Is TOR actually LESS secure than the clearweb?

Honestly, I think you need to go back to the drawing board here. You're making gross oversimplifications and haven't actually recognized the more concerning threats.

What do you do? You launch a ton of nodes on the TOR network.

  • This is a Sybil attack. Tor scans the network and would likely notice (see Lizard Squad incident).

  • The amount of relays they add isn't really relevant - the amount of bandwidth determines your fractional share of the network.

  • To get a large fraction of Tor users to select you as their entry guard you're talking about adding Gbit/s of capacity - again, that wouldn't go unnoticed.

  • The actual threat you should be concerned about is that relays aren't particularly geographically diverse. The NSA could passively monitor a few large data centers and gain the capability to observe a large fraction of Tor.

You can identify vendors from your average users by the amount of time that they spend making connections to not only DNM's but also mixing sites.

How do you do this? Even if you control the targets entry guard you have no idea what hidden service the target accessing. If we're talking about clearnet mixing sites, the target has to:

  • Randomly select your entry (or you'll be in the dark for 12 weeks)

AND

  • Randomly select your exit (which is only valid for 10 minutes until they rotate).

There's a few other hurdles, but the process is long-winded, expensive and with little guarantee of securing a conviction at the end.

The actual thing you should be concerned about is LE honeypots. Suppose a respected vendor gets arrested and suddenly the police have access to all their clients? Suppose an entire market is compromised and infected with an exploit, as seen with Freedom Hosting?

in essence it is probably actually LESS secure than the clearweb

I wish you luck, but I won't be visiting you in jail.

/r/TOR Thread