[tor-talk] What if I connect to all nsa Tor nodes?

[Paul Syverson]

On Sun, Sep 08, 2013 at 11:47:06AM -0400, Nathan Suchy wrote:
> Would my traffic still be secure?
> 

To do what, and secure against whom and to what degree?

It is reasonable to assume that if NSA is running Tor nodes, then they
are probably using good operational security. So against someone
breaking into those nodes and then attacking you, you are probably
more secure than using random nodes. (But see below.)

If you mean secure against the NSA node operators, then no. Any
adversary that owns all the nodes in your route should be able to
learn pretty much everything about your traffic patterns, who you're
talking to and when. This is true for the NSA or anybody else.

If you mean intentionally selecting some subset of nodes because you
trust them more or because you are trying to avoid them as adversary
nodes, there is a tradeoff between the potential better security that
might provide and what your choice might reveal about you. cf.
"Trust-based Anonymous Communication: Adversary Models and Routing
Algorithms". There's currently research advances but no simple advice
on that score.

This all assumes adversaries just live at the nodes rather than also
at the ISPs, the ASes, the IXPs, etc. It is hard to say anything more
about such an adversary without more details. You might want to see
"Users Get Routed: Traffic Correlation on Tor By Realistic
Adversaries" and some of the earlier work on this issue cited therein.

HTH,
Paul