[tor-relays] A bit more evidence on circuit creation storms

[Roger Dingledine]

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 11:30:33PM -0400, krishna e bera wrote:
> On 13-08-29 10:35 PM, Gordon Morehouse wrote:
> > What on earth is causing so many circuit creation requests in such a
> > short timespan?
> 
> One possibility, if i recall correctly, is that the Tor that comes with
> the PirateBrowser bundle is configured to build single hop circuits.

As far as I can tell from the configuration files people have posted here,
this is not so. The Pirate Browser makes normal 3-hop circuits.  It just
includes a bunch of config lines that make you think it's doing 1-hop
circuits -- but we haven't written any Tor config options to make you
build 1-hop circuits. You'd have to hack your controller on the client
side (or the Tor software directly), and even then you could only use
the handful of relays that have allowed it.

As for the circuit create storm phenomenon... if this is in fact a
botnet signing up the million new users, and they're connecting to a
hidden service C&C site, then I would expect even fiercer create storms.

See also https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/9574

--Roger