FBI accused of paying Carnegie Mellon $1M to hack Tor network

Tor team has recently announced that the attack against their Deep Web hidden service subsystem has been conducted by researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University, who have been paid by the FBI at least $1 million. The attack ran from January until July 2014, during which time the researchers have reportedly gathered information on Tor's users.

The Tor network allows computer users to hide their identity online.

"Such action is a violation of our trust and basic guidelines for ethical research. We strongly support independent research on our software and network, but this attack crosses the crucial line between research and endangering innocent users," Tor Project Director Roger Dingledine said.

"This attack also sets a troubling precedent: Civil liberties are under attack if law enforcement believes it can circumvent the rules of evidence by outsourcing police work to universities. If academia uses "research" as a stalking horse for privacy invasion, the entire enterprise of security research will fall into disrepute. Legitimate privacy researchers study many online systems, including social networks — If this kind of FBI attack by university proxy is accepted, no one will have meaningful 4th Amendment protections online and everyone is at risk," he added.

For now, the Tor Project has not provided any proof of the "alleged" $1 million FBI payment. Officials of Carnegie Mellon and the FBI haven't yet commented on the subject.

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