Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

blog.torproject.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 60 posts

Re: Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

#31

Post by Zikes »

rocky1138 wrote: post #7
gonehome wrote: post #4

If you think the Tor project is working on an important problem, consider running a relay. It's inexpensive, easy to administer, no hassle (if not an exit) and I think the scale is such that a couple thousand additional relays would make a noticeable difference to the network. You can even have it AWS where it will get automatic updates with almost no effort: https://cloud.torproject.org/ If you want to run it on OS…

What sort of legal protections does Canada have for people running a Tor node?

A relay which is not an exit is practically zero risk. The design of the Tor system means you'll be receiving an encrypted packet from one source, unwrapping one layer of encryption, and passing it on to the next relay in the chain, with no knowledge of the original source, final destination, or true packet contents.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

#32

Post by gonehome »

devicenull wrote: post #13
gonehome wrote: post #4

If you think the Tor project is working on an important problem, consider running a relay. It's inexpensive, easy to administer, no hassle (if not an exit) and I think the scale is such that a couple thousand additional relays would make a noticeable difference to the network. You can even have it AWS where it will get automatic updates with almost no effort: https://cloud.torproject.org/ If you want to run it on OS…

> You can even have it AWS where it will get automatic updates with almost no effort: https://cloud.torproject.org/ I guess you didn't click on your own link.... > As of May 8, 2015, the Tor Cloud project has been discontinued.

Wow yeah - you're right, I haven't checked in on mine in a while and assumed it was good (just pasted the link).

Thanks for pointing that out.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

#33

Post by gonehome »

jolan wrote: post #29
gonehome wrote: post #4

If you think the Tor project is working on an important problem, consider running a relay. It's inexpensive, easy to administer, no hassle (if not an exit) and I think the scale is such that a couple thousand additional relays would make a noticeable difference to the network. You can even have it AWS where it will get automatic updates with almost no effort: https://cloud.torproject.org/ If you want to run it on OS…

> no hassle (if not an exit) Not 100% true, your server's IP will be banned along side the IPs of exit nodes. It seems a lot of blacklists don't bother to make the distinction. https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/2abne1/hulu_blocked_af... https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/doc/ListOf...

Good point - I did notice this with Hulu, but haven't seen it elsewhere.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

#34

Post by gonehome »

moe wrote: post #24
noondip wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/design-paper/tor-des... : A global passive adversary is the most commonly assumed threat when analyzing theoretical anonymity designs. But like all practical low-latency systems, Tor does not protect against such a strong adversary.

Since the global passive adversary is now a reality (NSA) it seems like Tor is broken by design.

It's extremely difficult to do (even for the NSA as the leaks mostly showed). Tor is by far the best option that exists today.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

#35

Post by gonehome »

jakobdabo wrote: post #22
gonehome wrote: post #4

If you think the Tor project is working on an important problem, consider running a relay. It's inexpensive, easy to administer, no hassle (if not an exit) and I think the scale is such that a couple thousand additional relays would make a noticeable difference to the network. You can even have it AWS where it will get automatic updates with almost no effort: https://cloud.torproject.org/ If you want to run it on OS…

Will running a relay decrease the chances of my guard nodes fingerprinting me (because of other people's injected traffic)? Or maybe the relay traffic is completely different and detectable from the the normal Tor usage traffic?

I'm speculating, but I'd suspect that your traffic connects and initially passes through your guard node while traffic passing through your relay is probably going to other nodes in the network (since guard nodes are used for initial connections and as a relay you're already the middle node).

In this case it wouldn't help conceal anything extra from your guard node.

For those who don't know, guard nodes are the nodes you initially connect to. In Tor once established, your first hop is always to the same node - this is because it's assumed some nodes are bad actors and if the first node is randomly selected each time your chance of eventually connecting to a node trying to collect information is high and partial compromise isn't much better than fully compromised.

By selecting and using one guard node for your initial connection it's either a bad actor or not, but if it isn't then you're good to go from then on.

When you run a relay if your relay is fast, stable and online for a while (60 days I think) the Tor network will automatically turn your relay into a guard.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

#36

Post by jlgaddis »

simoncion wrote: post #30
daveloyall wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am naive on this topic. Sincere question: don't these facts call the utility of SELinux and Tor into question? If the answer is "because math", well... I don't speak math. Being illerate in this manner, I must depend on the reputations of the parties involved (and the reputations of the parties that report who was involved!). So... Can a person who does not trust the NSA trust products they paid for?

> Can a person who does not trust the NSA trust products they paid for? Remember a couple of things: * The NSA relies on SELinux as a part of their internal computer security system. (However, as the NSA document leaks reveal, even the best system fails when poorly configured!) * Both SELinux and Tor are open source software, developed in the open. It's not unthinkable that there's a problem with the design of the so…

> The NSA relies on SELinux as a part of their internal computer security system.

And DISA STIGs (e.g., for RHEL) require SELinux to be enabled and enforcing.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

#37

Post by simoncion »

jlgaddis wrote: post #36
simoncion wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can a person who does not trust the NSA trust products they paid for? Remember a couple of things: * The NSA relies on SELinux as a part of their internal computer security system. (However, as the NSA document leaks reveal, even the best system fails when poorly configured!) * Both SELinux and Tor are open source software, developed in the open. It's not unthinkable that there's a problem with the design of the so…

> The NSA relies on SELinux as a part of their internal computer security system. And DISA STIGs (e.g., for RHEL) require SELinux to be enabled and enforcing.

Man, those STIGs are both a blessing and a curse for defense contractors.

A blessing, 'cause if your system is configured as per the STIG, there's not a damn thing the auditors can say when they roll through.

A curse for many folks deploying a Linux system, 'cause if your particular variant of Linux doesn't have a STIG, -regardless of how similar it is to one that does- IME there's next to nothing you can do to get an auditor to approve the hardening work you've done.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

#38

Post by kerkeslager »

gonehome wrote: post #4

If you think the Tor project is working on an important problem, consider running a relay. It's inexpensive, easy to administer, no hassle (if not an exit) and I think the scale is such that a couple thousand additional relays would make a noticeable difference to the network. You can even have it AWS where it will get automatic updates with almost no effort: https://cloud.torproject.org/ If you want to run it on OS…

My sibling comment points out that Tor Cloud is discontinued anyway, but I have some concerns about running a relay on a cloud provider. If a lot of people do this, it seems like it could pose a risk to Tor users' anonymity.

Tor works by bouncing traffic across a few nodes. In an ideal case, these nodes are run by different people in different countries, so even if a vulnerability in a server or legal action exposes the traffic across a single relay, the other nodes are not accessible to the attacker and the users' anonymity is maintained.

If a large number of people start running nodes on cloud services, then this centralizes the nodes under the control of Amazon or whatever cloud provider. Even if you trust Amazon (there are many use cases where you shouldn't) a vulnerability in their cloud services could expose data from ALL of the nodes running on their cloud. I haven't done any specific analysis on this, but my guess is that if 5% of the nodes in the Tor relay system had their data completely exposed, the nodes would include all the nodes along routes for a significant number of users. Combine this with traffic analysis and other attacks, and even more users could be de-anonymized.

I'm by no means an expert on Tor, so I can't say with confidence whether or not this is a concern. Perhaps someone with more knowledge will weigh in.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

#39

Post by pfg »

kerkeslager wrote: post #38
gonehome wrote: post #4

If you think the Tor project is working on an important problem, consider running a relay. It's inexpensive, easy to administer, no hassle (if not an exit) and I think the scale is such that a couple thousand additional relays would make a noticeable difference to the network. You can even have it AWS where it will get automatic updates with almost no effort: https://cloud.torproject.org/ If you want to run it on OS…

My sibling comment points out that Tor Cloud is discontinued anyway, but I have some concerns about running a relay on a cloud provider. If a lot of people do this, it seems like it could pose a risk to Tor users' anonymity. Tor works by bouncing traffic across a few nodes. In an ideal case, these nodes are run by different people in different countries, so even if a vulnerability in a server or legal action exposes…

One interesting thing I read recently is that, when building a circuit, Tor actively avoids picking more than one relay sharing a common attack vector.

Basically, it will not pick more than one relay with the same family id, router or /16 subnet.

Your point is still valid, since AWS and other big web hosts like OVH obviously have a lot of /16 subnets and distinct router addresses, but it's good to see this was anticipated by the design.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes in Libraries – Pilot

#40

Post by fweespeech »

wcchandler wrote: post #8
fweespeech wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't immunity to frivolous DMCA notices or the ability to ignore DMCA notices. By serving as an exit node, they are able to take it off premises. > The amendment provides that any such copy in a digital format must not be otherwise distributed in that format and must not be available to the public outside the premises of the library or archives.

Yeah, that's a specific example they point out in the guidelines. But there's another section that also applies to higher ed institutions which remits all damages and criminal charges if they prove they had no knowledge of it (actively) going on. That's the provision they'll probably hide under. edit: I should clarify, most DMCA complaints are from third parties who get paid from the settlements. Eliminating the fina…

Does that exemption hold true the second or third time they get hit with a legal notice about the same issue and their Tor exit node?
Post reply on HN