Is three hops enough? (was Re: Tor client over a SOCKS proxy, and Tor client running through another Tor Circuit)

[Paul Syverson]

On Fri, Apr 28, 2006 at 02:35:16PM -0400, Nick Mathewson wrote:
> 
> You can find out more about the last 25 years of anonymity research at
> http://freehaven.net/anonbib/ .
> 

To reinforce, most of what has been raised in this thread has been
raised (often years ago) and subjected to lots of published
analysis. The tradeoffs between anonymity and practicality continue to
evolve, but if you have a thought off the top of your head, there's a
good chance it's already reflected in the literature. Keep thinking
about it and raising questions/comments, but do also have a look at
the extensive research that's been done in this area.

One paper that isn't posted in the anonbib (yet) shows some timing
attacks confirmed via experiments on the Tor network and
countermeasures to them. See
http://www.onion-router.net/Publications.html#locating-hidden-servers

There were also a different sort of timing attack conducted on a
younger and much smaller Tor network. See
"Low-Cost Traffic Analysis of Tor" in the anonbib.

aloha,
Paul