It’s been pretty much wink-wink, nudge-nudge knowledge for a while now that the US Government is the likely sponsor (or co-sponsor, with Israel) of the Stuxnet “virus,” the most sophisticated known cyberattack.
Now we get an outright admission by one of the developers of TOR, The Onion Router, that it was a project for the feds. (See my article on TOR at http://localhost/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=339:fear-your-browser-episode-5-tor-and-onion-routing&catid=17:it-works-in-abq .) For the moment let it suffice to say that TOR is a significant web-anonymization tool, a very sharp sword with edges facing both ways.
Now see TOR co-creator Michael Reed’s fascinating email at http://cryptome.org/0003/tor-spy.htm, and the discussion of the tactical decisions made utterly outside moral considerations that led to the development and release of TOR. Such is war, and I’m no apologist either way on that subject, but I must say Thank You US Government for the gift of TOR, a mighty gift indeed for the dissidents of the world.
Also check out the fuller analysis at Network World, http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/no-conspiracy-theory-needed-tor-created-us-go?t51hb .
Just remember one thing: TOR endpoints can be – and perhaps are, by intention – monitored.