On Thu, 20 Oct 2005, loki tiwaz wrote:
hi,
That said, the certificate naming scheme may be way off, since there's
no concept of a valid certificate (I doubt verisign will want to sign
one for 786237261871621.onion :)
i am considering running an onion-based CA which could be used... i simply
need to make a script which allows a user to sign a certificate signing
request and produce a signed server key. the server key only needs to have
its onion address as content, nothing more is required, and a link to
import the CA key into the browser so that it can be trusted automatically
by the browser.
However, assuming the user installs your self-signed cert, it *should*
work the same unless there's something I'm missing.)
Of course, you're really just protecting content from being sniffed
between the user and the entry node (usually, the same machine, but not
always), and the exit node and the hidden service (presumably, you
control both).
This is my understanding of it -- if someone has a better one please
step on me without hesitation :)
yes, this is the case, and it is a valid reason to use ssl. in my opinion,
since tor already uses multi-layered encryption anyway, one more layer at
the core is not going to create that much of an extra load on the server,
and it means that there is no way the traffic can be sniffed at any point -
for example a trojan could sniff localhost traffic. also, using onion
routing defeats the one way in which SSL can be attacked, by
man-in-the-middle intermediaries on the network pathway, which of course
cannot be known within the tor network. Also, it should be noted that tor
exit nodes could potentially be modified to become men-in-the-middle,
although this would not be possible without compromising the key of the
server being contacted - another aspect of the advantage of using tor.
onion addresses are impossible to remember though - which brings me to
another idea - of a name resolution system within the tor network so
simpler names can be used. this would require a second directory system, i
don't know if it is practical or not, but i thought i should put the idea
out there because i2p has name resolution systems, and benig able to type
in oniondomainname.onion rather than u15syoa125au.onion would be nice. it
would increase the rate of take-up of hidden services, both use and hosting.
The other thing that could be interesting of course is an onion-only
search engine, which could either compliment or reduce the need for vanity
names.
Still, I don't see why the directory servers can't maintain this info. It
would have to (for the most part) be first-come first-served, and I
suppose some sort of uptime monitoring should also play a part (i.e. if
you don't use it for say 6 months, you lose it).
Shame there's not a whole lot of clients that make use of SRV records, as
an onion specifier in there could prove remarkably useful in some way.
--
"If you aren't going to try something, then we might as well just be
friends."
"We can't have that now, can we?"
-SK & Dan Mahoney, December 9, 1998
--------Dan Mahoney--------
Techie, Sysadmin, WebGeek
Gushi on efnet/undernet IRC
ICQ: 13735144 AIM: LarpGM
Site: http://www.gushi.org
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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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Dan Mahoney, System Admin