Russia tenders for Tor network cracking

The Russian Interior Ministry has issued a tender for a method to de-anonymize the Tor network. The ministry is promising an amount of 3.9 million rubles, converted to 83,000 euros.

The Russian Ministry of the Interior launched the tender two weeks ago, but it would only have come out now, BBC Russia writes. It is said to be a method for ‘obtaining technical information about the users and their device, who connect to the anonymous network Tor’, also making a reference to the encryption.

Tor usage has risen significantly in a year, although usage seems to have fallen again in the last month, according to statistics from the Tor network. According to Sarkis Darbinyan of the Russian Pirate Party, the proposal is intended to support the weblog law, which will come into effect in August. That law requires bloggers with more than 3000 daily visitors to register.

Using Tor allows popular bloggers to get out of that restriction on online freedom. According to Darbinyan, the Russian government would also be interested in cracking Tor to prevent visitors from browsing the internet anonymously and accessing blocked sites.

De-anonymizing Tor users is possible: Two researchers from a US university managed to do that, but withdrew their upcoming presentation at the Black Hat conference for unknown reasons.