Disguising a Tor node?

[rayservers]

Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 15, 2006 at 06:43:55AM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote:
>> OK, more dumb questions about hiding a Tor node.
> 
> Not dumb at all, it's just the Tor designers went for a public approach.
> However, as persecution seems to have started tightening thumbscrews on
> Tor operators, a slide into illegality (and a redesign towards more
> resilience) might be soon required. Of course, that's the whole idea
> behind harassing Tor operators -- move them into a dark niche, where
> they will be insigificant as providers of anonymity for the masses.
> 
> The criminals already have their zombie networks, and with even some
> superficial mixing finding a head in a global 100 kNode cloud is practically
> impossible. And I very much doubt anyone is seriously looking at all.
> Now anything that might disrupt installation of the Panopticon is another
> matter entirely. It's pretty obvious that a Second Great Depression
> is at the doors, and the democracy is failing, so I'm guessing the
> powers that be are preparing to intercept and quash the Internet
> as a grassroot signalling layer for protesters (something like in
> France, only not just immigrants, and on a vastly larger scale).
> 
>> Even though the current list of Tor node IP addresses is basically public,
>> I'm not 100% convinced it woul have to be.
> 
> The client builds the circuit, so it has to know the entire list of
> the nodes. The Tor server doesn't have any say in that matter, and that's
> actually good because you can operate a Tor network with a high fraction
> of Mallory nodes more or less safely.
> 
>> Well, exit and entry nodes perhaps have to be public, but what about nodes
>> inside the cloud? OK, anything sent to one of those nodes by an edge node
>> has to use a unencrypted IP address on the packet header, right? BUT, the
>> same machines that house the Tor nodes could (and probably do, right?)
>> house other services as well...a packet sent to the Tor node has to be sent
>> to the right socket and layer 4 service. Right? And THAT can be encrypted,
>> and probably already is by Tor nodes. (Now remember I'm not a datacom
>> guy...)
>>
>> If the list of interior Tor nodes is encrypted and only machine-readable by
>> other Tor nodes, AND if we have a few additional  services residing on the
> 
> I would be very surprised to learn that no TLAs are running nodes, or at
> least tap nodes (when you run a colo, you don't have a lot of control about
> physical security, so you have no idea whether there's a rootkit after
> it comes up after a yet another "outage").
> 
>> same machines as the Tor nodess, then a packet sent to a machine housing a
>> Tor node may or may not actually be going to a Tor node.
> 
> A much better idea is to make Tor a payload for a worm vector. I would
> be very surprised if spammers wouldn't start building their private Tor
> networks on zombies for control traffic, should persecution begin in
> earnest. These IRC bots and channels are awfully public, and a couple
> of trampolines is not sufficient number of indirection layers by far.
> 
>> If the operators of that machine are also unaware of the precise
>> service-bundle existing on the machine (not unreasonable as long as someone
>> is paying them for the consumed bandwidth) AND if packets destined for that
>> machine can reasonably be said to be accessing a non-TOR service AND if the
>> IP address list of interior TOR nodes is encrypted, is the Tor node now
>> disguised? Seems to me it would be difficult for some  authorities to track
>> down the location of some Tor nodes.
> 
> The best Tor node operator is the one who doesn't even know he's one.
> A network of million zombies where two new arise for one stricken down is
> effectively unkillable.
> 
> Btw, there's a Tor package for OpenWRT -- I have not verified it's
> working as adverized however -- the hardware *is* a bit tight. It would a
> perfect
> disposable node, meshable, and with no wires to trace.
> 
>> Or am I missing something? Like I said, I'm no datacom guy, but hiding a
>> Tor node deosn't seem impossible to me.
> 
> You'd need a redesign where servers with only partical network knowledge
> can randomly redirect packets, while still unable to gnaw off all the
> onion layers. Topologically, routing in random high-N spaces is not
> difficult.
> However, the network better be of considerable size. Enter the worm.

No, enter the "make a buck". The former approach will clog the Internet,
the latter will make it thrive.

Cheers,

---Venkat.