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Discussion => Security => Topic started by: maybejustonce on January 29, 2013, 05:02 am

Title: Clearnet
Post by: maybejustonce on January 29, 2013, 05:02 am
How come people always post a disclaimer when posting a clearnet website? It's kinda buggin me that idk some potentially crucial information about this practice
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: eddiethegun on January 29, 2013, 05:09 am
Yeah it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either when you're browsing a tor hidden service.

I suppose it's a warning not to open the link in a non-torified browser. In that circumstance, the website would obviously have your IP address. But who does that?
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: impkin on January 29, 2013, 12:50 pm
Tor doesn't encrypt, it anonymizes through obfuscation. Tor Hidden Services (like this forum) are safe because the connections never leave the Tor network, but as soon as you connect to a clearnet site without using HTTPS, whatever clearnet content you are requesting is exposed at the exit node (the last hop in the connection, and therefore the one that actually retrieves the page you request). So, it's therefore possible for someone to set up an ex'it node that monitors such connections. Supposedly it's also possible to correlate initial requests (your computer's request to the first node) with exit requests (the last connection making the request to the website) with some degree of accuracy, which would enable a motivated investigator to determine a statistical correlation in connection activity, thereby reducing or eliminating plausible deniability as your defense.

Also, any passwords etc. that you use through a clearnet connection (without HTTPS) are then also potentially discoverable by those who care to go through the trouble. So, for those who have cause to be super paranoid, accessing clearnet during the same session is carefully avoided and frequently switching Tor identities to change exit nodes is encouraged.

Still learning myself - I'm sure I'll be corrected by someone with more knowledge if a correction is necessary.

-Edited to clarify switching tor identities
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: kmfkewm on January 29, 2013, 01:05 pm
Tor doesn't encrypt, it anonymizes through obfuscation. Tor Hidden Services (like this forum) are safe because the connections never leave the Tor network, but as soon as you connect to a clearnet site without using HTTPS, whatever clearnet content you are requesting is exposed at the exit node (the last hop in the connection, and therefore the one that actually retrieves the page you request). So, it's therefore possible for someone to set up an ex'it node that monitors such connections. Supposedly it's also possible to correlate initial requests (your computer's request to the first node) with exit requests (the last connection making the request to the website) with some degree of accuracy, which would enable a motivated investigator to determine a statistical correlation in connection activity, thereby reducing or eliminating plausible deniability as your defense.

Also, any passwords etc. that you use through a clearnet connection (without HTTPS) are then also potentially discoverable by those who care to go through the trouble. So, for those who have cause to be super paranoid, accessing clearnet during the same session is carefully avoided and frequently switching Tor identities to change exit nodes is encouraged.

Still learning myself - I'm sure I'll be corrected by someone with more knowledge if a correction is necessary.

-Edited to clarify switching tor identities

Pretty much everything you said is correct, or correct to an extent. There are two things I would like to point out though. First of all, although it is true that an attacker who can watch your exit node and your entry node can link you to your destination with statistical attacks, the same thing is true if the attacker watches your entry node and your connection to the hidden service. It is a little bit harder for most attackers to know that they are watching your traffic arrive at a hidden service, but it is not at all outside the realm of possibility. Secondly, changing exit nodes (and thus circuits) frequently has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that a given attacker who controls an exit node you are using will not be able to spy on as much of your traffic, as you switch exit nodes early. Additionally, an attacker who owns an exit node you are using and who also owns the entry node you are using, may not be able to link you to as many of your destinations. The bad part about changing circuits frequently is that you will speed up the rate at which a given attacker will be able to spy on some of your exit traffic, or link you to some of your end destinations. The reason for this is simple: if you are currently using a good circuit, then changing your circuit can not give you a better circuit, but it can lead to you having a bad circuit. And as I said before, conversely, if you currently have a bad circuit the quicker you switch it the less damage the attacker who has compromised your current circuit can do. You should just let vidalia control your circuit rotation unless you have some reason to select a new identity, like a hidden service is not loading, or an exit is blocked by some destination server, or the circuit is going unbearably slow. I personally would be in favor of Tor extending the default circuit rotation time, perhaps from ten minutes to twenty or even thirty. The thing is, it doesn't matter if the DEA compromised one of your circuits to SR for five seconds or for fifty minutes, they still will have deanonymized you. By extending circuit rotation time it will increase the amount of time it takes the DEA to trace you. But extending the rotation time yourself, without it being applied to all Tor users, is a bad idea.
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: kmfkewm on January 29, 2013, 01:23 pm
Earlier on the Tor development community seemed to have been much more focused on preventing attackers who can see exit traffic (the exit node, destination sites) from linking exit traffic to a single entity, than they were focused on preventing attackers from tracing targets in relatively short amounts of time. This is somewhat evident in the fact that circuits used to rotate once every thirty seconds, which would have resulted in attackers being able to trace people roughly twenty times faster than they can today (particularly as there were not even entry guards initially). The reason they changed from thirty seconds to ten minutes was not even because of this fact, but rather because the volunteer nodes had trouble keeping up with the computational demands of doing so many cryptographic operations to create new circuits so quickly. I believe that recently they have been giving more thought to increasing untraceability, and they currently have plans to extend circuit rotation time past ten minutes, reduce the number of selected entry guards and add layered entry guards. I am quite glad that they are heading in this direction, as I believe that a large majority of those who use Tor would prefer the chance for very strong anonymity/privacy at the risk of having no anonymity/privacy versus having weaker anonymity with a stronger guarantee of some anonymity/privacy. This is particular true for people like vendors on SR, because like I said, even if your circuit is pwnt for two seconds you are just as fucked as if it is pwnt for two hours.
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: eddiethegun on January 29, 2013, 03:01 pm
Tor doesn't encrypt, it anonymizes through obfuscation. Tor Hidden Services (like this forum) are safe because the connections never leave the Tor network, but as soon as you connect to a clearnet site without using HTTPS, whatever clearnet content you are requesting is exposed at the exit node (the last hop in the connection, and therefore the one that actually retrieves the page you request). So, it's therefore possible for someone to set up an ex'it node that monitors such connections. Supposedly it's also possible to correlate initial requests (your computer's request to the first node) with exit requests (the last connection making the request to the website) with some degree of accuracy, which would enable a motivated investigator to determine a statistical correlation in connection activity, thereby reducing or eliminating plausible deniability as your defense.

Also, any passwords etc. that you use through a clearnet connection (without HTTPS) are then also potentially discoverable by those who care to go through the trouble. So, for those who have cause to be super paranoid, accessing clearnet during the same session is carefully avoided and frequently switching Tor identities to change exit nodes is encouraged.

Still learning myself - I'm sure I'll be corrected by someone with more knowledge if a correction is necessary.

-Edited to clarify switching tor identities

Tor certainly does encrypt. I guess you mean after leaving the exit node it doesn't encrypt. That part is true.
Quote
Also, any passwords etc. that you use through a clearnet connection (without HTTPS) are then also potentially discoverable by those who care to go through the trouble. So, for those who have cause to be super paranoid, accessing clearnet during the same session is carefully avoided and frequently switching Tor identities to change exit nodes is encouraged.

Obviously all the encryption, obfuscation, stealing wifi and turning off the lights isn't going to help you if you start sending out identifiable info. But an ACK to the telegraph.co.uk from a tor exit node is not a concern.
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: kmfkewm on January 29, 2013, 03:45 pm
I was going to point that out as well, but as he specified the traffic is visible to the exit node I assumed that he meant it is only not encrypted at the exit. Probably good that you clarified it though because it could mislead a noob into thinking Tor doesn't encrypt at all.
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: sonofanarchy on January 29, 2013, 04:08 pm
I have read some people say it is unwise to run a TOR browser and a regular browser such as firefox at the same time, is there any truth to this?  If so, wouldn't it be essentially the same as using a TOR browser one one computer connected to a router simultaneously while a different computer on the router is using a regular browser?  Or perhaps a game console connected to the router?  Thanks and sorry if this is a stupid question.
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: raynardine on January 29, 2013, 11:11 pm
I suppose it's a warning not to open the link in a non-torified browser. In that circumstance, the website would obviously have your IP address. But who does that?

Retards and children.
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: impkin on January 29, 2013, 11:37 pm
Tor certainly does encrypt. I guess you mean after leaving the exit node it doesn't encrypt. That part is true.

That is what I meant - appreciate the clarification and additional comments.
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: raynardine on January 30, 2013, 12:20 am
Earlier on the Tor development community seemed to have been much more focused on preventing attackers who can see exit traffic (the exit node, destination sites) from linking exit traffic to a single entity, than they were focused on preventing attackers from tracing targets in relatively short amounts of time.

They are moving in a good direction, with layered entry guards and longer circuit timeouts.

This is somewhat evident in the fact that circuits used to rotate once every thirty seconds, which would have resulted in attackers being able to trace people roughly twenty times faster than they can today (particularly as there were not even entry guards initially). The reason they changed from thirty seconds to ten minutes was not even because of this fact, but rather because the volunteer nodes had trouble keeping up with the computational demands of doing so many cryptographic operations to create new circuits so quickly. I believe that recently they have been giving more thought to increasing untraceability, and they currently have plans to extend circuit rotation time past ten minutes, reduce the number of selected entry guards and add layered entry guards.

This is good.

I am quite glad that they are heading in this direction, as I believe that a large majority of those who use Tor would prefer the chance for very strong anonymity/privacy at the risk of having no anonymity/privacy versus having weaker anonymity with a stronger guarantee of some anonymity/privacy. This is particular true for people like vendors on SR, because like I said, even if your circuit is pwnt for two seconds you are just as fucked as if it is pwnt for two hours.

Yeah. I would add that it might be a good idea to encourage the core Tor developers to develop better bridging, to focus more time and effort on "Bridge Communities," and better automatic hidden services, such as an Automatic Restart Manager in order to manage Tor using more than a single application, such as Vidalia.

It might be good to encourage not just Bridge Community development, but more decentralized directory services, easier and more portable directories, make it easier to run authoritative bridge directory nodes, etc.

One of the greatest weaknesses in Tor is that the directory server nodes are entirely centralized, and the bridge directories are also 100% centralized.

The concept of bridge communities would allow people like us to run smaller isolated bridge directories that would break up Tor into slightly more isolated pockets of Tor relay traffic, rather than one big pool where any single participant can see the entire pool of public relays.

It might also be prudent to encourage the Tor core developers to hurry up and develop ways to decentralize the main relay pool, so that you only get a small fraction of the total Tor relays, making it much harder to block or ban Tor relays.

It might be possible to make a multi-tiered system of Tor relays, where relays are organized into smaller groups, and the fastest and most powerful relays among each group bridges out among other powerful and fast relays for other groups.

That's just an idea. The Tor developers are all pretty divided about how to approach directory services and how to decentralize them.
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: kmfkewm on January 30, 2013, 07:33 am
The Tor devs are entirely against partial distribution of the main relay list. They are also entirely against further decentralization of the directory authority servers. Both of those things cause more harm than good, although it is the approach I2P has taken.
Title: Re: Clearnet
Post by: monrovia on January 31, 2013, 02:54 am
I have read some people say it is unwise to run a TOR browser and a regular browser such as firefox at the same time, is there any truth to this?  If so, wouldn't it be essentially the same as using a TOR browser one one computer connected to a router simultaneously while a different computer on the router is using a regular browser?  Or perhaps a game console connected to the router?  Thanks and sorry if this is a stupid question.

I read this a while back also(I think it was posted by Pine, so I would think it's highly likely to be true) and would also like a confirmation from someone with a little more technical know-how....