How secure is the new communication channel of the department?
The foreign intelligence service has come to the darknet. The agency opened an online reception there and became the first intelligence agency in Europe that can be complained about on the “underground” Internet. This can be done by clicking on the link on the SVR website – it is hidden behind the Report Information button. Its appearance was attracted by the publication “Present Time”, recognized in Russia as a foreign agent. To send a message, you will have to install the Tor browser. The secure channel is intended for those who “are outside of Russia and have important information about threats to the security of the Russian Federation,” the website says.
The opening of such a reception is a reasonable step, Igor Bederov, the head of the Internet-Search company, is sure:
“This is great, correct, effective and sufficiently increases the security of the sources of information themselves. On the one hand, you can build some kind of complex systems, provide agents with additional encrypted radios, for example, during the Cold War. On the other hand, you can use what you have and just get lost among all that volume of information and appeals that are now used on the dark web by criminals, ordinary citizens, and drug dealers. It is really effective and inexpensive. There is no need to do any colossal developments, invest taxpayers' money. “
But how secure is such a communication channel? Luka Safonov, General Director of Cyberpoligon, does not exclude that US agents may try to decipher the information: “As for the network itself, most people have the opinion that it is most likely a product of the American special services to control the criminal or cyber world of other countries.
This, for example, can be evidenced by the fact that at one time Edward Snowden, an employee of the American NSA, controlled the final Tor-node – this is absolutely known – and, accordingly, intercepted all outgoing traffic.
As for the various vulnerabilities of this protocol and so on, they are periodically found, discovered, but at quite necessary moments for American justice in terms of de-anonymizing, for example, a terrorist operation. This exploits an unpatched zero-day vulnerability. ”
But, most likely, the SVR reception desk on the darknet will be popular only among spammers, believes Roman Romachev, general director of the R-Techno intelligence technology agency: “How such messages will be viewed at the entrance to the SVR is difficult to say, since, of course, it will fall a lot of unnecessary data, and it is quite difficult to understand where is true and where is not. Most likely, this is some kind of PR stunt that the organization uses modern methods and technologies and that in this case so far they are the only ones who have offered such a communication channel. But I repeat, the current agents, of course, will not actually use this channel. Perhaps, some well-wishers will appear who will reveal the source of information in such a “safe” and difficult way ”.
The size of files that can be sent to the SVR should not exceed 15 MB, but the text can be of any length. Thus, the journalists managed to send Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace to the intelligence officers.
Ivan Koryakin
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