FBI accused of paying US University for dark net attack.

From the BBC Website, Nov. 12, 2015

Anonymity network Tor, notorious for illegal activity, has claimed that researchers at US

Carnegie Mellon University were paid by the FBI to launch an attack on them. Tor

claimed that the FBI was "outsourcing police work" and paid the university "at least

US$1m".

Tor is a so-called dark net - a hidden part of the internet that cannot be reached via

traditional search engines. The anonymized system lets people use the web without

revealing who or where they are. There are sites on it that offer legitimate content,

services and goods but it also has a reputation for hosting criminal activities such as the

selling of drugs and images of child abuse.

It gained notoriety in late 2014 when a big operation carried out by the FBI took down

dozens of Tor sites, including the Silk Road 2, which was one of the world's largest

online drug-selling sites. It was this attack that the Tor Project is claiming was

undertaken by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, which is based in Pittsburgh.

"This attack sets a troubling precedent," the Tor Project wrote in its official blog.

"Civil liberties are under attack if law enforcement believes it can circumvent the rules of

evidence by outsourcing police work to universities," it added.

Ethical oversight

Prof Alan Woodward, a computer science expert from the University of Surrey, said that

such partnerships were not unusual. "Universities work with law enforcement agencies

all the time," he told the BBC. "Were they paid $1m? I can't say but law enforcement

agencies do sponsor research into ways to track criminals so it is not that surprising.

"The big difference in this case seems that researchers were asked to unmask a specific

set of people and provide their IP addresses. I'd be more surprised if they did that as all

universities have ethics committees so the big question is was there ethical oversight?"

Where do you stand on this issue? With Tor or with the FBI and Carnegie

Mellon? Is this a case where two wrongs can make it right? What is the answer

to Prof. Woodwards question? Should the universities engage in this kind of paid

work? Explain.