[tor-talk] TOR bundle on hostile platforms: why?

[Blibbet]

> On the contrary, Microsoft has the capability to survey all Windows-powered TOR
> nodes and make a complete table of who is hosting what.
>
>> As Tor's usability increases, it will attract more users, which will increase
>> the possible sources and destinations of each communication, thus increasing
>> security for everyone.
>
> Each Windows host added to the network is a TOR node which is directly under
> control of Microsoft. Thus adding more Windows hosts decreases the security
> for everyone.

The Windows port of Tor includes no native NT ACL-style security on any 
of it's resources, including sockets. And tor.exe usually is run as a 
service. I'd expect that a serious Attacker would have little barriers 
to taking over a Windows Tor node, given how exposed tor.exe's resources 
are. Especially given how lax some of the existing Windows-based Tor 
nodes are run, and often running other servers with known exploits 
(including other open source servers that don't use ACLs -- Tor is not 
unique in this weakess).

Tor's security works best on Linux. If you care about privacy, don't use 
Tor with Windows. Boot TAILs if possible. If you have to run a tor.exe 
process under Windows, constrain it to a VM.