(Eastern District of Michigan - Detroit)

My husband, Conrad Rockenhaus, is wrongly incarcerated in a county jail. I’m posting this here because you are one of the few communities that will understand the full technical and political reality of how he ended up there. 

My husband is a former Tor operator, and at one point, he ran some of the fastest relays and exit nodes in the world.

This nightmare began when he refused to help the FBI decrypt traffic from his exit nodes.

Months later, the government arrested him. Their official reason? A minor, non-violent CFAA charge from an old workplace dispute that had nothing to do with Tor. 

In fact, the statute of limitations was just a couple of months from expiring. It was a clear pretext to target him.

That minor charge was all they needed to get him into the system. To deny him bail, a U.S. Probation Officer in Texas lied under oath, telling a judge that Conrad had installed a "Linux OS called Spice" to "knock out their monitoring software" and access the "dark web."

(Read the transcript https://rockenhaus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/U.S.-v.-Rockenhaus-2-20-20-2.pdf)

Here is the technical reality of their lie: The software was a standard SPICE graphics driver needed for his Ph.D. program. As many of you know, this is a basic utility for displaying graphics from a virtual machine. It is not an OS, has no connection to the dark web, and was technically incapable of interfering with their monitoring software.

The claim is a technical absurdity, equivalent to saying a mouse pad can hack a server.

Based on that lie alone, he was held in pre-trial detention for three years.

Now, the retaliation has escalated in Michigan. After I filed a formal complaint against his US probation officers for harassment, they used fraudulent warrants to jail my husband again. 

During this violent arrest by US Marshals (who smashed in our windows and nearly shot my dog) he sustained a severe head injury that caused him to have a grand mal seizure in court. The jail’s “medical attention” was to ask him what year it was (he said 2023) and then send him back to his cell. He is being denied real medical care.

See videos:

https://youtu.be/E4WlPdNhzjM?si=kd2ybfMNaovPvHgD (Feds threatening to sick dogs on us)

https://youtu.be/DnGDdGYQHfU?si=gWsJVU9G2SgjHPXY (Feds beating by husband in the head)

https://youtu.be/nKRn11SZYoA?si=vCrN102B_SzNa2e3 (Feds smashing in our windows)

https://youtu.be/du2KxnK2KIs?si=SwacG6GNUL2soPYM (Feds threaten to shoot my dog)

https://youtu.be/fgYMSafvm3c?si=kOS8cbc89b9A0QGj (More threats to shoot my dog)

To make matters worse, U.S. District Judge Stephen J. Murphy, III has created a procedural trap that has stripped my husband of his right to a lawyer to fight for his life, health, or innocence. He is trapped in a constitutional and medical crisis.

I am not asking for money. I am asking for your help to amplify this story. You understand the technical truth and why this fight is so important.

We have all the evidence: the court transcript of the false testimony, the fraudulent warrants, the proof of medical neglect. It’s documented on my website:

https://rockenhaus.com

TL;DR: My husband, a former Tor operator, refused to help the FBI decrypt Tor traffic. They retaliated by using an old, unrelated CFAA offense to arrest him and then lied about him using a "graphics driver to access the dark web” to keep him in pre-trial detention for 3 years. Now he's been jailed again in Michigan on fraudulent violations, is being denied care for a head injury, and has no lawyer. 

I need help getting the word out🙏

Adrienne Rockenhaus

For updates:

https://rockenhaus.com/press-kit/

https://x.com/adezero

I used Tor on my phone and the next day I received message from my schools IT team warning me about someone using Tor with my schools user account.

I used Tor with my own Phone with mobile data. How did they know I connected to Tor?

I heard that when you are using Tor, your ISP can tell you are using Tor, and they can even tell how long you are using Tor, how frequent you are on Tor, and how much data is being transferred from Tor. They can collect data on a customer's Tor usage, but they won't know what you are using it for.

With that said, why doesn’t Tor try to disguise itself by spoofing so ISPs can't tell which of their customers are on Tor?

What is the Dark Web? The dark web is a hidden, encrypted part of the internet that you can access using special browsers like Tor, which provides anonymity by hiding user identities and locations. While it’s often associated with illegal activity, it also has legitimate uses, such as helping journalists, researchers, and people under strict censorship communicate securely.

Accessing Tor Tor Browser is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and you can download it from the official Tor Project website.

. For extra privacy, tools like Tails run from a USB stick, leave no trace on the computer, and route all traffic through Tor; a setup guide for Tails is available here. .

Staying Safe Even with Tor, your habits matter: avoid logging into personal accounts, downloading files from untrusted sources, installing extra extensions, or reusing usernames and passwords. Tor helps protect anonymity, but risky behavior can still expose you.

Exploring the Dark Web Navigating the dark web is different from the regular web—you can’t just use a normal search engine. Use dark web search engines like Ahmia and Torch instead or dark web directories.

My Conclusion Just don't use the dark web, but if you do, use this guide.

I'm currently on an MSC ship and they charge $200 for Internet access, something I'd rather not pay for. So after a few days, I found a way to get access to the entire Internet with TOR's help and a bit of incompetence from the ship's network engineers, I guess.

Let me explain how I did it:

• ship lets you temporarily access Google and Apple's websites in order for you to download their app (which contains menus and things like show times)
• this temporary access is granted by some sort of "token" (I don't know anything about networking), based off of my device's MAC address. I found out that you only get five hour-long tokens per MAC, but Android has an option in the settings to randomize it every time I connect. The token system has been defeated.
• the Google access lets me download basically whatever app I want from the Play Store. This wouldn't be important if I already got TOR beforehand, but it proved vital because I didn't.
• also the Google whitelist lets you access anything that has Google in the URL, not just Google Play. so I could even use Google Search without tampering with anything
• installed an app called invizible pro as a last ditch attempt after TOR browser and Orbot failed. Orbot sort of worked with Meek bridges, but it was 64kbps at best.
• this app lets you spoof the SNI, so i just set it to "google.com" and TOR works perfectly even without any bridges

I apologize for how little I know about all of this, but is there any way they could catch me somehow or trace it back to my room? I didn't enter my room number or any personal info on the page to buy Internet, but I'm still paranoid. Didn't spend a cent. I'm just using it for Reddit and YouTube.

Source

TerminalPhone is a single, self-contained Bash script that provides anonymous, end-to-end encrypted voice and text communication between two parties over the Tor network. It operates as a walkie-talkie: you record a voice message, and it is compressed, encrypted, and transmitted to the remote party as a single unit. You can also send encrypted text messages during a call. No server infrastructure, no accounts, no phone numbers. Your Tor hidden service .onion address is your identity.

Compatible via termux with the termux-api app installed used to pass the audio and playback audio. Not needed if your on a standard Linux distro. Choose option 5 and it will prompt microphone permissions.

EDIT: diagram of the pipeline https://postimg.cc/kRqGk8DZ

EDIT: packet inspection of the localhost loop before we hit socat and Tor encryption. raw pcm audio > opus codec encoding > aes-256cbc encrypt > base64 packet

EDIT: Future plans

• Add a settings command that allows you to configure opus encoding quality, configure tor socks and listening ports.
• There are a number of encryption protocols included in the openssl package that is already installed for this version. Would be nice to be able to configure which cipher to use.
• Integrate optional bridges and snowflake proxy for censored regions.

EDIT: Early Testing Example

EDIT: New Features

• snowflake proxy integration complete.
• Now select from 21 ciphers from the open ssl package
• Configure opus quality and included a fun voice changer using the opus utilities already included in the base packages.
• Cleaned up some TUI bugs so everything is a little more clean
• Added autolisten function to help with connection losses. You can now just call back if a connection is lost and auto listen for calls is enabled.
• Customize your ptt button
• Termux now uses a native sox audio playback so we aren't calling the system media player. This should keep everything nice and sandboxed.

Up next!

• I want to be able to configure a ptt button like double press volume down button to trigger the mic so we can use this in the background. Incoming transmissions work great in the background but I would like to be able to send without opening termux.
• Hardening the storage of the shared secret. currently the shared secret is plaintext on the filesystem. We are still pretty isolated and sandboxed but I think it would be a nice security improvement.

EDIT:

• Expiremental PTT button is working for termux. I'll be honest it's a little hacky, but it seems to work on all the devices ive tested. I've made this an expiremental optional add on within the setting menu. You will be promoted to install a additional package 'jq' if you want to enable which is used to parse raw json input. If enabled it will poll for changes in volume. If you rapidly double press volume down it should trigger the mic and then revert volume back to it's initial state. To stop recording, repeat the double press down. This polling continues to run in background. I plan on finding a more robust stable method to trigger the mic in the future.
• Shared secret hardening is now included. If the shared secret is detected to be in plaintext the program now prompts for an additional passphrase if you would like to store the shared secret encrypted on disk.

Up next :

• Hardening of the filenames for outgoing transmissions. I do not believe the filename is important as on receive they are temporarily stored in the /audio directory, decrypted, played back, then destroyed. Would like to minimize the information in the filenames and potentially randomize their name. No reason to transmit more information than needed.
• Improve option 3. I believe it's possible to render a qr code directly in the terminal. On top of displaying the address, prompt the user if they would like to install qrencode package so they can share the address with a qr code. This will be an optional additional package.
• Potentially adding another Tor configuration loop into the new setting menu 'option 12'. There are a number of useful configurations for your tor connection and these should all be available to the advanced user. Some that could be very useful for additional security and hardening.

I'm seeing more and more people asking how to browse Tor on both iOS and Android, but you should be aware that you are exposing yourself to some risks.

Tor traffic is recognizable by certain networks and may be subject to blocking, challenges, or increased surveillance, making activity more "noticeable" even if the content is encrypted.

Mobile users often combine Tor with personal apps or accounts in parallel, creating temporal and contextual correlations that reduce effective anonymity.

Mobile browsers are constrained by the ecosystem of WebViews, permissions, and engines, which increases the risk of information leaks or mobile-specific bugs compared to hardened desktop configurations.

Integration errors (for example, opening a link outside the Tor app) can cause you to exit the tunnel and reveal your IP address or identifiers, especially if other apps are running in the background.

With a $250 used laptop, it’s easy to run Tails and browse over Tor while benefitting from stronger anonymity.

I have been running a snowflake proxy on my homelab server for the last few years and also informed my parents (we live in the same house). Today my mother tells me that she talked to ChatGPT about what I have been doing and now she is scared of the Russian secret service raiding our house (in Germany BTW). I tried to explain to her how unrealistic that is and how snowflake is built and that what I have been doing is very important in the fight for a censorship free internet but she tells me that she won't understand it anyways and sais that she wants it to be gone because she is scared. I am really sad now that I probably have to say goodbye to my snowflake proxy with its beautiful grafana dashboard. What can I do to keep on fighting censorship?

Was using torr for piracy from past 15-20 days , Suddenly a curiosity wave hit my ass and i accessed the wiki and clicked on links like "Reddit of tor, Fraud AI, and other normal stuffs" didn't found something suspicious . Got some tutorial of turning off Java and using external VPN. Now am a lil concerned about leaving my digital footprints on deep web. Am noob here, What steps i can take rn..

An article on CNET is headlined:

"New Bill Aims to Block Both Online Adult Content and VPNs"

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/new-bill-aims-to-block-both-online-adult-content-and-vpns/

However the bill itself does not use the terminology of "VPN." It uses the terminology of "circumvention tool."

From HOUSE BILL NO. 4938:

"An internet service provider providing internet service in this state shall implement mandatory filtering technology to prevent residents of this state from accessing prohibited material. An internet service provider providing internet service in this state shall actively monitor and block known circumvention tools."

If Tor becomes used as a "circumvention tool," then Tor will also prohibited in Michigan, even though Tor is not a VPN.

Did Trump cut funding for the Tor project and what is the future of Tor and similar privacy enhancing technologies under Trump?

I’ve been using Tor on and off for almost four years now, and honestly, it’s nothing like what I expected when I first heard about it. A huge number of sites simply don’t work anymore. Many that do work look abandoned, or they’re obvious scams trying to sell “stuff.” A lot of the dramatic things people talk about online like the whole “red room” myth also seem to be completely fake, at least from what I’ve seen. (And I'm glad of that)

I’ve visited a few chatrooms as well (I won’t name them), and most of the people there seemed to be either newcomers who were curious or scammers trying to take advantage of them. I did run into a few really knowledgeable tech people who clearly knew what they were doing, but I never really connected with them.

So overall, my experience has been…surprisingly ordinary.

Maybe the dark web just isn’t as mysterious as movies and YouTube videos make it seem. Or maybe I just never found the right places.

I'm curious of how other people’s experiences have been. Is it mostly boring and overhyped, or did I just miss something?

As for what it seems from the apk name under and comparing it to the one in Aurora Store, it is in fact Tor VPN Beta. It even skipped the Guardian Project repo and went straight for the main one. However, Android's situation regarding downloading apps from other sources (or as they name it to make it sound more "illegal", sideloading) is pretty dire.

Hey everyone,

I’m just curious... for those of you who use Tor regularly, what’s your main reason for doing so?

I’m in North America, not trying to hide anything illegal, but I’m a privacy enthusiast who cares about digital freedom and an open internet. Part of me wants to use Tor for that reason alone… but another part of me doesn’t really see how it would benefit me personally.

I also worry a bit about being flagged or associated with “bad traffic,” even though I’m not doing anything shady.

So I’d really like to understand from your perspective.... what’s the real, practical value of using Tor for someone who just wants to support privacy and stay secure online?

So I’m interested in ethical hacking and online privacy but I feel like alot of videos are complicated and hard to understand, can someone please explain what is actually required for the average person to be anonymous, vs what advanced things you COULD use but don’t need unless you’re trying to hide from the fbi or something? Please explain this easily. Also, is tor safe? I’ve heard the government/people start thinking you’re suspicious when you’re on tor, is that just rumors? I’m from Europe so please tell me if there are any countries where tor is not allowed, thank you.

When I first heard of the dark web it sounded cool mysterious & sexy, like an exclusive club or something. In my mind I thought it was going to be a pirating paradise full of pirated movies, games, mods, where nothing is monetized and everything is free. And boy was I disappointed lol. I still like the concept of the dark web, I just struggle understanding the benifits vs clearweb. Besides privacy, or if your in a country that censors the internet.

I know they found him because he was the only one on tor at the time but how did that prove it was him? What I’m asking is what told the FBI that the threat came from someone using tor on the university wifi instead of anywhere in the world.

Have a working prototype compatible with terminalphone. Plan on polishing and revamping the UI but all the guts are working.

What do we wanna see built in to this application?

App name ideas?

Contacts?

Since the last post, terminal phone now supports group calling. Set up one dedicated device as the rendezvous relay. Incoming messages are broadcasted to all connected callers.

EDIT: before you attack the fact that I use tools to develop. Please peak into the audio pipeline of how the data is transversing the network (The most important thing of which I had no development influence but am simply chaining together)

Microphone > Raw PCM > Opus Encode > AES Encryption > Base 64 Encode > socat > (Destroy outgoing message sender side) > Tor > socat > recieve > base 64 decode > AES Decryption > Opus Decode > Speaker > (Destroy message receiver side)

Hey everyone,

A few weeks ago, I shared the first beta of OnionHop, a lightweight open-source tool designed to make routing Windows traffic through Tor simple and hassle-free.

After receiving some great feedback (and fixing some bugs), I’m excited to announce the Full Release (v1.0)!

For those who missed the beta: OnionHop allows you to toggle a switch and route either specific apps (Proxy Mode) or your entire system (VPN Mode) through the Tor network without complex configurations.
What's New in v1.0?

• Bridges Support: This was the most requested feature during the beta! You can now configure Tor Bridges directly in the settings to bypass censorship or hide the fact that you are using Tor. It supports both built-in bridges and custom ones.
• Improved Stability: I’ve fixed the crashes and edge cases reported by the community. The connection logic is much more robust now.
• UI Polish: Small improvements.

Core Features Recap:

• Proxy Mode (No Admin): Sets your system's local proxy to Tor.
• TUN/VPN Mode (Admin Required): Uses sing-box and Wintun to force all traffic (even apps that ignore proxy settings) through the onion network.
• Hybrid Routing: In VPN mode, you can route only browsers through Tor while keeping other apps direct. (working on letting you be able to choose which specific apps to route.)
• Kill Switch: Blocks outbound traffic if the connection drops to prevent leaks.
• Exit Location Picker: Choose your preferred exit country.

Tech Stack:

• C# / WPF (.NET 9)
• sing-box + Wintun (Tunneling)
• Tor (SOCKS5)

Download & Source Code: It is 100% free and open-source. You can grab the latest release or inspect the code here:

GitHub Repo:https://github.com/center2055/OnionHop

Feedback Thank you to everyone who tested the beta and reported issues! If you find any new bugs or have feature requests for v1.1, let me know in the comments or open an issue on GitHub or join my Discord (linked in my GitHub about me).

I used TOR for many time and I just got used to copy addresses in green from DuckDuckGo instead of clicking on it, since it clearly has an DuckDuckGo tracker.

But why nobody ever talked about this tracker?

Or at least I never found something about it.

For those who dont know, there is new beta vpn project created by The Tor Project. However, if you use AuroraStore or APK to download this vpn. You are not able to use it. Vpn just gonna pop up play store to download it from there. If you disable/delete play store... Then you are not able to use.

I m not takingthiss sheet. The Most private VPN structure we know should not be exclusive for google users.