Federal Agents Pierce Tor Web-Anonymity Tool
WASHINGTON—Law-enforcement agencies are increasingly finding ways to unmask users of a popular Web browser designed to hide identities and allow individuals to exist online anonymously. To keep their identities secret, users and administrators of a recently shuttered child-pornography website used a browser called Tor that obscures the source of Web traffic, authorities said in March. Agents from Homeland Security Investigations tracked many of them down anyway, largely because of mistakes that even some of the most sophisticated users eventually make.
Tor and other programs designed to hide users' identity online have grown in popularity as people try to protect their privacy in an age of digital surveillance. When paired with bitcoin or other virtual currencies that don't use the banking system, Tor can help hide the identities of people behind financial transactions. Such programs also have become a tool for those seeking to evade the law, including child-pornography traders, hackers and other criminals, creating challenges for law enforcement.
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A typical browser sends data along a direct route, making it relatively easy to figure out who is visiting a website, sending messages or downloading material. Tor, which stands for "the onion router," sends data through layers of intermediary computers that can't be peeled back, making it nearly impossible for law enforcement and private companies to track Internet browsing.
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Some of the mistakes are old-fashioned: The administrator of the child-pornography site at the center of Operation Round Table was first identified by postal inspectors because he was "sending sex objects through the mail to juveniles," said Mr. Kilpatrick. That site administrator pleaded guilty last week to federal charges that come with a prison sentence of at least 20 years.
Digital forensics were crucial to catching other people allegedly involved in the site, which involved individuals posing as young girls in order to convince boys in their early teens to make sexually explicit videos. In one case, law-enforcement officials said they were able to catch an Australian man who logged into his fake Facebook profile and his real profile once without using Tor or other anonymizing tools.
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