<html><head></head><body><div class="ydp1e3253a0yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"><div><div>Neel,</div><div><br></div><div>I get the security vs usability considerations between centralized vs decentralized (or in the case of Tor <span>semi-decentralized) networks. However, at a minimum, doesn't it make sense to exclude publishing address information from Tor metrics, etc, as to stop giving censorship organizations a free handout? Force them to invest resources to setup distributed Tor relays to glean addresses asynchronously in the wild. As it stands, all they have to do is write a simple bot to extract the synchronously published data on a daily basis.</span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>It seems to be an inherent obstacle in design attempting to anonymize a sub-network within an established known super-network.</span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>Thank you for your response.</span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>Respectfully,</span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div>Gary</div><div class="ydp1e3253a0signature">—<br>This Message Originated by the Sun.<br>iBigBlue 63W Solar Array (~12 Hour Charge)<br>+ 2 x Charmast 26800mAh Power Banks<br>= iPhone XS Max 512GB (~2 Weeks Charged)</div></div>
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On Thursday, December 23, 2021, 10:14:05 PM PST, Neel Chauhan <neel@neelc.org> wrote:
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<div><div dir="ltr">On 2021-12-22 22:42, Gary C. New via tor-relays wrote:<br clear="none">> I know it might be a fundamental change to the Tor network, but would<br clear="none">> it be possible to obfuscate the Tor bridge/relay addresses with their<br clear="none">> respective fingerprints; similar, to the I2P network? I've often<br clear="none">> thought that this aspect of the I2P network is one that is implemented<br clear="none">> well. Perhaps Directory Authorities could preform fingerprint to<br clear="none">> address resolution? I think it would be extremely beneficial if<br clear="none">> neither bridge or relay addresses were published in the wild. It would<br clear="none">> make great strides in further buffering the Tor network from various<br clear="none">> black-listing/censorship techniques.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">The thing is, while Tor itself is decentralized, the directory <br clear="none">authorities and fallback directories are not.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">For a Tor client to bootstrap, you need a list of relays to be able to <br clear="none">connect to. And in turn you have to contact the dirauths or the <br clear="none">fallbacks.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">While you could use an I2P-style or more recently blockchain-style <br clear="none">setup, I believe there was a reason for Tor to use centralized dirauths.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">I can't seem to find the article/FAQ right now, even though I had it a <br clear="none">few years ago. I'm guessing it's to prevent malicious dirauths, unlike <br clear="none">how Bitcoin could get manipulated by bad actors with a decentralized <br clear="none">authority system.<div class="ydp1e3253a0yqt9971293856" id="ydp1e3253a0yqtfd11490"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">> Respectfully,<br clear="none">> <br clear="none">> Gary</div><br clear="none"><br clear="none">-Neel<div class="ydp1e3253a0yqt9971293856" id="ydp1e3253a0yqtfd57623"><br clear="none"></div></div></div>
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