Russian Interior Ministry Offers £65.5k for Tor Crack

The Tor Network has been a huge thorn to most governments and anyone else trying to control the flow of information. We’ve read lot about both the US and UK governments and security agencies and their view on the Tor network. Now Russia has entered that list of governments seeking out ways to decrypt the Tor traffic they intercept.

The Russian Interior Ministry takes a different approach than the rest, offering up a tender to find a solution for decryption of the intercepted traffic. They are offering 3.9 million ruble, that’s around £65.5k or $111k. The tender only seems to be open to organisations that already do secret work for the government, so this isn’t for everyone.

The Tor network is a great tool for the citizens of countries like Russia where free speech is still seriously limited, but as so many great tools it can also be used for bad things. Criminals of all sorts hide behind it on the same level as those who just don’t want to get tracked and spied on.

There have also been huge botnets hiding within the Tor network sending out spam and malware to the rest of the world. Many of those are originating from Russia, so there might very well be genuine police and security concerns at hand too.

We will probably never know the real truth and full story on this and personally I think the reward offered is pretty low for what is asked of you.

Thank you Hexus for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of Tor.