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Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

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Re: Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

#11

Post by bauruine »

If you are running an onion service but don't need to hide the server IP, like you do if you also provide clearnet access to the same server, you should enable single hop mode [0] to reduce the load on the Tor network and also speed up the connections. This way your server directly connects the introduction and rendezvous points while the client still stays anonymous with a 3 hop circuit.

[0]: Search for HiddenServiceSingleHopMode on https://2019.www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html.en or just use the following config options

SOCKSPort 0

HiddenServiceNonAnonymousMode 1

HiddenServiceSingleHopMode 1

Re: Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

#12

Post by thealig »

stingraycharles wrote: post #7
nextaccountic wrote: post #2

> Using onion services mitigates attacks that can be executed by possibly-malicious “Tor Exit Nodes” — which, though rare, are not nonexistent Is there any evidence that the majority of exit nodes aren't malicious? There's only 300 or so in the US, 300 or so in Germany, and in other countries even less. What would it take for three letter agencies to compromise most of it? I mean, suppose all of the existing nodes we…

It’s not even about three letter agencies; many exit nodes are being scanned for passwords, if you happen to go through http instead of https. Here’s research conducted years ago about this matter: https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgbdwv/badonion-honeypot-mal... Effectively they set up a honeypot and used clear text passwords to log in, and plenty of exit nodes picked up on this and those credentials were later used t…

the article talks about the research stumbling upon exit nodes performing MITM and other sniffing but does not refer to the exact details. is there a paper for this?

only found this paper going over systematic process of exposing bad relays - http://www.cs.kau.se/philwint/spoiled_onions/pets2014.pdf

Re: Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

#13

Post by egberts1 »

rosndo wrote: post #6

Most of the technical points listed here are pretty much entirely mitigated by TLS. Exit nodes can of course deny access to specific sites, but hidden services suffer from comparable (or worse) issues. There are no other practical attacks that malicious exit nodes could execute against sites using TLS and HSTS preload lists. If you’re a website administrator, fixing those things should be your priority before impleme…

But, but … BUT TLS man-in-the-middle at exit node isn’t fully mitigated … UNLESS TLS Client mode is used as well.

We all should know how infrequent this TLS Client mode get evoked, right, right? Yeah, righto.

Re: Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

#14

Post by shp0ngle »

> The first benefits are authenticity and availability: if you are running Tor Browser and if you click/type in exactly the proper Onion address, you are guaranteed to be connected to what you expect — or not at all.

What? Writing raw onion addresses is like writing raw IPv6 addresses. Nobody can remember then and check them.

What is easier

> https://nytimes.com

or

> ej3kv4ebuugcmuwxctx5ic7zxh73rnxt42soi3tdneu2c2em55thufqd.onion

Re: Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

#15

Post by krageon »

TuringTest wrote: post #5
heavyset_go wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if every exit node in the US is operated by private people or organizations, courts can compel the node owners to work with the government and not talk about it.

Aren't there warrant canaries set up to prevent this? Every website that can be compelled to behave that way should have one.

> Aren't there warrant canaries set up to prevent this?

No, because the police will tell you to not tell anyone about the court order. If you do so (for example using a warrant canary), you will be in big trouble. Those canaries were always a convenient fiction, almost to the point of it being entirely in question whether or not this fiction was created in good faith.

Re: Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

#16

Post by rosndo »

egberts1 wrote: post #13
rosndo wrote: post #6

Most of the technical points listed here are pretty much entirely mitigated by TLS. Exit nodes can of course deny access to specific sites, but hidden services suffer from comparable (or worse) issues. There are no other practical attacks that malicious exit nodes could execute against sites using TLS and HSTS preload lists. If you’re a website administrator, fixing those things should be your priority before impleme…

But, but … BUT TLS man-in-the-middle at exit node isn’t fully mitigated … UNLESS TLS Client mode is used as well. We all should know how infrequent this TLS Client mode get evoked, right, right? Yeah, righto.

What real attacks would that enable?

Re: Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

#17

Post by shaky-carrousel »

shp0ngle wrote: post #14

> The first benefits are authenticity and availability: if you are running Tor Browser and if you click/type in exactly the proper Onion address, you are guaranteed to be connected to what you expect — or not at all. What? Writing raw onion addresses is like writing raw IPv6 addresses. Nobody can remember then and check them. What is easier > https://nytimes.com or > ej3kv4ebuugcmuwxctx5ic7zxh73rnxt42soi3tdneu2c2em55…

Neither. Either can be mistyped. Nobody enters addresses directly anymore. Either you google them or you get them from bookmarks.

Re: Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

#18

Post by bauruine »

RL_Quine wrote: post #3
nextaccountic wrote: post #2

> Using onion services mitigates attacks that can be executed by possibly-malicious “Tor Exit Nodes” — which, though rare, are not nonexistent Is there any evidence that the majority of exit nodes aren't malicious? There's only 300 or so in the US, 300 or so in Germany, and in other countries even less. What would it take for three letter agencies to compromise most of it? I mean, suppose all of the existing nodes we…

The behaviour of not always using the same exit means that you, over time, will almost assuredly use a malicious exit should more than zero exist. It's reckless to suggest that anybody should be using this system, your situation is almost always going to be worse than not.

The only attacks an exit alone can do is sniff all traffic and modify the traffic. There are constant checks done by the Torproject to detect bad exits that modify traffic but sniffing is not detectable of course. But both of those attacks are mitigated by https which most sites support nowadays. Firefox and therefore the Tor Browser also has an option to disable http. [0] And using an .onion service removes this attack vector also.

[0]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/https-only-prefs

Re: Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

#19

Post by rosndo »

shp0ngle wrote: post #14

> The first benefits are authenticity and availability: if you are running Tor Browser and if you click/type in exactly the proper Onion address, you are guaranteed to be connected to what you expect — or not at all. What? Writing raw onion addresses is like writing raw IPv6 addresses. Nobody can remember then and check them. What is easier > https://nytimes.com or > ej3kv4ebuugcmuwxctx5ic7zxh73rnxt42soi3tdneu2c2em55…

> you are guaranteed to be connected to what you expect — or not at all.

Exactly the same guarantees are also achieved by putting your clearnet address on HSTS Preload lists, or by writing https:// in front of the url on the users side.

Re: Why offer an Onion Address rather than just encourage browsing-over-Tor?

#20

Post by bauruine »

heavyset_go wrote: post #4
nextaccountic wrote: post #2

> Using onion services mitigates attacks that can be executed by possibly-malicious “Tor Exit Nodes” — which, though rare, are not nonexistent Is there any evidence that the majority of exit nodes aren't malicious? There's only 300 or so in the US, 300 or so in Germany, and in other countries even less. What would it take for three letter agencies to compromise most of it? I mean, suppose all of the existing nodes we…

Even if every exit node in the US is operated by private people or organizations, courts can compel the node owners to work with the government and not talk about it.

Can you just shutdown your nodes or can they force you to continue? Best practice for relay operators is to just stop the operation altogether if the authorities force you to attack the users.
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