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650 lines
34 KiB
Plaintext
Filename: 121-hidden-service-authentication.txt
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Title: Hidden Service Authentication
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Version: $LastChangedRevision$
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Last-Modified: $LastChangedDate$
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Author: Tobias Kamm, Thomas Lauterbach, Karsten Loesing, Ferdinand Rieger,
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Christoph Weingarten
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Created: 10-Sep-2007
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Status: Open
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Change history:
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26-Sep-2007 Initial proposal for or-dev
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08-Dec-2007 Incorporated comments by Nick posted to or-dev on 10-Oct-2007
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15-Dec-2007 Rewrote complete proposal for better readability, modified
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authentication protocol, merged in personal notes
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24-Dec-2007 Replaced misleading term "authentication" by "authorization"
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and added some clarifications (comments by Sven Kaffille)
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Overview:
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This proposal deals with a general infrastructure for performing
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authorization (not necessarily implying authentication) of requests to
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hidden services at three points: (1) when downloading and decrypting
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parts of the hidden service descriptor, (2) at the introduction point,
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and (3) at Bob's onion proxy before contacting the rendezvous point. A
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service provider will be able to restrict access to his service at these
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three points to authorized clients only. Further, the proposal contains a
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first instance of an authorization protocol for the presented
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infrastructure.
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This proposal is based on v2 hidden service descriptors as described in
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proposal 114 and introduced in version 0.2.0.10-alpha.
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The proposal is structured as follows: The next section motivates the
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integration of authorization mechanisms in the hidden service protocol.
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Then we describe a general infrastructure for authorization in hidden
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services, followed by a specific authorization protocol for this
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infrastructure. At the end we discuss a number of attacks and non-attacks
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as well as compatibility issues.
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Motivation:
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The major part of hidden services does not require client authorization
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now and won't do so in the future. To the contrary, many clients would
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not want to be (pseudonymously) identifiable by the service (which
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is unavoidable to some extend), but rather use the service
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anonymously. These services are not addressed by this proposal.
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However, there may be certain services which are intended to be accessed
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by a limited set of clients only. A possible application might be a
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wiki or forum that should only be accessible for a closed user group.
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Another, less intuitive example might be a real-time communication
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service, where someone provides a presence and messaging service only to
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his buddies. Finally, a possible application would be a personal home
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server that should be remotely accessed by its owner.
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Performing authorization for a hidden service within the Tor network, as
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proposed here, offers a range of advantages compared to allowing all
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client connections in the first instance and deferring authorization to
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the transported protocol:
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(1) Reduced traffic: Unauthorized requests would be rejected as early as
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possible, thereby reducing the overall traffic in the network generated
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by establishing circuits and sending cells.
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(2) Better protection of service location: Unauthorized clients could not
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force Bob to create circuits to their rendezvous points, thus preventing
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the attack described by Øverlier and Syverson in their paper "Locating
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Hidden Servers" even without the need for guards.
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(3) Hiding activity: Apart from performing the actual authorization, a
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service provider could also hide the mere presence of his service from
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unauthorized clients when not providing hidden service descriptors to
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them and rejecting unauthorized requests already at the introduction
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point (ideally without leaking presence information at any of these
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points).
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(4) Better protection of introduction points: When providing hidden
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service descriptors to authorized clients only and encrypting the
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introduction points as described in proposal 114, the introduction points
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would be unknown to unauthorized clients and thereby protected from DoS
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attacks.
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(5) Protocol independence: Authorization could be performed for all
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transported protocols, regardless of their own capabilities to do so.
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(6) Ease of administration: A service provider running multiple hidden
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services would be able to configure access at a single place uniformly
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instead of doing so for all services separately.
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(7) Optional QoS support: Bob could adapt his node selection algorithm
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for building the circuit to Alice's rendezvous point depending on a
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previously guaranteed QoS level, thus providing better latency or
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bandwidth for selected clients.
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As a disadvantage of performing authorization within the Tor network can
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be seen that a hidden service cannot make use of authorization data in
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the transported protocol. Tor hidden services were designed to be
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independent of the transported protocol. Therefore it's only possible to
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either grant or deny access to the whole service, but not to specific
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resources of the service.
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Authorization often implies authentication, i.e. proving one's identity.
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However, when performing authorization within the Tor network, untrusted
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points should not gain any useful information about the identities of
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communicating parties, neither server nor client. A crucial challenge is
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to remain anonymous towards directory servers and introduction points.
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However, trying to hide identity from the hidden service is a futile
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task, because a client would never know if he is the only authorized
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client and therefore perfectly identifiable. Therefore, hiding identity
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from the hidden service is not aimed by this proposal.
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The current implementation of hidden services does not provide any kind
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of authorization. The hidden service descriptor version 2, introduced by
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proposal 114, was designed to use a descriptor cookie for downloading and
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decrypting parts of the descriptor content, but this feature is not yet
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in use. Further, most relevant cell formats specified in rend-spec
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contain fields for authorization data, but those fields are neither
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implemented nor do they suffice entirely.
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Details:
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1 General infrastructure for authorization to hidden services
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We spotted three possible authorization points in the hidden service
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protocol:
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(1) when downloading and decrypting parts of the hidden service
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descriptor,
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(2) at the introduction point, and
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(3) at Bob's onion proxy before contacting the rendezvous point.
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The general idea of this proposal is to allow service providers to
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restrict access to all of these points to authorized clients only.
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1.1 Client authorization at directory
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Since the implementation of proposal 114 it is possible to combine a
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hidden service descriptor with a so-called descriptor cookie. If done so,
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the descriptor cookie becomes part of the descriptor ID, thus having an
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effect on the storage location of the descriptor. Someone who has learned
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about a service, but is not aware of the descriptor cookie, won't be able
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to determine the descriptor ID and download the current hidden service
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descriptor; he won't even know whether the service has uploaded a
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descriptor recently. Descriptor IDs are calculated as follows (see
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section 1.2 of rend-spec for the complete specification of v2 hidden
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service descriptors):
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descriptor-id =
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H(permanent-id | H(time-period | descriptor-cookie | replica))
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The second purpose of the descriptor cookie is to encrypt the list of
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introduction points, including optional authorization data. Hence, the
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hidden service directories won't learn any introduction information from
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storing a hidden service descriptor. This feature is implemented but
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unused at the moment, so that this proposal will harness the advantages
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of proposal 114.
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The descriptor cookie can be used for authorization by keeping it secret
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from everyone but authorized clients. A service could then decide whether
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to publish hidden service descriptors using that descriptor cookie later
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on. An authorized client being aware of the descriptor cookie would be
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able to download and decrypt the hidden service descriptor.
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The number of concurrently used descriptor cookies for one hidden service
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is not restricted. A service could use a single descriptor cookie for all
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users, a distinct cookie per user, or something in between, like one
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cookie per group of users. It is up to the specific protocol and how it
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is applied by a service provider. However, we advise to use a small
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number of descriptor cookies for efficiency reasons and for improving the
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ability to hide presence of a service (see security implications at the
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end of this document).
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Although this part of the proposal is meant to describe a general
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infrastructure for authorization, changing the way of using the
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descriptor cookie to look up hidden service descriptors, e.g. applying
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some sort of asymmetric crypto system, would require in-depth changes
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that would be incompatible to v2 hidden service descriptors. On the
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contrary, using another key for en-/decrypting the introduction point
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part of a hidden service descriptor, e.g. a different symmetric key or
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asymmetric encryption, would be easy to implement and compatible to v2
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hidden service descriptors as understood by hidden service directories
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(clients and servers would have to be upgraded anyway for using the new
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features).
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1.2 Client authorization at introduction point
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The next possible authorization point after downloading and decrypting
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a hidden service descriptor is the introduction point. It is important
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for authorization, because it bears the last chance of hiding presence
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of a hidden service from unauthorized clients. Further, performing
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authorization at the introduction point might reduce traffic in the
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network, because unauthorized requests would not be passed to the
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hidden service. This applies to those clients who are aware of a
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descriptor cookie and thereby of the hidden service descriptor, but do
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not have authorization data to pass the introduction point or access the
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service (such a situation might occur when authorization data for
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authorization at the directory is not issued on a per-user base as
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opposed to authorization data for authorization at the introduction
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point).
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It is important to note that the introduction point must be considered
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untrustworthy, and therefore cannot replace authorization at the hidden
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service itself. Nor should the introduction point learn any sensitive
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identifiable information from either server or client.
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In order to perform authorization at the introduction point, three
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message formats need to be modified: (1) v2 hidden service descriptors,
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(2) ESTABLISH_INTRO cells, and (3) INTRODUCE1 cells.
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A v2 hidden service descriptor needs to contain authorization data that
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is introduction-point-specific and sometimes also authorization data
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that is introduction-point-independent. Therefore, v2 hidden service
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descriptors as specified in section 1.2 of rend-spec already contain two
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reserved fields "intro-authorization" and "service-authorization"
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(originally, the names of these fields were "...-authentication")
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containing an authorization type number and arbitrary authorization
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data. We propose that authorization data consists of base64 encoded
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objects of arbitrary length, surrounded by "-----BEGIN MESSAGE-----" and
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"-----END MESSAGE-----". This will increase the size of hidden service
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descriptors, which however is possible, as there is no strict upper
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limit.
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The current ESTABLISH_INTRO cells as described in section 1.3 of
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rend-spec don't contain either authorization data or version
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information. Therefore, we propose a new version 1 of the ESTABLISH_INTRO
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cells adding these two issues as follows:
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V Format byte: set to 255 [1 octet]
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V Version byte: set to 1 [1 octet]
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KL Key length [2 octets]
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PK Bob's public key [KL octets]
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HS Hash of session info [20 octets]
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AUTHT The auth type that is supported [1 octet]
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AUTHL Length of auth data [2 octets]
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AUTHD Auth data [variable]
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SIG Signature of above information [variable]
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From the format it is possible to determine the maximum allowed size for
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authorization data: given the fact that cells are 512 octets long, of
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which 498 octets are usable (see section 6.1 of tor-spec), and assuming
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1024 bit = 128 octet long keys, there are 215 octets left for
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authorization data. Hence, authorization protocols are bound to use no
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more than these 215 octets, regardless of the number of clients that
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shall be authenticated at the introduction point. Otherwise, one would
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need to send multiple ESTABLISH_INTRO cells or split them up, what we do
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not specify here.
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In order to understand a v1 ESTABLISH_INTRO cell, the implementation of
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a relay must have a certain Tor version, which would probably be some
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0.2.1.x. Hidden services need to be able to distinguish relays being
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capable of understanding the new v1 cell formats and perform
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authorization. We propose to use the version number that is contained in
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networkstatus documents to find capable introduction points.
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The current INTRODUCE1 cells as described in section 1.8 of rend-spec is
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not designed to carry authorization data and has no version number, too.
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We propose the following version 1 of INTRODUCE1 cells:
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Cleartext
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V Version byte: set to 1 [1 octet]
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PK_ID Identifier for Bob's PK [20 octets]
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AUTHT The auth type that is supported [1 octet]
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AUTHL Length of auth data [2 octets]
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AUTHD Auth data [variable]
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Encrypted to Bob's PK:
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(RELAY_INTRODUCE2 cell)
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The maximum length of contained authorization data depends on the length
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of the contained INTRODUCE2 cell. A calculation follows below when
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describing the INTRODUCE2 cell format we propose to use.
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Unfortunately, v0 INTRODUCE1 cells consist only of a fixed-size,
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seemingly random PK_ID, followed by the encrypted INTRODUCE2 cell. This
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makes it impossible to distinguish v0 INTRODUCE1 cells from any later
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format. In particular, it is not possible to introduce some kind of
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format and version byte for newer versions of this cell. That's probably
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where the comment "[XXX011 want to put intro-level auth info here, but no
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version. crap. -RD]" that was part of rend-spec some time ago comes from.
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Processing of v1 INTRODUCE1 cells therefore requires knowledge about the
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context in which they are used. As a result, we propose that when
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receiving a v1 ESTABLISH_INTRO cell, an introduction point only accepts
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v1 INTRODUCE1 cells later on. Hence, the same introduction point cannot
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be used to accept both v0 and v1 INTRODUCE1 cells for the same service.
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(Another solution would be to distinguish v0 and v1 INTRODUCE1 cells by
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their size, as v0 INTRODUCE1 cells can only have specific cell sizes,
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depending on the version of the contained INTRODUCE2 cell; however, this
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approach does not appear very clean.)
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1.3 Client authorization at hidden service
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The time when a hidden service receives an INTRODUCE2 cell constitutes
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the last possible authorization point during the hidden service
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protocol. Performing authorization here is easier than at the other two
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authorization points, because there are no possibly untrusted entities
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involved.
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In general, a client that is successfully authorized at the introduction
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point should be granted access at the hidden service, too. Otherwise, the
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client would receive a positive INTRODUCE_ACK cell from the introduction
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point and conclude that it may connect to the service, but the request
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will be dropped without notice. This would appear as a failure to
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clients. Therefore, the number of cases in which a client successfully
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passes the introduction point, but fails at the hidden service should be
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zero. However, this does not lead to the conclusion, that the
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authorization data used at the introduction point and the hidden service
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must be the same, but only that both authorization data should lead to
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the same authorization result.
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Authorization data is transmitted from client to server via an
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INTRODUCE2 cell that is forwarded by the introduction point. There are
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versions 0 to 2 specified in section 1.8 of rend-spec, but none of these
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contains fields for carrying authorization data. We propose a slightly
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modified version of v3 INTRODUCE2 cells that is specified in section
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1.8.1 and which is not implemented as of December 2007. The only change
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is to switch the lengths of AUTHT and AUTHL, which we assume to be a typo
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in current rend-spec. The proposed format of v3 INTRODUCE2 cells is as
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follows:
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VER Version byte: set to 3. [1 octet]
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ATYPE An address type (typically 4) [1 octet]
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ADDR Rendezvous point's IP address [4 or 16 octets]
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PORT Rendezvous point's OR port [2 octets]
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AUTHT The auth type that is supported [1 octet]
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AUTHL Length of auth data [2 octets]
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AUTHD Auth data [variable]
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ID Rendezvous point identity ID [20 octets]
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KLEN Length of onion key [2 octets]
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KEY Rendezvous point onion key [KLEN octets]
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RC Rendezvous cookie [20 octets]
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g^x Diffie-Hellman data, part 1 [128 octets]
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The maximum possible length of authorization data is related to the
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enclosing INTRODUCE1 cell. A v3 INTRODUCE2 cell with IPv6 address and
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1024 bit = 128 octets long public keys without any authorization data
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occupies 321 octets, plus 58 octets for hybrid public key encryption (see
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section 5.1 of tor-spec on hybrid encryption of CREATE cells). The
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surrounding v1 INTRODUCE1 cell requires 24 octets. This leaves only 95
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of the 498 available octets free, which must be shared between
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authorization data to the introduction point _and_ to the hidden
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service.
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When receiving a v3 INTRODUCE2 cell, Bob checks whether a client has
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provided valid authorization data to him. He will only then build a
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circuit to the provided rendezvous point and otherwise will drop the
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cell.
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There might be several attacks based on the idea of replaying existing
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cells to the hidden service. In particular, someone (the introduction
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point or an evil authenticated client) might replay valid INTRODUCE2
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cells to make the hidden service build an arbitrary number of circuits to
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(maybe long gone) rendezvous points. Therefore, we propose that hidden
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services maintain a history of received INTRODUCE2 cells within the last
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hour and only accept INTRODUCE2 cells matching the following rules:
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(1) a maximum of 3 cells coming from the same client and containing the
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same rendezvous cookie, and
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(2) a maximum of 10 cells coming from the same client with different
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rendezvous cookies.
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This allows a client to retry connection establishment using the same
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rendezvous point for 3 times and a total number of 10 connection
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establishments (not requests in the transported protocol) per hour.
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1.4 Summary of authorization data fields
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In summary, the proposed descriptor format and cell formats provide the
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following fields for carrying authorization data:
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(1) The v2 hidden service descriptor contains:
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- a descriptor cookie that is used for the lookup process, and
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- an arbitrary encryption schema to ensure authorization to access
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introduction information (currently symmetric encryption with the
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descriptor cookie).
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(2) For performing authorization at the introduction point we can use:
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- the fields intro-authorization and service-authorization in
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hidden service descriptors,
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- a maximum of 215 octets in the ESTABLISH_INTRO cell, and
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- one part of 95 octets in the INTRODUCE1 cell.
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(3) For performing authorization at the hidden service we can use:
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- the fields intro-authorization and service-authorization in
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hidden service descriptors,
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- the other part of 95 octets in the INTRODUCE2 cell.
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It will also still be possible to access a hidden service without any
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authorization or only use a part of the authorization infrastructure.
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However, this requires to consider all parts of the infrastructure. For
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example, authorization at the introduction point relying on confidential
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intro-authorization data transported in the hidden service descriptor
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cannot be performed without using an encryption schema for introduction
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information.
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1.5 Managing authorization data at servers and clients
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In order to provide authorization data at the hidden server and the
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authenticated clients, we propose to use files---either the tor
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configuration file or separate files. In the latter case a hidden server
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would use one file per provided service, and a client would use one file
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per server she wants to access. The exact format of these special files
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depends on the authorization protocol used.
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Currently, rend-spec contains the proposition to encode client-side
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authorization data in the URL, like in x.y.z.onion. This was never used
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and is also a bad idea, because in case of HTTP the requested URL may be
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contained in the Host and Referer fields.
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2 An authorization protocol based on group and user passwords
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In the following we discuss an authorization protocol for the proposed
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authorization architecture that performs authorization at all three
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proposed authorization points. The protocol relies on two symmetrically
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shared keys: a group key and a user key. The reason for this separation
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as compared to using a single key for each user is the fact that the
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number of descriptor cookies should be limited, so that the group key
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will be used for authenticating at the directory, whereas two keys
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derived from the user key will be used for performing authorization at
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the introduction and the hidden service.
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2.1 Client authorization at directory
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The server creates groups of users that shall be able to access his
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service. He provides all users of a certain group with the same group key
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which is a password of arbitrary length.
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The group key is used as input to derive a 128 bit descriptor cookie from
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it. We propose to apply a secure hash function and use the first 128 bits
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of output:
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descriptor-cookie = H(group-key)
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Hence, there will be a distinct hidden service descriptor for every group
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of users. All descriptors contain the same introduction points and the
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authorization data required by the users of the given group. Whenever a
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server decides to remove authorization for a group, he can simply stop
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publishing hidden service descriptors using the descriptor cookie.
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2.2 Client authorization at introduction point
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The idea for authenticating at the introduction point is borrowed from
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authorization at the rendezvous point using a rendezvous cookie. A
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rendezvous cookie is created by the client and encrypted for the server
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in order to authenticate the server at the rendezvous point. Likewise,
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the so-called introduction cookie is created by the server and encrypted
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for the client in order to authenticate the client at the introduction
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point.
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More precise, the server creates a new introduction cookie when
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establishing an introduction point and includes it in the ESTABLISH_INTRO
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cell that it sends to the introduction point. This introduction cookie
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will be used by all clients during the complete time of using this
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introduction point. The server then encrypts the introduction cookie for
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all authorized clients (as described in the next paragraph) and includes
|
|
it in the introduction-point-specific part of the hidden service
|
|
descriptor. A client reads and decrypts the introduction cookie from the
|
|
hidden service descriptor and includes it in the INTRODUCE1 cell that it
|
|
sends to the introduction point. The introduction point can then compare
|
|
the introduction cookie included in the INTRODUCE1 cell with the value
|
|
that it previously received in the ESTABLISH_INTRO cell. If both values
|
|
match, the introduction point passes the INTRODUCE2 cell to the hidden
|
|
service.
|
|
|
|
For the sake of simplicity, the size of an introduction cookie should be
|
|
only 16 bytes so that they can be encrypted using AES-128 without using
|
|
a block mode. Although rendezvous cookies are 20 bytes long, the 16 bytes
|
|
of an introduction cookie should still provide similar, or at least
|
|
sufficient security.
|
|
|
|
Encryption of the introduction cookie is done on a per user base. Every
|
|
client shares a password of arbitrary length with the server, which is
|
|
the so-called user key. The server derives a symmetric key from the
|
|
client's user key by applying a secure hash function and using the first
|
|
128 bits of output as follows:
|
|
|
|
encryption-key = H(user-key | "INTRO")
|
|
|
|
It is important that the encryption key does not allow any inference on
|
|
the user key, because the latter will also be used for authorization at
|
|
the hidden service. This is ensured by applying the secure one-way
|
|
function H.
|
|
|
|
The 16 bytes long, symmetrically encrypted introduction cookies are
|
|
encoded in binary form in the authorization data object of a hidden
|
|
service descriptor. Additionally, for every client there is a 20 byte
|
|
long client identifier that is also derived from the user key, so that
|
|
the client can identify which value to decrypt. The client identifier is
|
|
determined as follows:
|
|
|
|
client-id = H(user-key | "CLIENT")
|
|
|
|
The authorization data encoded to the hidden service descriptor consists
|
|
of the concatenation of pairs consisting of 20 byte client identifiers
|
|
and 16 byte encrypted introduction cookies. The authorization type
|
|
number for the encrypted introduction cookies as well as for
|
|
ESTABLISH_INTRO and INTRODUCE1 cells is "1".
|
|
|
|
2.3 Client authorization at hidden service
|
|
|
|
Authorization at the hidden service also makes use of the user key,
|
|
because whoever is authorized to pass the introduction point shall be
|
|
authorized to access the hidden service. Therefore, the server and client
|
|
derive a common value from the user key, which is called service cookie
|
|
and which is 20 bytes long:
|
|
|
|
service-cookie = H(user-key | "SERVICE")
|
|
|
|
The client is supposed to include this service cookie, preceded by the 20
|
|
bytes long client ID, in INTRODUCE2 cells that it sends to the server.
|
|
The server compares authorization data of incoming INTRODUCE2 cells with
|
|
the locally stored value that it would expect. The authorization type
|
|
number of this protocol for INTRODUCE2 cells is "1".
|
|
|
|
Passing a derived value of a client's user key will make clients
|
|
identifiable to the hidden service. Although there might be ways to limit
|
|
identifiability, an authorized client can never be sure that he stays
|
|
anonymous to the hidden service. For example, if we created a service
|
|
cookie that is the same for all users and encrypted it for all users, and
|
|
if we further included a checksum of this service cookie in the
|
|
descriptor to prove that all users have the same value, a client would
|
|
never know if he is the only valid user contained in this descriptor,
|
|
with the other users only be fakes created by the hidden service.
|
|
Therefore, we did not make attempts to hide a client's identity from a
|
|
hidden service. Another reason was that we would not be able to apply a
|
|
connection limit of 10 requests per hour and user that helps prevent some
|
|
threats.
|
|
|
|
2.4 Providing authorization data
|
|
|
|
The authorization data that needs to be provided by servers consists of
|
|
a number of group keys, each having a number of user keys assigned. These
|
|
data items could be provided by two new configuration options
|
|
"HiddenServiceAuthGroup group-name group-key" and "HiddenServiceAuthUser
|
|
user-name user-key" with the semantics that a group contains all users
|
|
directly following the group key definition and before reaching the next
|
|
group key definition for a hidden service.
|
|
|
|
On client side, authorization data also consists of a group and a user
|
|
key. Therefore, a new configuration option "HiddenServiceAuthClient
|
|
onion-address group-key user-key" could be introduced that could be
|
|
written to any place in the configuration file. Whenever the user would
|
|
try to access the given onion address, the given group and user key
|
|
would be used for authorization.
|
|
|
|
Security implications:
|
|
|
|
In the following we want to discuss attacks and non-attacks by dishonest
|
|
entities in the presented infrastructure and specific protocol. These
|
|
security implications would have to be verified once more when adding
|
|
another protocol. The dishonest entities (theoretically) include the
|
|
hidden server itself, the authenticated clients, hidden service directory
|
|
nodes, introduction points, and rendezvous points. The relays that are
|
|
part of circuits used during protocol execution, but never learn about
|
|
the exchanged descriptors or cells by design, are not considered.
|
|
Obviously, this list makes no claim to be complete. The discussed attacks
|
|
are sorted by the difficulty to perform them, in ascending order,
|
|
starting with roles that everyone could attempt to take and ending with
|
|
partially trusted entities abusing the trust put in them.
|
|
|
|
(1) A hidden service directory could attempt to conclude presence of a
|
|
server from the existence of a locally stored hidden service descriptor:
|
|
This passive attack is possible, because descriptors need to contain a
|
|
publicly visible signature of the server (see proposal 114 for a more
|
|
extensive discussion of the v2 descriptor format). A possible protection
|
|
would be to reduce the number of concurrently used descriptor cookies and
|
|
increase the number of hidden service directories in the network.
|
|
|
|
(2) A hidden service directory could try to break the descriptor cookies
|
|
of locally stored descriptors: This attack can be performed offline. The
|
|
only useful countermeasure against it might be using safe passwords that
|
|
are generated by Tor.
|
|
|
|
(3) An introduction point could try to identify the pseudonym of the
|
|
hidden service on behalf of which it operates: This is impossible by
|
|
design, because the service uses a fresh public key for every
|
|
establishment of an introduction point (see proposal 114) and the
|
|
introduction point receives a fresh introduction cookie, so that there is
|
|
no identifiable information about the service that the introduction point
|
|
could learn. The introduction point cannot even tell if client accesses
|
|
belong to the same client or not, nor can it know the total number of
|
|
authorized clients. The only information might be the pattern of
|
|
anonymous client accesses, but that is hardly enough to reliably identify
|
|
a specific server.
|
|
|
|
(4) An introduction point could want to learn the identities of accessing
|
|
clients: This is also impossible by design, because all clients use the
|
|
same introduction cookie for authorization at the introduction point.
|
|
|
|
(5) An introduction point could try to replay a correct INTRODUCE1 cell
|
|
to other introduction points of the same service, e.g. in order to force
|
|
the service to create a huge number of useless circuits: This attack is
|
|
not possible by design, because INTRODUCE1 cells need to contain an
|
|
introduction cookie that is different for every introduction point.
|
|
|
|
(6) An introduction point could attempt to replay a correct INTRODUCE2
|
|
cell to the hidden service, e.g. for the same reason as in the last
|
|
attack: This attack is very limited by the fact that a server will only
|
|
accept 3 INTRODUCE2 cells containing the same rendezvous cookie and drop
|
|
all further replayed cells.
|
|
|
|
(7) An introduction point could block client requests by sending either
|
|
positive or negative INTRODUCE_ACK cells back to the client, but without
|
|
forwarding INTRODUCE2 cells to the server: This attack is an annoyance
|
|
for clients, because they might wait for a timeout to elapse until trying
|
|
another introduction point. However, this attack is not introduced by
|
|
performing authorization and it cannot be targeted towards a specific
|
|
client. A countermeasure might be for the server to periodically perform
|
|
introduction requests to his own service to see if introduction points
|
|
are working correctly.
|
|
|
|
(8) The rendezvous point could attempt to identify either server or
|
|
client: No, this remains impossible as it was before, because the
|
|
rendezvous cookie does not contain any identifiable information.
|
|
|
|
(9) An authenticated client could try to break the encryption keys of the
|
|
other authenticated clients that have their introduction cookies
|
|
encrypted in the hidden service descriptor: This known-plaintext attack
|
|
can be performed offline. The only useful countermeasure against it could
|
|
be safe passwords that are generated by Tor. However, the attack would
|
|
not be very useful as long as encryption keys do not reveal information
|
|
on the contained user key.
|
|
|
|
(10) An authenticated client could swamp the server with valid INTRODUCE1
|
|
and INTRODUCE2 cells, e.g. in order to force the service to create
|
|
useless circuits to rendezvous points; as opposed to an introduction
|
|
point replaying the same INTRODUCE2 cell, a client could include a new
|
|
rendezvous cookie for every request: The countermeasure for this attack
|
|
is the restriction to 10 connection establishments per client and hour.
|
|
|
|
(11) An authenticated client could attempt to break the service cookie of
|
|
another authenticated client to obtain access at the hidden service: This
|
|
requires a brute-force online attack. There are no countermeasures
|
|
provided, but the question arises whether the outcome of this attack is
|
|
worth the cost. The service cookie from one authenticated client is as
|
|
good as from another, with the only exception of possible better QoS
|
|
properties of certain clients.
|
|
|
|
Compatibility:
|
|
|
|
An implementation of this proposal would require changes to hidden
|
|
servers and clients to process authorization data and encode and
|
|
understand the new formats. However, both servers and clients would
|
|
remain compatible to regular hidden services without authorization.
|
|
|
|
Further, the implementation of introduction points would have to be
|
|
changed, so that they understand the new cell versions and perform
|
|
authorization. But again, the new introduction points would remain
|
|
compatible to the existing hidden service protocol.
|