[tor-relays] Thoughts on InspecTor?

[Scott Bennett]

     On Thu, 2 Feb 2012 00:25:19 -0500 Roger Dingledine <arma at mit.edu>
wrote:
>On Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 11:36:57PM -0500, Steve Snyder wrote:
>> This application claims to identify bad Tor nodes for the purpose of
>> excluding them from use:
>> 
>> http://xqz3u5drneuzhaeo.onion/users/badtornodes/
>> 
>> Anyone have any thoughts on this?
>
>In general it is a poor plan to change your routing strategy in a way
>that makes you different from most Tor users. If you change it enough,
>you end up making a signature for your behavior where an attacker can
>say "hey, that's the guy who never uses German relays". The result is
>that you harm your anonymity. Nobody has really researched how much harm
>comes from how much difference -- and we recommend against doing things
>that are poorly understood.
>
>>  The sum of bad-exit-flags (8),
>
>As far as I can tell,
>http://xqz3u5drneuzhaeo.onion/users/badtornodes/overview.html#blocking
>are all tiny relays so it doesn't much matter whether you badexit them
>(you're probably never going to encounter them in practice anyway).
>
>For the question of exit relays in Iran, see
>https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4207
>https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4923
>
     The latter ticket's discussion section is quite interesting.  After
reading through it, it seems to me that the problem in Roger's point C
would be best dealt with in vidalia without regard to IP address or
presumed country.  When asking whether the user wishes to run a relay,
vidalia's dialog could include an instruction something like this:

	"Before you decide to run a tor relay, please consider whether
	the government of the country where you live and/or would like
	to operate a relay might target you for any kind of abuse if
	that government noticed that you were running a tor relay."

As long as the people who have volunteered to provide translations for
vidalia's and/or tor's textual interactions with users have sufficient
skills to provide such a cautionary note in all of the most necessary
languages plus two or three languages spoken widely around the world,
then that should take care of the matter.  I share the concerns of both
Roger and Sebastian regarding undesirable potential results of automating
the rejection of entire countries of relays.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
**********************************************************************
* Internet:       bennett at cs.niu.edu                              *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
* "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good  *
* objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments *
* -- a standing army."                                               *
*    -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790         *
**********************************************************************