Tor Claims Government paid University to Uncover Users' IP Addresses

[silicon_toad2000]

According to the head of the Tor Project, the FBI paid researchers at
Carnegie Mellon University US $1 million to identify users of the
anonymizing network. Neither university officials nor the FBI have
responded to the allegations, although a CMU spokesperson asked "to see
the substantiation for their claim." In August 2014, CMU researchers
were scheduled to give a talk on cracking Tor at the Black Hat
conference, but the briefing was pulled from the schedule.
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/tor-says-feds-paid-carnegie-mellon-1m-to-help-unmask-users/

[silicon_toad2000]

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) has issued a statement regarding
allegations that researchers at the school helped the FBI track and
identify Tor users, and that CMU was paid $1 million for the work. The
statement notes that the Software Engineering Institute, which is part
of CMU, "is a federally funded research and development center, [and CMU
is occasionally] served subpoenas requesting information about research
it has performed."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/19/tor_wars_cmu_says_fbi_came_not_with_cash_but_a_subpoena/

[GhostShip]

When asked last week they refused to say point blank that they had received any money, they seem to be doing a dance on what the money was directly for but I'm sure we all can fill in the gaps on this story, perhaps they did see a subpoena maybe they didn't but they did bend over backwards to assist the FBI and made no attempt to inform the TOR project that their research had discovered a method of de-anonymising a percentage of TOR users traffic, this then makes it double bad, academics are not usually involved in such blatant attacks against the public and the concept of hidden research really does go against the grain of a university, such dirty work research is normally undertaken by groups funded by the authorities as laws have been broken otherwise.