[tor-talk] MTor (multicast tor), is it going to be released?

[Roger Dingledine]

On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 11:49:22PM -0700, Yuri wrote:
> Here is the white paper with MTor design: https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/popets.2015.2016.issue-2/popets-2016-0003/popets-2016-0003.pdf
> 
> And here is an implementation based on tor-0.2.3.25:
> https://github.com/multicastTor/multicastTor/tree/master/shadow/build/tor
> 
> But ChangeLog doesn't mention it, and there are no mentions of it on
> torproject.org.
> 
> So, what is MTor's status?

It's the standard story -- it's a research paper written by a research
group to show a concept, and then they moved on.

There is some code, but it was enough to do performance graphs, not
anything that they intended actual users to (be able to) use.

I don't remember the design in detail, but I remember based on the talk
at PETS thinking that they had really changed the threat model for Tor
to something much weaker, in exchange for better scalability in some
situations.

So, it is a fine idea to read about, and maybe it will spark some new
ideas when you read it, but it is not an obvious improvement for Tor in
terms of security, and also it was never intended to be an actual patch
that users could use.

All of that said, don't misunderstand me: yay research! If you haven't
read this blog post, check it out:
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-heart-pets-and-privacy-research-community

--Roger