Party Vibe

@tryptameanie 978257 wrote:

Are you telling me that a fibre optic cable is capable, due to some algorithm, that it can make data travel faster than the laws of physics allow in glass?

unfortunately not (or that would surely be useful somewhere). The correction factor is <1 (though ideally near as possible such as 0,98) so the data is slightly delayed. The use of TOR/VPN/encryption at any points in the link delay the speed of each packet; often by amounts that make their presence detectable with enough good time sources and enough maths to process the data.

with TOR the profs look for such things as more jitter between each packet than usual (this is from a different method discussed in a paper around 2008 but is referenced in the Canadian paper and can be linked together alongside the use of GPS and other basic known info (such as the Telephone Exchange is usually in the same place). Hidden services always create a unique “noise” pattern to the point the NSA and GCHQ said they encouraged their use as it means they then know what to look for (the BBC dude also said this about using encrypt 3 decades ago).

Once telecoms goes beyond a telephone wire or network cable going a known distance or a single radio transmitter it is not easy stuff to understand; even without crypto etc trying to work out how the data should get from one place to another and how long it may take is not easy

It is hard to explain how geolocation of TOR is carried out but it can be done without monkeying around with the packets in any way. I am fairly certain it does regularly happen particularly throughout Northern Europe; especially with most bridges/exit nodes being confined to certain ISPs and/or being located in science Universities.

Added to this many of those who are using it to get drugs/free stuff or other illegal items often don’t have as much tech knowledge as they might think and may use it in an insecure manner.

The number of dark net dealers who get busted in NL and DE (not all of which gets reported in English language news) also correlates with this.

It also appears that feds in USA and perhaps other countries are now blatantly tolerating some small scale dealing via normal HTTPS net; perhaps some are actually smart enough to realise this is the lesser of many evils as it prevents dealers and users getting drawn into a network that also trades stolen info, weapons and extreme porno (which very few party drug users want anything to do with in the first place).

it is indeed not exact geolocation compared to this Canadian discovery and uses the source IP addresses but especially in European countries with more advanced fast broadband locating any source of traffic (encrypted or not) is trivial.

Non intrusive monitoring is routinely carried out by the telecom companies/ISPs on the request of the Communications Ministries; paradoxically the more free and advanced a country is with regard to such issues as net neutrality and quality of service the more likely this will be carried out on a regular basis.

that doesn’t mean they will trace and nick people just for using TOR but does mean if the activities of users cause obvious issues elsewhere [such as a rise in 112 calls due to suspected ODs/unusual behaviour due to drugs] or they are committing fraud and then try and convert the bitcoins into Euros to buy physical items then old fashioned Police work is used to gather evidence; and the darknet still leaves some data trail which adds to this.