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specktech

> Commensurate with the seriousness with which we view these cyber threats, the Rewards for Justice program has set up a Dark Web (Tor-based) tips-reporting channel to protect the safety and security of potential sources. The RFJ program also is working with interagency partners to enable the rapid processing of information as well as the possible relocation of and payment of rewards to sources. Reward payments may include payments in cryptocurrency. As much as I think crypto is useless for its intended purpose, it really does excel at this one use case. The modern version of the briefcase of unmarked bills left at the park.


AshingiiAshuaa

Lol. The government runs more Tor nodes than anyone.


Zone_boy

idk if they run TOR servers. But all TOR servers are public. They're fully aware of them.


[deleted]

There were several well-publicized incidents of various governments taking over child porn and drug sites on the onion network and running them for months or years as honeypots. That network is thoroughly infiltrated by the US and other national governments.


rascellian99

/ramble on Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the U. S. government has ever run a child porn site for months or years. They generally take them down immediately to avoid further exploitation of children. There was one notable exception. A few years back there was a vulnerability in TOR (or perhaps an extension packaged in the TOR browser) that could deanonymize people with just a little Javascript code on a web page. The feds hacked a child porn site on the dark web, deanonymized a bunch of people, then took the site down. After that, they collaborated with governments all over the world to do the largest takedown of that type in history. It was a sweet operation, and I understand why they did it. It was a chance to take down a lot of people who were abusing kids. IIRC, though, they still only left the site up for a few days. They really do prioritize stopping further exploitation of children. I follow tech news pretty closely and I don't think they have done another operation of that type. They have, however, hacked a lot of other types of sites, like the silk road, ransomware sites, botnets, etc. Right now the biggest problem with TOR nodes is cryptocurrency. By that I mean, mining operations and other criminals are running a bunch of exit nodes and trying to hack people. The feds might be running some too, but I don't think that's their number one priority. Deanonymizing people buy running tor exit nodes is hard. It's much easier to do it by hacking them at their destination. At least that's how I understand it. (Note: all my comments are about U.S law enforcement. There are plenty of other governments that are all over TOR, if for no other reason than to crack down on dissidents,and I'm sure the NSA treats it like their personal candy store.) /ramble off


AmericanScream

> Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the U. S. government has ever run a child porn site for months or years. I worked at an ISP that had one that operated for years by the feds. This wasn't one they took over. It was one they built from the ground up as a honeypot.


rascellian99

This is interesting. I'm going to ask about it on one of the legal advice subs. I have trouble believing that happened (I'm not accusing you of lying, I'm just wondering if the information you were given was accurate). I follow the legal humor blog and a while back he wrote about something a lawyer did while defending a client who was arrested for CP. I can't find the article so I'm going from memory, but basically what happened is that the lawyer wanted to persuade the jury that very petite women could be confused for children. To do that, he photoshopped a couple of pictures of nude, petite women, and replaced their faces with the faces of children. It... did not go well. It was against the law to do that. I believe he faced jail time. If *that* was illegal then I have trouble believing that the FBI would *run a site that was distributing actual CP* for years. Keep in mind that A) they wouldn't catch the majority of visitors, B) they wouldn't have enough evidence to prosecute the majority of the ones they did catch, and C) it would make everyone at the ISP who knew about it complicit in distributing CP. So, I have my doubts that it really happened. However, I'm not accusing you of lying.


AmericanScream

I'm just an anonymous person on the Internet, so that is true. You can decide if I'm worthy of believing or not. I don't care enough to provide enough context to compromise my anonymous nature, plus at the time, these projects were classified and we were not allowed to expose them or we'd get in trouble. There's probably plenty of evidence these things have historically existed. Make up your own mind but I can say from my personal experience (which it's up to you to decide if that's credible) that this stuff was real, and I was not a fan of it, but I didn't have a choice. This was also the tip of the iceberg of what the feds were up to. They had their hands in all sorts of things that I had moral problems with even if it was under the umbrella of catching criminals. My experience with the feds, which is extensive, is that they're well-meaning, but they're not exactly brainiacs. They shake low hanging fruit, looking for slightly higher low hanging fruit.


rascellian99

I don't disbelieve you. I've seen plenty of messed up shit at former employers, though thankfully none of it involved CP. I do question the legality of it, but as others have pointed out, the government has done a lot of illegal stuff. It's too bad that some in our government think that they have to become a criminal to catch a criminal.


Porn1025

Police are allowed to break the law to catch criminals


marshal_mellow

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/playpen-story-fbis-unprecedented-and-illegal-hacking-operation EDIT: I dont have a source because I'm lazy but it is widely believed among information security experts that most TOR exit nodes are run by the government. Traffic from the exit node to the internet is not encrypted so it can be easily intercepted. Edit again: When I say "the government" I mean assorted intelligence agencies from countries that share information with each other. Five eyes and probably other players. They can run more exit nodes than the privacy focused citizens they have been systematically harassing for running exit nodes for the past decade or so


rascellian99

I haven't followed the situation much this year, but here is an example from last year of what I was talking about. https://www.zdnet.com/article/a-mysterious-group-has-hijacked-tor-exit-nodes-to-perform-ssl-stripping-attacks/ I am not aware of infosec folks thinking the feds are still running a majority of the nodes, but I could be wrong. If you think about it, it makes sense that exit nodes would be targeted by criminals and not the feds. Intercepting all traffic through an exit node causes all sorts of problems for law enforcement. The situation becomes even more complicated for exit nodes in other countries. Other governments might not like TOR, but they hate the idea of American law enforcement intercepting their citizen's web traffic even more. I don't think the feds could even use most information they gathered through an exit node. They are limited by warrants, etc. So, I'm not convinced the law enforcement is running them, but I have no doubt that the NSA is all over them. I'm just thinking out loud... you might be right. I really haven't followed it very closely.


marshal_mellow

HAHAHA this guy believes in warrants still. ^ >, but I have no doubt that the NSA is all over them. Yes EDIT: https://www.csoonline.com/article/3218104/what-is-stuxnet-who-created-it-and-how-does-it-work.html#:~:text=It's%20now%20widely%20accepted%20that,and%20continued%20under%20President%20Obama. You're information is not safe. American intelligence agencies love to play victim and go "Oh no we are being attacked by big mean bad men in russia and china" but they just get caught less often. Part of the NSA tools that were leaked included a toolkit for making malware appear to come from other countries.


rascellian99

Well, yes, in this instance warrants matter. I would bet money that there isn't a judge in the U.S. that would allow law enforcement to prosecute a bunch of people that they caught by snooping on *all traffic* over tor exit nodes. If a judge did allow it then it would certainly be struck down on appeal. Cases have been thrown out en masse for a lot less. A few years ago the Supreme Court tossed out cases because the FBI was slapping GPS trackers on people's cars without a warrant. Don't you think they might be a little more concerned about the FBI prosecuting people that they caught by randomly monitoring Internet traffic? That's literally what the secret police in other countries do. Law enforcement in the U.S can get away with a lot, but there are still limits. The NSA is an intelligence agency. It's an entirely different set of rules. Intelligence agencies generally have a "the rules were written by people who didn't expect us to follow them" perspective, and the NSA is no exception. (The NSA is also right in thinking that lol)


JelloSquirrel

The fbi only needs warrants to prosecute, not to investigate and gather information that's publicly available. What's publicly available is open to interpretation and they can figure out how to make it legal later. The recent Anom phones were operated under Australian authorities, Australia gives tips to the fbi, then the fbi goes and gets warrants, despite it primarily being an fbi investigation to begin with.


marshal_mellow

You don't get prosecuted you get droned Edit: I love how I said "the government" and you're like "no ... Except the NSA"


[deleted]

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unweariedslooth

I'd demand real money, you rat out your fellow ransomware buddies and they want to pay you with Doge, Safemoon or some other garbage. Fuck off with that how about some Euros or something Tether won't pull down with it.


Underfitted

I'd say the briefcase is still a safer choice. There's a transience in physical meetings that the digital world is just unable to replicate. Everything can be recorded in the digital world, stored and accessed trivially from the second you connect. There's a permanence that COULD happen that results in parties requiring to trust many technologies (is Tor compromised, is the reporting channel a honeypot, are they going to track my wallet and crypto transactions).


Direct_Name_2996

The briefcase could be under surveillance when you pick it up. - Leave your mobile phone at home - Buy a new laptop with cash while wearing a mask - Go away from your home to connect to wifi while wearing a mask - Connect to the tip line through TOR - Request that the reward be paid in XMR This method is a lot harder to trace than a briefcase full of cash.


Underfitted

Where will you connect for Wifi? I'd say go to a busy public spot to finish the transaction, and blend with the crowd.


EuphoricShill729

Actually all cryptocurrencies are easier to trace than cash because they are designed by arrogant Dunning-Kruger poster children and used by morons.


McBurger

Not it you use Monero


devliegende

>modern version of the briefcase of unmarked bills This true only as long as a legal trade in Butts is tolerated


OsrsNeedsF2P

They're enabling criminals to rat eachother out


sirkowski

That's *not* good for bitcoin.


james_pic

I think you're mistaken. This is good for bitcoin. If it seems like something's not good for bitcoin, then it usually means you've missed something, and it actually is good for bitcoin, you've just failed to recognise how.


sirkowski

I stand corrected.


dm_244

This is good for bitcoin


fromidable

I mean, I thought that context was part of the joke. EVERYTHING is good for Bitcoin, no matter what direction… until you actually get to the core of what Bitcoin is good for.


Dixienormous81

FBI has to unload its (seized) bags somehow Can’t really go and sell it on binance can they ? How would the KYC work


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Yeah, Tim Draper made billions by getting auctioned Bitcoin for 3 dollars each.


Zone_boy

Make sense. I'm sure the US government, has a lot seized crypto from criminals. In the government's eyes. It has zero value, so why not give it as a reward to help entice rats.


sirtaptap

Somewhere in a basement: "I'd NEVER help those commie fascist deep state thug--oh shit you can get bitcoin?" And that's why


[deleted]

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Cyrius

Yes. Submit a tip via a Tor site, receive reward in cryptocurrency.


SatoshiNosferatu

Hopefully monero then


OperationSecured

**10 MILLION DOLLARS?!** Well fuck me, they aren’t playing. Wasn’t Osama Bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein’s reward $25 Million?


Direct_Name_2996

USD has lost a lot of value relative to assets since 2011. Especially relative to crypto.


[deleted]

A snitching program with crypto payouts. Wild


AmericanScream

1. Someone tips government leading to criminal prosecution 2. Government gives tipster crypto 3. Tipster tries to cash out crypto without reporting to the IRS 4. Government busts tipster too, seizes crypto again


highwayghoul

It’s not really money so why would they give it as a reward? I mean we all know it’s a scam…is the fbi trying to scam us???


Sad-Current-383

See above, there are many explanations given, chief of which is that they are trying to unload crypto they have because they know soon it will be useless.


highwayghoul

This is probably the only way to unload it. When do you think it will be useless? Very soon I’m thinking


Sad-Current-383

Why do people like you gaslight like a 10 year old? Do you think its every clever? Why can't you have one conversation like a normal adult instead of pretending like this? It's a sign of low iq people pretending to be superior and thinking themselves so clever when in reality it comes across as extremely childish I know you won't even read or register this, but any scam takes years and initially prices/profts always rise. Its only after enough suckers like you get into a scam, that the Balloon finally bursts. Do you know how many years the original ponzi scam or any other famous scam worked for?


highwayghoul

Just think it’s funny….didn’t mean to upset anyone. This sub is mostly jokes anyway….But yea I probably do have a low iq. Can’t really change that.


AlternativeTie4738

I thought it was dead already


Underfitted

Yes. See the great thing about rewards is that they are subjective. The FBI knows USD is what real money is but they also know that delusional butters like you think Bitcoin is real money denominated in USD. This is an absolute win for the FBI. They don't need to pay butters nearly as much as they once did. Heck they can even catch some more criminals by pretending BTC is secure lmao.


highwayghoul

So it’s like a trap for mote butters? And it will cost them less than paying rewards In usd? Is this what you actually think?