Stephen Soghoian on U.S. Gov't Attitudes Toward Tor

[George W. Maschke]

University of Indiana graduate student Stephen Soghoian, against whom 
the U.S. Government considered filing criminal charges stemming from an 
airline boarding pass generator that he posted on-line, in the 28 
November 2006 entry of his weblog,/ slight paranoia 
,/ comments among other things, on 
the attitude of federal investigators toward the Tor project:


   The Feds (at least those that I met) fundamentally disagree with me
   on many subjects - the role that researchers, academics, and common
   citizens take in studying, criticizing and pointing out the flaws in
   our security systems. I have been laying the groundwork for some Tor
    related research at Indiana University (pending
   approval from the University Counsel) - in fact, two of Tor's
   designers are visiting researchers at IU this year. It was made
   perfectly clear during the meeting that parts of the US government,
   at least the two represented at the meeting, strongly disapprove of
   Tor - and in particular, thought that research universities such as
   IU, MIT, Georgia Tech, Harvard and others
    have no business supporting such projects.

Re: Stephen Soghoian on U.S. Gov't Attitudes Toward Tor

[Jonathan D. Proulx]

On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 03:30:27PM +0100, George W. Maschke wrote:

:   at least the two represented at the meeting, strongly disapprove of
:   Tor - and in particular, thought that research universities such as
:   IU, MIT, Georgia Tech, Harvard and others
:    have no business supporting such projects.


What about the Department of the Navy that initially funded it?  I
wonder if it was pointed out in these meeting that it was the DoD that
wanted this in the first place through the Office of Naval Research
and DARPA?

Though clearly consistency and taking responsibility fo r their
actions are not high points of US Gov't policy...

Re: Stephen Soghoian on U.S. Gov't Attitudes Toward Tor

[Michael Holstein]

What about the Department of the Navy that initially funded it?  I
wonder if it was pointed out in these meeting that it was the DoD that
wanted this in the first place through the Office of Naval Research
and DARPA?


Simple. It's okay for them to be sneaky to avoid *US* (the citizens) 
from knowing what they're up to, but *NOT* okay when we try to hide from 
them.



It's the .. "you shouldn't mind if we're listening if you don't have 
something to hide..." mentality that I've been told from many an $agency.



Keep in mind these are the same folks that think we should keep 
subscriber records for 3 years (and give them a key to our wiring 
closets) but stall like crazy when they get a FOIA request.


~Mike.

Re: Stephen Soghoian on U.S. Gov't Attitudes Toward Tor

[Jonathan D. Proulx]

On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 10:35:21AM -0500, Michael Holstein wrote:

:Simple. It's okay for them to be sneaky to avoid *US* (the citizens) 
:from knowing what they're up to, but *NOT* okay when we try to hide from 
:them.

Probably true of the people paraphrased, but I'm sure ONR folks
understand if they're the only ones using it they ain't hiding from
anyone.  Most other TLA's are likely to miss this subtlety.

Re: Stephen Soghoian on U.S. Gov't Attitudes Toward Tor

[Fergie]

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Hash: SHA1

- -- Michael Holstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>> What about the Department of the Navy that initially funded it?  I
>> wonder if it was pointed out in these meeting that it was the DoD that
>> wanted this in the first place through the Office of Naval Research
>> and DARPA?
>
>Simple. It's okay for them to be sneaky to avoid *US* (the citizens) 
from knowing what they're up to, but *NOT* okay when we try to hide from 
them.
>
>
>It's the .. "you shouldn't mind if we're listening if you don't have 
something to hide..." mentality that I've been told from many an $agency.
>
>
>Keep in mind these are the same folks that think we should keep 
>subscriber records for 3 years (and give them a key to our wiring 
closets) but stall like crazy when they get a FOIA request.
>

This reminds me of similar conversation on the cypherpunk list
back in 1992/93 w.r.t. Clipper/Capstone -- you can't put the
genie back in the bottle.

$.02,

- - ferg

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--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

RE: Stephen Soghoian on U.S. Gov't Attitudes Toward Tor

[Tony]

If they use Relakks they they can make it much harder for the US governement to 
watch them - and get decent speed too - unlike with TOR!
 
Costs money of course, but not a lot...
 
 


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Jonathan D. Proulx
Sent: Thu 30/11/2006 15:58
To: or-talk@freehaven.net
Subject: Re: Stephen Soghoian on U.S. Gov't Attitudes Toward Tor



On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 10:35:21AM -0500, Michael Holstein wrote:

:Simple. It's okay for them to be sneaky to avoid *US* (the citizens)
:from knowing what they're up to, but *NOT* okay when we try to hide from
:them.

Probably true of the people paraphrased, but I'm sure ONR folks
understand if they're the only ones using it they ain't hiding from
anyone.  Most other TLA's are likely to miss this subtlety.



<>