Tor, the anonymous network, is under close surveillance by the FBI and NSA as several documents published by Edward Snowden have shown. In question: the darknet, this internet in which all exchanges are possible, trafficking in drugs, weapons, money, false documents … and a systematic appeal by criminal or terrorist organizations.
Roger Dingledine, Tor project manager, however, draws attention to an interesting fact. According to him, Carnegie Mellon University was contacted by the FBI who paid him at least a million dollars to mount an operation to break the anonymity of the network.
Some targets, network users, have had their IP addresses decrypted and communicated to the American federal agency. Among these targets, Brian Richard Farrell known under the pseudonym DocrotClu, and member of the Silk Road 2.0 network, one of the black markets which officiates on Tor.
The attack was said to have been organized between January and July 2014, and was primarily aimed at Silk Road. A week before the attack, two Carnegie Mellon researchers were scheduled to demonstrate at the Black Hat conference. Their project: demonstrate how it was possible to break the anonymity of communications in the Tor network with only 3000 dollars of equipment and the exploitation of faults … A canceled performance without any explanation, if it is to avoid that the the university's involvement in the FBI's action is not too obvious, according to Roger Dingledine.
Neither the University nor the FBI have spoken on the subject to date.
