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Here's How Riffle Anonymity Network Protects Your Privacy better than Tor

Friday, July 15, 2016 Swati Khandelwal

Here's How Riffle Network Protects Your Privacy better than Tor Anonymity Tool

Online privacy is an Internet buzzword nowadays. If you are also concerned about the privacy of your web surfing, the most efficient way is to use TOR – a free software that lets users communicate anonymously by hiding their actual location from snoopers.

Although TOR is a great anonymous network, it has some limitations that could still allow a motivated hacker to compromise the anonymity of legions of users, including dark web criminals as well as privacy-minded innocents.

Moreover, TOR (The Onion Network) has likely been targeted by the FBI to arrest criminals, including the alleged Silk Road 2 lieutenant Brian Richard Farrell, who was arrested in January 2014.

Even the TOR Project accused the FBI of paying the researchers of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) at least $1 Million to disclose a technique that could help the agency unmask TOR users and reveal their IP addresses as part of a criminal investigation.

So, what's next? Is there an alternative?

Well, most probably, YES.

RIFFLE – A New Anonymity Network

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have created a new anonymity network, which they claim fixes some of Tor's weak points.

Dubbed Riffle, the anonymity network promises to provide better security against situations when hackers introduce rogue servers on the network, a technique to which TOR is vulnerable.

Riffle maintains users' privacy as long as at least one of its server remains safe.

Here's How Riffle Works:

The secret behind Riffle is the use of a Mixnet or Mix Networks – a system that routes each user's messages through a chain of proxy servers known as Mixes in order to prevent traffic analysis.

The messages are then sent to the destination in a random order, making it harder for any eavesdropper to link the source with its receiver.

Like TOR, Riffle also uses Onion protocol to encrypt its messages with different layers of encryption, which are peeled off as the message passes through every server in the anonymity network.

So a malicious actor will still have to break several layers of encryption in an effort to reach Riffle content.

Riffle's 2-Phase Authentication makes it more Secure than TOR

Any dedicated attacker could easily target Riffle as they target TOR by tampering with some servers in the anonymity network using their own code.

To defend against these types of attacks, Riffle uses a technique known as 'Verifiable Shuffle,' which works on top of Onion protocol.

Verifiable Shuffle is a method that generates a verifiable mathematical proof indicating that the messages it sends are the same as the messages it receives.

Once a secure connection to all servers is established, the system then makes use of 'Authentication Encryption' in order to verify the authenticity of the encrypted messages, using less computation power, but providing better speeds for data transfers compared to TOR.

In this way, even malicious servers can not mess things up – they have to shuffle the messages correctly so that the good servers can accept the incoming data. If server tampered with the messages, it would be spotted at once.

Therefore, as long as one single server on the anonymity network is safe, Riffle is Secure.

Riffle is faster than TOR

More importantly, file transfers in Riffle required one-tenth of the time as compared to TOR and other anonymity networks during experimental tests.

In the case of file sharing, Riffle can achieve a bandwidth of over 100KB/s per client in an anonymity set of up to 200 clients, researchers explained in a paper [PDF]. While in the case of microblogging, Riffle could handle 100,000 users with 10 seconds of latency.

Riffle is a long way from becoming reality, but its tougher security and less overhead could change the way we browse anonymously today. More details on the system will be presented at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in July, in Germany.

Privatoria — Best VPN Service for Fast, Anonymous and Secure Browsing

Monday, October 26, 2015 Swati Khandelwal

PRIVACY – a bit of an Internet buzzword nowadays. Why? Because the business model of the Internet has now become data collection.

If you trust Google, Facebook or other Internet giants to be responsible managers of your data, the ongoing Edward Snowden revelations are making it all clear that this type of information can be easily snooped by the intelligence agencies like NSA and GCHQ.

In short, the simple truth is that you have no or very little privacy when you are online.

So, if you are worried about identity thieves, or your ISP spying on or throttling your traffic, the most efficient way to secure your privacy on the Internet is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service.

Though you can take other measures to increase security on your end, like installing a firewall as well as blocking known intrusive IP addresses that might be spying on you — But VPN takes your security to the next level by encrypting all inbound and outbound data.

VPN (Virtual Private Network) serves as an encrypted tunnel that secures your computer’s Internet connection and protects you from bad guys getting into your network in an effort to steal your sensitive data.

Additionally it makes you sure that your real identity remains anonymous on the Internet so that no one can track the origin of your Internet connection back to you.

Isn't it the great reason to use a VPN? Of course, Yes. But, the real question here is:

Which VPN Service is best and takes users security and anonymity seriously?

Many companies are providing VPN services, but not all services are created equal.

Some VPN services log all your browsing activities, which nullify the point of using a VPN for privacy. However, a good VPN service is one that doesn't keep logs of your browsing history and protects your anonymity.

So, here's the solution to all your problems: Privatoria.

Privatoria, the Czech Republic-based company, offers far more than a VPN solution. It is a unique Internet security service provider that aims to provide an all-in-one security solution.

When it comes to privacy, users will be pleased with Privatoria VPN's No Log Policy. There are a number of great features that makes Privatoria as one of the best VPN services.

Here are a few highlights:

8-in-1 Security Solution: Privatoria VPN offers a broad range of online security and privacy solutions including VPN, VPN over Tor, anonymous proxy, Tor web proxy, encrypted email, secure calls and chat, and secure online storage.
Operating System Compatibility: Privatoria VPN is easy to use, and no special knowledge or software configuring skills are required. It is compatible with almost all kind of devices including Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android.
Tor-integrated VPN: It Offers you to use the Tor network through Privatoria’s VPN without having to use the Tor browser and boost users online security and anonymity with the combination of both.
Torrent-Friendly: Privatoria's VPN is perfect for torrent users.
Speed: In terms of speed, Privatoria offers consistent performance with most servers providing a satisfying rate.
No Data logging: Privatoria have a no-log policy, that means it does not keep logs on their servers. That should comfort users looking for enhanced privacy.

VPNs can also protect you against a number of cyber attacks that are common on the Internet.

What is Privatoria's Tor-Integrated VPN?

Tor technology has become increasingly popular after Snowden revelations about government spying programs. Tor is a great anonymous network, but it also has certain downsides. One of which is the fact that you have to use a particular Tor browser to actually use Tor network.

However, most users would not want to use Tor browser, so Privatoria has created a way to use Tor without Tor browser as well as also use VPN at the same time.

Tor-integrated VPN technology offers you double protection. It is easy to use and is compatible with all modern VPN protocols.

Privatoria's Tor-integrated VPN offers you to:

Use Tor network without Tor browser
Send all your Internet traffic through Tor
Use Tor and VPN simultaneously to get an extra layer of protection
Hide the fact of using Tor
Configure the service in no time
Use Tor in any operating system and any browser

With these impressive features, Privatoria attempts to secure its users web experience and make the web safe and accessible place for everyone. And to achieve this, the company is offering a unique bundle of security services that cover the needs of every Internet user.

The trial version is available for free. So, create a free login account at privatoria.net, use the features and let us know your experience.

Tor-Based Dark Web Email Service Targeted by Government Spies

Friday, April 24, 2015 Swati Khandelwal

The administrator of the popular Darknet email service, SIGAINT, is warning its users that the email service has become a target of a suspected law enforcement agency who tried to compromise it.

About a week ago, SIGAINT has been targeted by an attacker who tried to hack the service by using nearly 70 bad Tor exit nodes, one of the service's administrator informed its users via the tor-talk mailing list on Thursday.

Before jumping on the news, Let’s first understand what are Exit Nodes?

As I said, SIGAINT uses TOR anonymization network which means when an email sent from one user to any destination, the email routed through multiple relays/nodes that actually aren't aware of the sender's identity.

The last machine that processes the email known as a Tor exit relay or Tor exit node.

The end user who receives that email can see the IP of the exit node instead of the IP address of the original sender.

And this is how, SIGAINT allows you to send and receive emails without revealing your actual identity or location.

Though exit relays are the last "hops" in the Tor network and are the only IP addresses appear as the origin of the connection, they pull the attention of the government and the law enforcement agencies.

Is Law Enforcement interested in Spying SIGAINT Services?

SIGAINT is an email service that resides mostly in TOR anonymization network. The service aims at providing email privacy to dark web users including security-conscious journalists, rebels living in repressive regimes and even criminals.

SIGAINT email service may be one of those Tor anonymizing services to become a recent target of a suspected intelligence service attack.

70 Malicious Tor Exit Nodes Found

One of the administrators of the services announced Thursday that SIGAINT became the target of a cyber attack. Initially, it was believed that someone tried to hack the service using 58 malicious Tor exit nodes. However…

...Philipp Winter, who is the member of the Tor Project, discovered 12 more bad exit nodes, resulting in a total of 70 malicious exit relays.

"So apparently we have drawn attention to our humble little email service that mostly lives inside of the Tor network," the admin wrote in a mailing list post. "The attacker had been trying various exploits against our infrastructure over the past few months."

All bad relays have been blacklisted by the admins and at the moment they no longer represent a risk.

Although the SIGAINT admin believes that there may be even more bad exit nodes targeting Tor services.

MITM attacks on SIGAINT users:

Basically, the attackers were acting as a "man in the middle" (MITM) when SIGAINT users connected to the sigaint.org site through one of the 70 bad exit nodes, allowing them to spy on SIGAINT users.

SIGAINT admin also believes that the infrastructure of the service has not been affected. However, some users’ passwords may have been compromised.

"We are confident that they didn't get in," the advisory states. "It looks like they resorted to rewriting the .onion URL located on sigaint.org to one of theirs so they could MITM [man-in-the-middle] logins and spy in real-time."

It isn’t clear how many SIGAINT users targeted in the attack, but the admin said the attacker seems to collect users' passwords, as they get complaints about hijacked accounts which is less than one for 42,000 users every 3 months.

Now What SIGAINT is going to do?

According to the admin, SIGAINT is considering to turn encryption on or removing the .onion URL from the sigaint.org page.

Although adding SSL support to the regular website would not help too much, it would make it difficult for attackers to run an attack.

What could you do to protect against the attack?

There is no way for users to be complete safer. However, all the users who visited the Sigaint.org website to search the dark web links are advice to change their passwords as soon as possible.

Who is behind the attack?

The SIGAINT admin thinks that "some agency" was likely behind the recent attack, given the number of malicious nodes the attackers were using and other strange circumstances.

Taking to Motherboard, the SIGAINT administrator said the strange circumstances were that for almost a month prior to the attack, they did not receive any law enforcement requests though they normally receive around one a week.

However, Who was behind this attack remains a mystery yet.

So who, according to you, are the real culprits? HIT COMMENTS.