Tor devloper claims NSA and GCHQ agents intentionally leak information to help him

UK-based GCHQ and US-based NSA are mysteriously reporting vulnerabilities in anonymity-preserving software Tor in an attempt to crack its network, Tor’s leading developer has claimed.

Andrew Lewman, the Tor Project’s executive director, claimed that some cyber spies place a higher priority on fixing flaws in Tor than keeping secret bugs that might support their colleagues in their surveillance efforts on “dark web”.

US and UK security agencies monitor the ‘dark web’ for illegal activity and Mr Lewman believes the complexity of some of the bug reports they have been sent suggests they have been penned by Government workers with “a lot of experience and a lot of time”.

"There are plenty of people in both organisations who can anonymously leak data to us to say, 'maybe you should look here, maybe you should look at this to fix this', and they have," he said during an interview with the BBC.

"It's a hunch. Obviously we are not going to ask for any details. You have to think about the type of people who would be able to do this and have the expertise and time to read Tor source code from scratch for hours, for weeks, for months, and find and elucidate these super-subtle bugs."

GCHQ has said it does not comment on “intelligence matters”, adding that all of the listening post’s work is “carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework”.