r15533@catbus: nickm | 2007-10-04 12:30:21 -0400

Add 122-unnamed-flag.txt


svn:r11762
This commit is contained in:
Nick Mathewson 2007-10-04 16:36:53 +00:00
parent 6f7847b378
commit 9f9b729141
2 changed files with 83 additions and 0 deletions

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@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ Proposals by number:
119 New PROTOCOLINFO command for controllers [CLOSED]
120 Suicide descriptors when Tor servers stop [OPEN]
121 Hidden Service Authentication [OPEN]
122 Network status entries need a new Unnamed flag [OPEN]
Proposals by status:
@ -59,6 +60,7 @@ Proposals by status:
117 IPv6 exits
120 Suicide descriptors when Tor servers stop
121 Hidden Service Authentication
122 Network status entries need a new Unnamed flag
ACCEPTED:
101 Voting on the Tor Directory System
103 Splitting identity key from regularly used signing key

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@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
Filename: xxx-unnamed-flag.txt
Title: Network status entries need a new Unnamed flag
Version: $Revision$
Last-Modified: $Date$
Author: Roger Dingledine
Created: 04-Oct-2007
Status: Open
Overview:
Tor's directory authorities can give certain servers a "Named" flag
in the network-status entry, when they want to bind that nickname to
that identity key. This allows clients to specify a nickname rather
than an identity fingerprint and still be certain they're getting the
"right" server. As dir-spec.txt describes it,
Name X is bound to identity Y if at least one binding directory lists
it, and no directory binds X to some other Y'.
In practice, clients can refer to servers by nickname whether they are
Named or not; if they refer to nicknames that aren't Named, a complaint
shows up in the log asking them to use the identity key in the future
--- but it still works.
The problem? Imagine a Tor server with nickname Bob. Bob and his
identity fingerprint are registered in tor26's approved-routers
file, but none of the other authorities registered him. Imagine
there are several other unregistered servers also with nickname Bob
("the imposters").
While Bob is online, all is well: a) tor26 gives a Named flag to
the real one, and refuses to list the other ones; and b) the other
authorities list the imposters but don't give them a Named flag. Clients
who have all the network-statuses can compute which one is the real Bob.
But when the real Bob disappears and his descriptor expires? tor26
continues to refuse to list any of the imposters, and the other
authorities continue to list the imposters. Clients don't have any
idea that there exists a Named Bob, so they can ask for server Bob and
get one of the imposters. (A warning will also appear in their log,
but so what.)
The stopgap solution:
tor26 should start accepting and listing the imposters, but it should
assign them a new flag: "Unnamed". This would produce three cases from
the client perspective:
1) A unique Bob is listed as Named, and nobody lists that Bob as
Unnamed. Clients can refer to Bob by nickname and be confident.
2) Every Bob is listed by some authority as Unnamed. Clients asking
for Bob should get a warning in the log and their request should fail
("no such router").
3) At least one Bob is not listed by any authorities as Unnamed, but
there is no unique Named Bob. In this case we do what we did before
(currently "warn but allow it").
Problems not solved by this stopgap:
If tor26 is the only authority that provides a binding for Bob, when
tor26 goes offline we're back in our previous situation -- the imposters
can be referenced with a mere ignorable warning in the client's log.
If some other authority Names a different Bob, and tor26 goes offline,
then that other Bob becomes the unique Named Bob.
So be it. We should try to solve these one day, but there's no clear way
to do it that doesn't destroy usability in other ways, and if we want
to get the Unnamed flag into v3 network statuses we should add it soon.
Other benefits:
This new flag will allow people to operate servers that happen to have
the same nickname as somebody who registered their server two years ago
and left soon after. Right now there are dozens of nicknames that are
registered on all three binding directory authorities, yet haven't been
running for years. While it's bad that these nicknames are effectively
blacklisted from the network, the really bad part is that this logic
is really unintuitive to prospective new server operators.