Backbytes: Russia offers FOUR MILLION RUBLES to unravel Tor

Russia's interior ministry offers to make ruble millionaires out of anyone who can crack Tor

Thanks to the US National Security Agency (NSA), every government in the world knows it's open season on internet traffic.

Now, the Russian government is taking aim at Tor, the encrypted web browser and anonymous network originally devised by the US Naval Research Laboratory, and now maintained as an open source project.

The Russian interior ministry is offering four million rubles to the clever boy or girl that can demonstrate a fool-proof way of cracking the network.

They are not the first to try, though. Although the US federal government provides some funding for the Tor project, the NSA has nevertheless devoted significant resources in trying to crack it, according to documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. If it was that easy to crack, the NSA would already have done so.

Unfortunately, four million roubles is only about £65,000, and crafting and propagating banking Trojans is far more lucrative work for the average East European hacker.

Russian president Vladimir Putin may have to dip a little bit more deeply into his estimate $50bn fortune if he's going to entice any of Russia's excellent "security specialists" into devoting serious coding time cracking Tor.

@backbytes