[tor-dev] Is anyone using tor-fw-helper? (Was Re: BOINC-based Tor wrapper)

[Yawning Angel]

On Thu, 23 Jul 2015 12:50:29 -0700
David Stainton <dstainton415 at gmail.com> wrote:

> >> But we have a gigantic userbase, and playing "consumer router
> >> support technician" for all of the ones that ship with broken
> >> uPnP/NAT-PMP implementations does not fill me with warm fuzzy
> >> feelings.
> >
> > I think this is a weird analysis. How many of those people even try
> > to be a relay or a bridge? Do we have numbers on that? Does the
> > support team object or are you objecting on their behalf? It just
> > seems too hand wavy for too many years to punt on dealing with NAT
> > properly.
> 
> If I understand things correctly the uPnP/NAT-PMP is in fact not the
> proper way to solve this problem because of the reasons Yawning
> mentioned. IPFS (interplanetary filesystem) currently solves this
> problem via some complicated protocol with the selection of a
> rendezvous server... similar to Tor hidden services. Clearly this is
> the correct way to solve the NAT problem. Am I wrong about this?

NAT-PMP (aka PCP) is less awful than uPnP is, may actually be ok (as
long as you don't try to remove port mappings due to a bug in older
miniupnpd), but is primarily an Apple-ism limiting it's usefulness.

OTOH, the far more widely supported/deployed uPnP, on consumer routers
at least, should be disabled and treated with extreme suspicion till
proven otherwise.

Regards,

-- 
Yawning Angel
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