“The founder of Freedom Hosting has been arrested in Ireland and is awaiting extradition to USA. In a crackdown the FBI claims to be about hunting down pedophiles, half of the onion sites in the TOR network have been compromised, including the e-mail counterpart of TOR deep web, TORmail. The FBI has also embedded a 0-day Javascript attack against Firefox 17 on Freedom Hosting’s server. It appears to install a tracking cookie and a payload that phones home to the FBI when the victim resumes non-TOR browsing. Interesting implications for The Silk Road and the value of Bitcoin stemming from this. The attack relies on two extremely unsafe practices when using TOR: Enabled Javascript, and using the same browser for TOR and non-TOR browsing. Any users accessing a Freedom Hosting hosted site since 8/2 with javascript enabled are potentially compromised.”
Tor Websites Down As Alleged Freedom Hosting Admin Arrested For Child Porn Distribution
Scores of “darknet” websites and services remain inaccessible following the arrest of an Irish man believed to be the head of Freedom Hosting, the biggest service provider on the anonymous Tor network.
The FBI has accused Eric Eoin Marques of facilitating child pornography distribution. If he is extradited to the US, he could spend up to 30 years in prison.
Marques is expected to appear in Ireland’s High Court on Thursday, reports The Independent in Ireland. He was identified as a result of a cyber attack on Freedom Hosting, which had also configured the servers to spread the infection.
