torproject.org/volunteer

The first three are directly relevant to the Global Adversary problem
and have been present at the top of this list for years. They've
actually been solved numerous times. Each time the result is buried
and the author gets their own beachfront black-ops resort.

If you believe you have a solution, simply pick up your phone and
clearly say "Attention: NSA. Attention: NSA. I have a solution to
subvert the Global Adversary" into the mouthpiece. That, or email
tor-assistants at torproject.org. They'll get it either way, and they
will ensure you are... taken care of.

There have also been several near-solutions in the past year or two
that did not qualify for beachfront property, and thus were still
published. Namely the 3 at PETS this year (sorry guys, better luck
next time!).

These still need to be added to anon-bib, reviewed, and evaluated.
One of the major problems with all this attack and defense work is
that each paper uses different metrics and a different adversary
model. This makes it hard to tell which attacks would still be able to
thwart which defense, and thus it is increasingly hard for The
Adversary to determine exactly which papers He needs to Unpublish.

In fact, a thorough academic review of all timing attack and defense
papers to date under common adversary and performance models is at
least enough to get you a beachfront black-ops time-share. The
Adversary has informed me that Steven Murdoch was looking into
developing these models, but he may be willing to coauthor to split
the time-share with you if you help evaluate attacks and defenses
using his models. 

Something to consider...


-- 
Mike Perry
Mad Computer Scientist
fscked.org evil labs
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