Can Tor trigger a world war?
Yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced the Tor Challenge campaign, calling on all activists in the free world to join the secure Tor traffic anonymizer network. As part of the campaign, it is planned to increase the number of nodes in the network by 100 pieces.
As you know, Tor is a multi-stage onion routing system in which messages are repeatedly encrypted and then sent through several network nodes. Each router deletes the encryption layer to open the routing instructions, and send messages to the next router, where everything will be repeated.
The problem is that the Tor network for obvious reasons annoys the Chinese authorities.
Let's start from afar. Since May 21 in the US there is a trial of who exactly organized the attack on the computer network of the defense contractor Lockheed Martin . The world's largest enterprise of the military-industrial complex is engaged in the production of F-22 and F-35 fighter jets, electronic systems, space technology and many other military products. As a result, all 126,000 employees of the company had to change their local network access passwords, and the network itself had been malfunctioning for some time.
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A few days later, there were rumors that not only Lockheed Martin, but also other contractors in the US Army, including Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and others, had problems. Although these rumors were not confirmed, they may well be true if unknown hackers exploited the same vulnerability in SecurID tokens
One way or another, but problems even with one Lockheed Martin are already a cause for concern. To the investigation of the incident immediately joined the American special services. They must find out what kind of intellectual property the intruders managed to steal and, if possible, find out the origin of the intruders. Of course, China, as the main US strategic opponent for the next 50-100 years, comes under suspicion in the first place.
China has repeatedly been seen in conducting attacks on US services, including Google. There is information that organized groups of hackers operate in China with the support of government structures.
It must be recalled that, recently, the US government considers cyber attacks on critical infrastructure as a suitable excuse for retaliation with the use of traditional weapons. After the incident with Lockheed Martin, Pentagon officials confirmed that this rule is still in force.
And here it’s time to remember Tor - the very network that annoys Chinese authorities so much, and which the US views as the “mouthpiece of democracy”, because it allows users to access forbidden Western sites, including Facebook, Twitter, on the Chinese firewall. and Google (meaning uncensored version of Google). What happens if China launches a DDoS attack on Tor servers? In the light of the current situation, this may well be the reason for the escalation of the conflict.
A completely different scenario is also possible. For example, journalist Mark Gibbs in his blog on the website of Forbes Magazine fantasizes how events can develop, starting from June 1, when the EFF announced the Tor Challenge campaign. True, his scenario is based on the fact that the US government will oppose Tor (July 2011). This will lead to an exponential increase in the number of Tor nodes, because all American geeks and EFF activists around the world will feel it their duty to join this system. By October 2011, the Tor has a quarter of a million nodes, more than half of which are created through botnets owned by information freedom activists. Soon this new network generates a third of all traffic on the Internet, clogs all channels and can launch a DDoS attack on any organization or even a country. President Obama orders to shut down DNS servers. The Internet around the world is starting to fail, which causes significant economic damage to the global economy. Greece, Ireland and a dozen other countries declare default. In the chaos that swept the world, terrorists are activated. Russia and China are uniting their efforts to restore the balance of forces in the world ... and so on. The scenario is delusional, of course, but anything can happen in this crazy world.
As you know, Tor is a multi-stage onion routing system in which messages are repeatedly encrypted and then sent through several network nodes. Each router deletes the encryption layer to open the routing instructions, and send messages to the next router, where everything will be repeated.
The problem is that the Tor network for obvious reasons annoys the Chinese authorities.
Let's start from afar. Since May 21 in the US there is a trial of who exactly organized the attack on the computer network of the defense contractor Lockheed Martin . The world's largest enterprise of the military-industrial complex is engaged in the production of F-22 and F-35 fighter jets, electronic systems, space technology and many other military products. As a result, all 126,000 employees of the company had to change their local network access passwords, and the network itself had been malfunctioning for some time.
')
A few days later, there were rumors that not only Lockheed Martin, but also other contractors in the US Army, including Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and others, had problems. Although these rumors were not confirmed, they may well be true if unknown hackers exploited the same vulnerability in SecurID tokens
One way or another, but problems even with one Lockheed Martin are already a cause for concern. To the investigation of the incident immediately joined the American special services. They must find out what kind of intellectual property the intruders managed to steal and, if possible, find out the origin of the intruders. Of course, China, as the main US strategic opponent for the next 50-100 years, comes under suspicion in the first place.
China has repeatedly been seen in conducting attacks on US services, including Google. There is information that organized groups of hackers operate in China with the support of government structures.
It must be recalled that, recently, the US government considers cyber attacks on critical infrastructure as a suitable excuse for retaliation with the use of traditional weapons. After the incident with Lockheed Martin, Pentagon officials confirmed that this rule is still in force.
And here it’s time to remember Tor - the very network that annoys Chinese authorities so much, and which the US views as the “mouthpiece of democracy”, because it allows users to access forbidden Western sites, including Facebook, Twitter, on the Chinese firewall. and Google (meaning uncensored version of Google). What happens if China launches a DDoS attack on Tor servers? In the light of the current situation, this may well be the reason for the escalation of the conflict.
A completely different scenario is also possible. For example, journalist Mark Gibbs in his blog on the website of Forbes Magazine fantasizes how events can develop, starting from June 1, when the EFF announced the Tor Challenge campaign. True, his scenario is based on the fact that the US government will oppose Tor (July 2011). This will lead to an exponential increase in the number of Tor nodes, because all American geeks and EFF activists around the world will feel it their duty to join this system. By October 2011, the Tor has a quarter of a million nodes, more than half of which are created through botnets owned by information freedom activists. Soon this new network generates a third of all traffic on the Internet, clogs all channels and can launch a DDoS attack on any organization or even a country. President Obama orders to shut down DNS servers. The Internet around the world is starting to fail, which causes significant economic damage to the global economy. Greece, Ireland and a dozen other countries declare default. In the chaos that swept the world, terrorists are activated. Russia and China are uniting their efforts to restore the balance of forces in the world ... and so on. The scenario is delusional, of course, but anything can happen in this crazy world.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/120369/
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