commit 1f52ffadc92adaa666d738b3a76ad4d2b603e968 Author: George Kadianakis <desnacked@riseup.net> Date: Tue Sep 22 14:22:15 2020 +0300 Add proposal #327: "A First Take at PoW Over Introduction Circuits" --- proposals/327-pow-over-intro.txt | 1129 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 1129 insertions(+) diff --git a/proposals/327-pow-over-intro.txt b/proposals/327-pow-over-intro.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb58a7d --- /dev/null +++ b/proposals/327-pow-over-intro.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1129 @@ +Filename: 327-pow-over-intro.txt +Title: A First Take at PoW Over Introduction Circuits +Author: George Kadianakis, Mike Perry, David Goulet, tevador +Created: 2 April 2020 +Status: Draft + +0. Abstract + + This proposal aims to thwart introduction flooding DoS attacks by introducing + a dynamic Proof-Of-Work protocol that occurs over introduction circuits. + +1. Motivation + + So far our attempts at limiting the impact of introduction flooding DoS + attacks on onion services has been focused on horizontal scaling with + Onionbalance, optimizing the CPU usage of Tor and applying congestion control + using rate limiting. While these measures move the goalpost forward, a core + problem with onion service DoS is that building rendezvous circuits is a + costly procedure both for the service and for the network. For more + information on the limitations of rate-limiting when defending against DDoS, + see [REF_TLS_1]. + + If we ever hope to have truly reachable global onion services, we need to + make it harder for attackers to overload the service with introduction + requests. This proposal achieves this by allowing onion services to specify + an optional dynamic proof-of-work scheme that its clients need to participate + in if they want to get served. + + With the right parameters, this proof-of-work scheme acts as a gatekeeper to + block amplification attacks by attackers while letting legitimate clients + through. + +1.1. Related work + + For a similar concept, see the three internet drafts that have been proposed + for defending against TLS-based DDoS attacks using client puzzles [REF_TLS]. + +1.2. Threat model [THREAT_MODEL] + +1.2.1. Attacker profiles [ATTACKER_MODEL] + + This proposal is written to thwart specific attackers. A simple PoW proposal + cannot defend against all and every DoS attack on the Internet, but there are + adverary models we can defend against. + + Let's start with some adversary profiles: + + "The script-kiddie" + + The script-kiddie has a single computer and pushes it to its + limits. Perhaps it also has a VPS and a pwned server. We are talking about + an attacker with total access to 10 Ghz of CPU and 10 GBs of RAM. We + consider the total cost for this attacker to be zero $. + + "The small botnet" + + The small botnet is a bunch of computers lined up to do an introduction + flooding attack. Assuming 500 medium-range computers, we are talking about + an attacker with total access to 10 Thz of CPU and 10 TB of RAM. We consider + the upfront cost for this attacker to be about $400. + + "The large botnet" + + The large botnet is a serious operation with many thousands of computers + organized to do this attack. Assuming 100k medium-range computers, we are + talking about an attacker with total access to 200 Thz of CPU and 200 TB of + RAM. The upfront cost for this attacker is about $36k. + + We hope that this proposal can help us defend against the script-kiddie + attacker and small botnets. To defend against a large botnet we would need + more tools in our disposal (see [FUTURE_DESIGNS]). + +1.2.2. User profiles [USER_MODEL] + + We have attackers and we have users. Here are a few user profiles: + + "The standard web user" + + This is a standard laptop/desktop user who is trying to browse the + web. They don't know how these defences work and they don't care to + configure or tweak them. They are gonna use the default values and if the + site doesn't load, they are gonna close their browser and be sad at Tor. + They run a 2Ghz computer with 4GB of RAM. + + "The motivated user" + + This is a user that really wants to reach their destination. They don't + care about the journey; they just want to get there. They know what's going + on; they are willing to tweak the default values and make their computer do + expensive multi-minute PoW computations to get where they want to be. + + "The mobile user" + + This is a motivated user on a mobile phone. Even tho they want to read the + news article, they don't have much leeway on stressing their machine to do + more computation. + + We hope that this proposal will allow the motivated user to always connect + where they want to connect to, and also give more chances to the other user + groups to reach the destination. + +1.2.3. The DoS Catch-22 [CATCH22] + + This proposal is not perfect and it does not cover all the use cases. Still, + we think that by covering some use cases and giving reachability to the + people who really need it, we will severely demotivate the attackers from + continuing the DoS attacks and hence stop the DoS threat all + together. Furthermore, by increasing the cost to launch a DoS attack, a big + class of DoS attackers will disappear from the map, since the expected ROI + will decrease. + +2. System Overview + +2.1. Tor protocol overview + + +----------------------------------+ + | Onion Service | + +-------+ INTRO1 +-----------+ INTRO2 +--------+ | + |Client |-------->|Intro Point|------->| PoW |-----------+ | + +-------+ +-----------+ |Verifier| | | + +--------+ | | + | | | + | | | + | +----------v---------+ | + | |Intro Priority Queue| | + +---------+--------------------+---+ + | | | + Rendezvous | | | + circuits | | | + v v v + + + + The proof-of-work scheme specified in this proposal takes place during the + introduction phase of the onion service protocol. + + The system described in this proposal is not meant to be on all the time, and + should only be enabled by services when under duress. The percentage of + clients receiving puzzles can also be configured based on the load of the + service. + + In summary, the following steps are taken for the protocol to complete: + + 1) Service encodes PoW parameters in descriptor [DESC_POW] + 2) Client fetches descriptor and computes PoW [CLIENT_POW] + 3) Client completes PoW and sends results in INTRO1 cell [INTRO1_POW] + 4) Service verifies PoW and queues introduction based on PoW effort [SERVICE_VERIFY] + +2.2. Proof-of-work overview + +2.2.1. Primitives + + For our proof-of-work function we will use the 'equix' scheme by tevador + [REF_EQUIX]. Equix is an assymetric PoW function based on Equihash<60,3>. It + features lightning fast verification speed, and also aims to minimize the + assymetry between CPU and GPU. Furthermore, it's designed for this particular + use-case and hence cryptocurrency miners are not incentivized to make + optimized ASICs for it. + + The Equix scheme provides two functions that will be used in this proposal: + - equix_solve(seed, nonce, effort) which solves a puzzle instance. + - equix_verify(seed, nonce, effort, solution) which verifies a puzzle solution. + + We tune equix in section [EQUIX_TUNING]. + +2.2.2. Dynamic PoW + + DoS is a dynamic problem where the attacker's capabilities constantly change, + and hence we want our proof-of-work system to be dynamic and not stuck with a + static difficulty setting. Hence, instead of forcing clients to go below a + static target like in Bitcoin to be successful, we ask clients to "bid" using + their PoW effort. Effectively, a client gets higher priority the higher + effort they put into their proof-of-work. This is similar to how + proof-of-stake works but instead of staking coins, you stake work. + + The benefit here is that legitimate clients who really care about getting + access can spend a big amount of effort into their PoW computation, which + should guarantee access to the service given reasonable adversary models. See + [PARAM_TUNING] for more details about these guarantees and tradeoffs. + + As a way to improve reachability and UX, the service tries to estimate the + effort needed for clients to get access at any given time and places it in + the descriptor. See [EFFORT_ESTIMATION] for more details. + +2.2.3. PoW effort + + For our dynamic PoW system to work, we will need to be able to compare PoW + tokens with each other. To do so we define a function: + unsigned effort(uint8_t *token) + which takes as its argument a hash output token, interprets it as a + bitstring, and returns the quotient of dividing a bitstring of 1s by it. + + So for example: + effort(00000001100010101101) = 11111111111111111111 / 00000001100010101101 + or the same in decimal: + effort(6317) = 1048575 / 6317 = 165. + + This definition of effort has the advantage of directly expressing the + expected number of hashes that the client had to calculate to reach the + effort. This is in contrast to the (cheaper) exponential effort definition of + taking the number of leading zero bits. + +3. Protocol specification + +3.1. Service encodes PoW parameters in descriptor [DESC_POW] + + This whole protocol starts with the service encoding the PoW parameters in + the 'encrypted' (inner) part of the v3 descriptor. As follows: + + "pow-params" SP type SP seed-b64 SP expiration-time NL + + [At most once] + + type: The type of PoW system used. We call the one specified here "v1" + + seed-b64: A random seed that should be used as the input to the PoW + hash function. Should be 32 random bytes encoded in base64 + without trailing padding. + + suggested-effort: An unsigned integer specifying an effort value that + clients should aim for when contacting the service. See + [EFFORT_ESTIMATION] for more details here. + + expiration-time: A timestamp in "YYYY-MM-DD SP HH:MM:SS" format after + which the above seed expires and is no longer valid as + the input for PoW. It's needed so that the size of our + replay cache does not grow infinitely. It should be + set to RAND_TIME(now+7200, 900) seconds. + + The service should refresh its seed when expiration-time passes. The service + SHOULD keep its previous seed in memory and accept PoWs using it to avoid + race-conditions with clients that have an old seed. The service SHOULD avoid + generating two consequent seeds that have a common 4 bytes prefix. See + [INTRO1_POW] for more info. + + By RAND_TIME(ts, interval) we mean a time between ts-interval and ts, chosen + uniformly at random. + +3.2. Client fetches descriptor and computes PoW [CLIENT_POW] + + If a client receives a descriptor with "pow-params", it should assume that + the service is expecting a PoW input as part of the introduction protocol. + + The client parses the descriptor and extracts the PoW parameters. It makes + sure that the <expiration-time> has not expired and if it has, it needs to + fetch a new descriptor. + + The client should then extract the <suggested-effort> field to configure its + PoW 'target' (see [REF_TARGET]). The client SHOULD NOT accept 'target' values + that will cause an infinite PoW computation. {XXX: How to enforce this?} + + To complete the PoW the client follows the following logic: + + a) Client selects a target effort E. + b) Client generates a random 16-byte nonce N. + c) Client derives seed C by decoding 'seed-b64'. + d) Client calculates S = equix_solve(C || N || E) + e) Client calculates R = blake2b(C || N || E || S) + f) Client checks if R * E <= UINT32_MAX. + f1) If yes, success! The client can submit N, E, the first 4 bytes of C + and S. + f2) If no, fail! The client interprets N as a 16-byte little-endian + integer, increments it by 1 and goes back to step d). + + At the end of the above procedure, the client should have S as the solution + of the Equix puzzle with N as the nonce, C as the seed. How quickly this + happens depends solely on the target effort E parameter. + +3.3. Client sends PoW in INTRO1 cell [INTRO1_POW] + + Now that the client has an answer to the puzzle it's time to encode it into + an INTRODUCE1 cell. To do so the client adds an extension to the encrypted + portion of the INTRODUCE1 cell by using the EXTENSIONS field (see + [PROCESS_INTRO2] section in rend-spec-v3.txt). The encrypted portion of the + INTRODUCE1 cell only gets read by the onion service and is ignored by the + introduction point. + + We propose a new EXT_FIELD_TYPE value: + + [01] -- PROOF_OF_WORK + + The EXT_FIELD content format is: + + POW_VERSION [1 byte] + POW_NONCE [16 bytes] + POW_EFFORT [4 bytes] + POW_SEED [4 bytes] + POW_SOLUTION [16 bytes] + + where: + + POW_VERSION is 1 for the protocol specified in this proposal + POW_NONCE is the nonce 'N' from the section above + POW_SEED is the first 4 bytes of the seed used + + This will increase the INTRODUCE1 payload size by 43 bytes since the + extension type and length is 2 extra bytes, the N_EXTENSIONS field is always + present and currently set to 0 and the EXT_FIELD is 41 bytes. According to + ticket #33650, INTRODUCE1 cells currently have more than 200 bytes + available. + +3.4. Service verifies PoW and handles the introduction [SERVICE_VERIFY] + + When a service receives an INTRODUCE1 with the PROOF_OF_WORK extension, it + should check its configuration on whether proof-of-work is required to + complete the introduction. If it's not required, the extension SHOULD BE + ignored. If it is required, the service follows the procedure detailed in + this section. + + If the service requires the PROOF_OF_WORK extension but received an + INTRODUCE1 cell without any embedded proof-of-work, the service SHOULD + consider this cell as a zero-effort introduction for the purposes of the + priority queue (see section [INTRO_QUEUE]). + +3.4.1. PoW verification [POW_VERIFY] + + To verify the client's proof-of-work the service MUST do the following steps: + + a) Find a valid seed C that starts with POW_SEED. Fail if no such seed + exists. + b) Fail if E = POW_EFFORT is lower than the minimum effort. + c) Fail if N = POW_NONCE is present in the replay cache (see [REPLAY_PROTECTION[) + d) Calculate R = blake2b(C || N || E || S) + e) Fail if R * E > UINT32_MAX + f) Fail if equix_verify(C || N || E, S) != EQUIX_OK + g) Put the request in the queue with a priority of E + + If any of these steps fail the service MUST ignore this introduction request + and abort the protocol. + + In this proposal we call the above steps the "top half" of introduction + handling. If all the steps of the "top half" have passed, then the circuit + is added to the introduction queue as detailed in section [INTRO_QUEUE]. + +3.4.1.1. Replay protection [REPLAY_PROTECTION] + + The service MUST NOT accept introduction requests with the same (seed, nonce) + tuple. For this reason a replay protection mechanism must be employed. + + The simplest way is to use a simple hash table to check whether a (seed, + nonce) tuple has been used before for the actiev duration of a + seed. Depending on how long a seed stays active this might be a viable + solution with reasonable memory/time overhead. + + If there is a worry that we might get too many introductions during the + lifetime of a seed, we can use a Bloom filter as our replay cache + mechanism. The probabilistic nature of Bloom filters means that sometimes we + will flag some connections as replays even if they are not; with this false + positive probability increasing as the number of entries increase. However, + with the right parameter tuning this probability should be negligible and + well handled by clients. {TODO: Figure bloom filter} + +3.4.2. The Introduction Queue [INTRO_QUEUE] + +3.4.2.1. Adding introductions to the introduction queue [ADD_QUEUE] + + When PoW is enabled and a verified introduction comes through, the service + instead of jumping straight into rendezvous, queues it and prioritizes it + based on how much effort was devoted by the client to PoW. This means that + introduction requests with high effort should be prioritized over those with + low effort. + + To do so, the service maintains an "introduction priority queue" data + structure. Each element in that priority queue is an introduction request, + and its priority is the effort put into its PoW: + + When a verified introduction comes through, the service uses the effort() + function with the solution S as its input, and uses the output to place requests + into the right position of the priority_queue: The bigger the effort, the + more priority it gets in the queue. If two elements have the same effort, the + older one has priority over the newer one. + +3.4.2.2. Handling introductions from the introduction queue [HANDLE_QUEUE] + + The service should handle introductions by pulling from the introduction + queue. We call this part of introduction handling the "bottom half" because + most of the computation happens in this stage. For a description of how we + expect such a system to work in Tor, see [TOR_SCHEDULER] section. + +3.4.3. PoW effort estimation [EFFORT_ESTIMATION] + + The service starts with a default suggested-effort value of 5000 (see + [EQUIX_DIFFICULTY] section for more info). + + Then during its operation the service continuously keeps track of the + received PoW cell efforts to inform its clients of the effort they should put + in their introduction to get service. The service informs the clients by + using the <suggested-effort> field in the descriptor. + + Everytime the service handles or trims an introduction request from the + priority queue in [HANDLE_QUEUE], the service adds the request's effort to a + sorted list. + + Then every HS_UPDATE_PERIOD seconds (which is controlled through a consensus + parameter and has a default value of 300 seconds) and while the DoS feature + is enabled, the service updates its <suggested-effort> value as follows: + + 1. Set TOTAL_EFFORT to the sum of the effort of all valid requests that + have been received since the last HS descriptor update (this includes + all handled requests, trimmed requests and requests still in the queue) + + 2. Set SUGGESTED_EFFORT = TOTAL_EFFORT / (SVC_BOTTOM_CAPACITY * HS_UPDATE_PERIOD). + The denominator above is the max number of requests that the service + could have handled during that time. + + 3. Set <suggested-effort> to max(MIN_EFFORT, SUGGESTED_EFFORT). + + During the above procedure we use the following default values: + - MIN_EFFORT = 1000, as the result of a simulation experiment [REF_TEVADOR_SIM] + - SVC_BOTTOM_CAPACITY = 100, which is the number of introduction requests + that can be handled by the service per second. This was computed in + [POW_DIFFICULTY_TOR] as 180, but we reduced it to 100 to account for + slower computers and networks. + + The above algorithm is meant to balance the suggested effort based on the + effort of all received requests. It attempts to dynamically adjust the + suggested effort so that it increases when an attack is received, and tones + down when the attack has stopped. + + It's worth noting that the suggested-effort is not a hard limit to the + efforts that are accepted by the service, and it's only meant to serve as a + guideline for clients to reduce the number of unsuccessful requests that get + to the service. The service still adds requests with lower effort than + suggested-effort to the priority queue in [ADD_QUEUE]. + + Finally, the above algorithm will never reset back to zero suggested-effort, + even if the attack is completely over. That's because in that case it would + be impossible to determine the total computing power of connecting + clients. Instead it will reset back to MIN_EFFORT, and the operator will have + to manually shut down the anti-DoS mechanism. + + {XXX: SVC_BOTTOM_CAPACITY is static above and will not be accurate for all + boxes. Ideally we should calculate SVC_BOTTOM_CAPACITY dynamically based on + the resources of every onion service while the algorithm is running.} + +3.4.3.1. Updating descriptor with new suggested effort + + Every HS_UPDATE_PERIOD seconds the service should upload a new descriptor + with a new suggested-effort value. + + The service should avoid uploading descriptors too often to avoid overwheming + the HSDirs. The service SHOULD NOT upload descriptors more often than + HS_UPDATE_PERIOD. The service SHOULD NOT upload a new descriptor if the + suggested-effort value changes by less than 15%. + + {XXX: Is this too often? Perhaps we can set different limits for when the + difficulty goes up and different for when it goes down. It's more important + to update the descriptor when the difficulty goes up.} + + {XXX: What attacks are possible here? Can the attacker intentionally hit this + rate-limit and then influence the suggested effort so that clients do not + learn about the new effort?} + +4. Client behavior [CLIENT_BEHAVIOR] + + This proposal introduces a bunch of new ways where a legitimate client can + fail to reach the onion service. + + Furthermore, there is currently no end-to-end way for the onion service to + inform the client that the introduction failed. The INTRO_ACK cell is not + end-to-end (it's from the introduction point to the client) and hence it does + not allow the service to inform the client that the rendezvous is never gonna + occur. + + For this reason we need to define some client behaviors to work around these + issues. + +4.1. Clients handling timeouts [CLIENT_TIMEOUT] + + Alice can fail to reach the onion service if her introduction request gets + trimmed off the priority queue in [HANDLE_QUEUE], or if the service does not + get through its priority queue in time and the connection times out. + + This section presents a heuristic method for the client getting service even + in such scenarios. + + If the rendezvous request times out, the client SHOULD fetch a new descriptor + for the service to make sure that it's using the right suggested-effort for + the PoW and the right PoW seed. The client SHOULD NOT fetch service + descriptors more often than every 'hs-pow-desc-fetch-rate-limit' seconds + (which is controlled through a consensus parameter and has a default value of + 600 seconds). + + {XXX: Is this too rare? Too often?} + + When the client fetches a new descriptor, it should try connecting to the + service with the new suggested-effort and PoW seed. If that doesn't work, it + should double the effort and retry. The client should keep on + doubling-and-retrying until it manages to get service, or its able to fetch a + new descriptor again. + + {XXX: This means that the client will keep on spinning and + doubling-and-retrying for a service under this situation. There will never be + a "Client connection timed out" page for the user. Is this good? Is this bad? + Should we stop doubling-and-retrying after some iterations? Or should we + throw a custom error page to the user, and ask the user to stop spinning + whenever they want?} + +4.3. Other descriptor issues + + Another race condition here is if the service enables PoW, while a client has + a cached descriptor. How will the client notice that PoW is needed? Does it + need to fetch a new descriptor? Should there be another feedback mechanism? + +5. Attacker strategies [ATTACK_META] + + Now that we defined our protocol we need to start tweaking the various + knobs. But before we can do that, we first need to understand a few + high-level attacker strategies to see what we are fighting against. + +5.1.1. Overwhelm PoW verification (aka "Overwhelm top half") [ATTACK_TOP_HALF] + + A basic attack here is the adversary spamming with bogus INTRO cells so that + the service does not have computing capacity to even verify the + proof-of-work. This adversary tries to overwhelm the procedure in the + [POW_VERIFY] section. + + That's why we need the PoW algorithm to have a cheap verification time so + that this attack is not possible: we tune this PoW parameter in section + [POW_TUNING_VERIFICATION]. + +5.1.2. Overwhelm rendezvous capacity (aka "Overwhelm bottom half") [ATTACK_BOTTOM_HALF] + + Given the way the introduction queue works (see [HANDLE_QUEUE]), a very + effective strategy for the attacker is to totally overwhelm the queue + processing by sending more high-effort introductions than the onion service + can handle at any given tick. This adversary tries to overwhelm the procedure + in the [HANDLE_QUEUE] section. + + To do so, the attacker would have to send at least 20 high-effort + introduction cells every 100ms, where high-effort is a PoW which is above the + estimated level of "the motivated user" (see [USER_MODEL]). + + An easier attack for the adversary, is the same strategy but with + introduction cells that are all above the comfortable level of "the standard + user" (see [USER_MODEL]). This would block out all standard users and only + allow motivated users to pass. + +5.1.3. Hybrid overwhelm strategy [ATTACK_HYBRID] + + If both the top- and bottom- halves are processed by the same thread, this + opens up the possibility for a "hybrid" attack. Given the performance figures + for the bottom half (0.31 ms/req.) and the top half (5.5 ms/req.), the + attacker can optimally deny service by submitting 91 high-effort requests and + 1520 invalid requests per second. This will completely saturate the main loop + because: + + 0.31*(1520+91) ~ 0.5 sec. + 5.5*91 ~ 0.5 sec. + + This attack only has half the bandwidth requirement of [ATTACK_TOP_HALF] and + half the compute requirement of [ATTACK_BOTTOM_HALF]. + + Alternatively, the attacker can adjust the ratio between invalid and + high-effort requests depending on their bandwidth and compute capabilities. + +5.1.4. Gaming the effort estimation logic [ATTACK_EFFORT] + + Another way to beat this system is for the attacker to game the effort + estimation logic (see [EFFORT_ESTIMATION]). Essentialy, there are two attacks + that we are trying to avoid: + + - Attacker sets descriptor suggested-effort to a very high value effectively + making it impossible for most clients to produce a PoW token in a + reasonable timeframe. + - Attacker sets descriptor suggested-effort to a very small value so that + most clients aim for a small value while the attacker comfortably launches + an [ATTACK_BOTTOM_HALF] using medium effort PoW (see [REF_TEVADOR_1]) + +5.1.4. Precomputed PoW attack + + The attacker may precompute many valid PoW nonces and submit them all at once + before the current seed expires, overwhelming the service temporarily even + using a single computer. The current scheme gives the attackers 4 hours to + launch this attack since each seed lasts 2 hours and the service caches two + seeds. + + An attacker with this attack might be aiming to DoS the service for a limited + amount of time, or to cause an [ATTACK_EFFORT] attack. + +6. Parameter tuning [POW_TUNING] + + There are various parameters in this PoW system that need to be tuned: + + We first start by tuning the time it takes to verify a PoW token. We do this + first because it's fundamental to the performance of onion services and can + turn into a DoS vector of its own. We will do this tuning in a way that's + agnostic to the chosen PoW function. + + We will then move towards analyzing the default difficulty setting for our + PoW system. That defines the expected time for clients to succeed in our + system, and the expected time for attackers to overwhelm our system. Same as + above we will do this in a way that's agnostic to the chosen PoW function. + + Finally, using those two pieces we will tune our PoW function and pick the + right default difficulty setting. At the end of this section we will know the + resources that an attacker needs to overwhelm the onion service, the + resources that the service needs to verify introduction requests, and the + resources that legitimate clients need to get to the onion service. + +6.1. PoW verification [POW_TUNING_VERIFICATION] + + Verifying a PoW token is the first thing that a service does when it receives + an INTRODUCE2 cell and it's detailed in section [POW_VERIFY]. This + verification happens during the "top half" part of the process. Every + milisecond spent verifying PoW adds overhead to the already existing "top + half" part of handling an introduction cell. Hence we should be careful to + add minimal overhead here so that we don't enable attacks like [ATTACK_TOP_HALF]. + + During our performance measurements in [TOR_MEASUREMENTS] we learned that the + "top half" takes about 0.26 msecs in average, without doing any sort of PoW + verification. Using that value we compute the following table, that describes + the number of cells we can queue per second (aka times we can perform the + "top half" process) for different values of PoW verification time: + + +---------------------+-----------------------+--------------+ + |PoW Verification Time| Total "top half" time | Cells Queued | + | | | per second | + |---------------------|-----------------------|--------------| + | 0 msec | 0.26 msec | 3846 | + | 1 msec | 1.26 msec | 793 | + | 2 msec | 2.26 msec | 442 | + | 3 msec | 3.26 msec | 306 | + | 4 msec | 4.26 msec | 234 | + | 5 msec | 5.26 msec | 190 | + | 6 msec | 6.26 msec | 159 | + | 7 msec | 7.26 msec | 137 | + | 8 msec | 8.26 msec | 121 | + | 9 msec | 9.26 msec | 107 | + | 10 msec | 10.26 msec | 97 | + +---------------------+-----------------------+--------------+ + + Here is how you can read the table above: + + - For a PoW function with a 1ms verification time, an attacker needs to send + 793 dummy introduction cells per second to succeed in a [ATTACK_TOP_HALF] attack. + + - For a PoW function with a 2ms verification time, an attacker needs to send + 442 dummy introduction cells per second to succeed in a [ATTACK_TOP_HALF] attack. + + - For a PoW function with a 10ms verification time, an attacker needs to send + 97 dummy introduction cells per second to succeed in a [ATTACK_TOP_HALF] attack. + + Whether an attacker can succeed at that depends on the attacker's resources, + but also on the network's capacity. + + Our purpose here is to have the smallest PoW verification overhead possible + that also allows us to achieve all our other goals. + + [Note that the table above is simply the result of a naive multiplication and + does not take into account all the auxiliary overheads that happen every + second like the time to invoke the mainloop, the bottom-half processes, or + pretty much anything other than the "top-half" processing. + + During our measurements the time to handle INTRODUCE2 cells dominates any + other action time: There might be events that require a long processing time, + but these are pretty infrequent (like uploading a new HS descriptor) and + hence over a long time they smooth out. Hence extrapolating the total cells + queued per second based on a single "top half" time seems like good enough to + get some initial intuition. That said, the values of "Cells queued per + second" from the table above, are likely much smaller than displayed above + because of all the auxiliary overheads.] + +6.2. PoW difficulty analysis [POW_DIFFICULTY_ANALYSIS] + + The difficulty setting of our PoW basically dictates how difficult it should + be to get a success in our PoW system. An attacker who can get many successes + per second can pull a successfull [ATTACK_BOTTOM_HALF] attack against our + system. + + In classic PoW systems, "success" is defined as getting a hash output below + the "target". However, since our system is dynamic, we define "success" as an + abstract high-effort computation. + + Our system is dynamic but we still need a default difficulty settings that + will define the metagame and be used for bootstrapping the system. The client + and attacker can still aim higher or lower but for UX purposes and for + analysis purposes we do need to define a default difficulty. + +6.2.1. Analysis based on adversary power + + In this section we will try to do an analysis of PoW difficulty without using + any sort of Tor-related or PoW-related benchmark numbers. + + We created the table (see [REF_TABLE]) below which shows how much time a + legitimate client with a single machine should expect to burn before they get + a single success. The x-axis is how many successes we want the attacker to be + able to do per second: the more successes we allow the adversary, the more + they can overwhelm our introduction queue. The y-axis is how many machines + the adversary has in her disposal, ranging from just 5 to 1000. + + =============================================================== + | Expected Time (in seconds) Per Success For One Machine | + =========================================================================== + | | + | Attacker Succeses 1 5 10 20 30 50 | + | per second | + | | + | 5 5 1 0 0 0 0 | + | 50 50 10 5 2 1 1 | + | 100 100 20 10 5 3 2 | + | Attacker 200 200 40 20 10 6 4 | + | Boxes 300 300 60 30 15 10 6 | + | 400 400 80 40 20 13 8 | + | 500 500 100 50 25 16 10 | + | 1000 1000 200 100 50 33 20 | + | | + ============================================================================ + + Here is how you can read the table above: + + - If an adversary has a botnet with 1000 boxes, and we want to limit her to 1 + success per second, then a legitimate client with a single box should be + expected to spend 1000 seconds getting a single success. + + - If an adversary has a botnet with 1000 boxes, and we want to limit her to 5 + successes per second, then a legitimate client with a single box should be + expected to spend 200 seconds getting a single success. + + - If an adversary has a botnet with 500 boxes, and we want to limit her to 5 + successes per second, then a legitimate client with a single box should be + expected to spend 100 seconds getting a single success. + + - If an adversary has access to 50 boxes, and we want to limit her to 5 + successes per second, then a legitimate client with a single box should be + expected to spend 10 seconds getting a single success. + + - If an adversary has access to 5 boxes, and we want to limit her to 5 + successes per second, then a legitimate client with a single box should be + expected to spend 1 seconds getting a single success. + + With the above table we can create some profiles for default values of our + PoW difficulty. So for example, we can use the last case as the default + parameter for Tor Browser, and then create three more profiles for more + expensive cases, scaling up to the first case which could be hardest since + the client is expected to spend 15 minutes for a single introduction. + +6.2.2. Analysis based on Tor's performance [POW_DIFFICULTY_TOR] + + To go deeper here, we can use the performance measurements from + [TOR_MEASUREMENTS] to get a more specific intuition on the default + difficulty. In particular, we learned that completely handling an + introduction cell takes 5.55 msecs in average. Using that value, we can + compute the following table, that describes the number of introduction cells + we can handle per second for different values of PoW verification: + + +---------------------+-----------------------+--------------+ + |PoW Verification Time| Total time to handle | Cells handled| + | | introduction cell | per second | + |---------------------|-----------------------|--------------| + | 0 msec | 5.55 msec | 180.18 | + | 1 msec | 6.55 msec | 152.67 | + | 2 msec | 7.55 msec | 132.45 | + | 3 msec | 8.55 msec | 116.96 | + | 4 msec | 9.55 mesc | 104.71 | + | 5 msec | 10.55 msec | 94.79 | + | 6 msec | 11.55 msec | 86.58 | + | 7 msec | 12.55 msec | 79.68 | + | 8 msec | 13.55 msec | 73.80 | + | 9 msec | 14.55 msec | 68.73 | + | 10 msec | 15.55 msec | 64.31 | + +---------------------+-----------------------+--------------+ + + Here is how you can read the table above: + + - For a PoW function with a 1ms verification time, an attacker needs to send + 152 high-effort introduction cells per second to succeed in a + [ATTACK_BOTTOM_HALF] attack. + + - For a PoW function with a 10ms verification time, an attacker needs to send + 64 high-effort introduction cells per second to succeed in a + [ATTACK_BOTTOM_HALF] attack. + + We can use this table to specify a default difficulty that won't allow our + target adversary to succeed in an [ATTACK_BOTTOM_HALF] attack. + + Of course, when it comes to this table, the same disclaimer as in section + [POW_TUNING_VERIFICATION] is valid. That is, the above table is just a + theoretical extrapolation and we expect the real values to be much lower + since they depend on auxiliary processing overheads, and on the network's + capacity. + +6.3. Tuning equix difficulty [EQUIX_DIFFICULTY] + + The above two sections were not depending on a particular PoW scheme. They + gave us an intuition on the values we are aiming for in terms of verification + speed and PoW difficulty. Now we need to make things concrete: + + As described in section [EFFORT_ESTIMATION] we start the service with a + default suggested-effort value of 5000. Given the benchmarks of EquiX + [REF_EQUIX] this should take about 2 to 3 seconds on a modern CPU. + + With this default difficulty setting and given the table in + [POW_DIFFICULTY_ANALYSIS] this means that an attacker with 50 boxes will be + able to get about 20 successful PoWs per second, and an attacker with 100 + boxes about 40 successful PoWs per second. + + Then using the table in [POW_DIFFICULTY_TOR] we can see that the number of + attacker's successes is not enough to overwhelm the service through an + [ATTACK_BOTTOM_HALF] attack. That is, an attacker would need to do about 152 + introductions per second to overwhelm the service, whereas they can only do + 40 with 100 boxes. + +7. Discussion + +7.1. UX + + This proposal has user facing UX consequences. + + Here is some UX improvements that don't need user-input: + + - Primarily, there should be a way for Tor Browser to display to users that + additional time (and resources) will be needed to access a service that is + under attack. Depending on the design of the system, it might even be + possible to estimate how much time it will take. + + And here are a few UX approaches that will need user-input and have an + increasing engineering difficulty. Ideally this proposal will not need + user-input and the default behavior should work for almost all cases. + + a) Tor Browser needs a "range field" which the user can use to specify how + much effort they want to spend in PoW if this ever occurs while they are + browsing. The ranges could be from "Easy" to "Difficult", or we could try + to estimate time using an average computer. This setting is in the Tor + Browser settings and users need to find it. + + b) We start with a default effort setting, and then we use the new onion + errors (see #19251) to estimate when an onion service connection has + failed because of DoS, and only then we present the user a "range field" + which they can set dynamically. Detecting when an onion service connection + has failed because of DoS can be hard because of the lack of feedback (see + [CLIENT_BEHAVIOR]) + + c) We start with a default effort setting, and if things fail we + automatically try to figure out an effort setting that will work for the + user by doing some trial-and-error connections with different effort + values. Until the connection succeeds we present a "Service is + overwhelmed, please wait" message to the user. + +7.2. Future work [FUTURE_WORK] + +7.2.1. Incremental improvements to this proposal + + There are various improvements that can be done in this proposal, and while + we are trying to keep this v1 version simple, we need to keep the design + extensible so that we build more features into it. In particular: + + - End-to-end introduction ACKs + + This proposal suffers from various UX issues because there is no end-to-end + mechanism for an onion service to inform the client about its introduction + request. If we had end-to-end introduction ACKs many of the problems from + [CLIENT_BEHAVIOR] would be aleviated. The problem here is that end-to-end + ACKs require modifications on the introduction point code and a network + update which is a lengthy process. + + - Multithreading scheduler + + Our scheduler is pretty limited by the fact that Tor has a single-threaded + design. If we improve our multithreading support we could handle a much + greater amount of introduction requests per second. + +7.2.2. Future designs [FUTURE_DESIGNS] + + This is just the beginning in DoS defences for Tor and there are various + futured designs and schemes that we can investigate. Here is a brief summary + of these: + + "More advanced PoW schemes" -- We could use more advanced memory-hard PoW + schemes like MTP-argon2 or Itsuku to make it even harder for + adversaries to create successful PoWs. Unfortunately these schemes + have much bigger proof sizes, and they won't fit in INTRODUCE1 cells. + See #31223 for more details. + + "Third-party anonymous credentials" -- We can use anonymous credentials and a + third-party token issuance server on the clearnet to issue tokens + based on PoW or CAPTCHA and then use those tokens to get access to the + service. See [REF_CREDS] for more details. + + "PoW + Anonymous Credentials" -- We can make a hybrid of the above ideas + where we present a hard puzzle to the user when connecting to the + onion service, and if they solve it we then give the user a bunch of + anonymous tokens that can be used in the future. This can all happen + between the client and the service without a need for a third party. + + All of the above approaches are much more complicated than this proposal, and + hence we want to start easy before we get into more serious projects. + +7.3. Environment + + We love the environment! We are concerned of how PoW schemes can waste energy + by doing useless hash iterations. Here is a few reasons we still decided to + pursue a PoW approach here: + + "We are not making things worse" -- DoS attacks are already happening and + attackers are already burning energy to carry them out both on the + attacker side, on the service side and on the network side. We think that + asking legitimate clients to carry out PoW computations is not gonna + affect the equation too much, since an attacker right now can very + quickly cause the same damage that hundreds of legitimate clients do a + whole day. + + "We hope to make things better" -- The hope is that proposals like this will + make the DoS actors go away and hence the PoW system will not be used. As + long as DoS is happening there will be a waste of energy, but if we + manage to demotivate them with technical means, the network as a whole + will less wasteful. Also see [CATCH22] for a similar argument. + +8. Acknowledgements + + Thanks a lot to tevador for the various improvements to the proposal and for + helping us understand and tweak the RandomX scheme. + + Thanks to Solar Designer for the help in understanding the current PoW + landscape, the various approaches we could take, and teaching us a few neat + tricks. + +Appendix A. Little-t tor introduction scheduler + + This section describes how we will implement this proposal in the "tor" + software (little-t tor). + + The following should be read as if tor is an onion service and thus the end + point of all inbound data. + +A.1. The Main Loop [MAIN_LOOP] + + Tor uses libevent for its mainloop. For network I/O operations, a mainloop + event is used to inform tor if it can read on a certain socket, or a + connection object in tor. + + From there, this event will empty the connection input buffer (inbuf) by + extracting and processing a cell at a time. The mainloop is single threaded + and thus each cell is handled sequentially. + + Processing an INTRODUCE2 cell at the onion service means a series of + operations (in order): + + 1) Unpack cell from inbuf to local buffer. + + 2) Decrypt cell (AES operations). + + 3) Parse cell header and process it depending on its RELAY_COMMAND. + + 4) INTRODUCE2 cell handling which means building a rendezvous circuit: + i) Path selection + ii) Launch circuit to first hop. + + 5) Return to mainloop event which essentially means back to step (1). + + Tor will read at most 32 cells out of the inbuf per mainloop round. + +A.2. Requirements for PoW + + With this proposal, in order to prioritize cells by the amount of PoW work + it has done, cells can _not_ be processed sequentially as described above. + + Thus, we need a way to queue a certain number of cells, prioritize them and + then process some cell(s) from the top of the queue (that is, the cells that + have done the most PoW effort). + + We thus require a new cell processing flow that is _not_ compatible with + current tor design. The elements are: + + - Validate PoW and place cells in a priority queue of INTRODUCE2 cells (as + described in section [INTRO_QUEUE]). + + - Defer "bottom half" INTRO2 cell processing for after cells have been + queued into the priority queue. + +A.3. Proposed scheduler [TOR_SCHEDULER] + + The intuitive way to address the A.2 requirements would be to do this + simple and naive approach: + + 1) Mainloop: Empty inbuf INTRODUCE2 cells into priority queue + + 2) Process all cells in pqueue + + 3) Goto (1) + + However, we are worried that handling all those cells before returning to the + mainloop opens possibilities of attack by an adversary since the priority + queue is not gonna be kept up to date while we process all those cells. This + means that we might spend lots of time dealing with introductions that don't + deserve it. See [BOTTOM_HALF_SCHEDULER] for more details. + + We thus propose to split the INTRODUCE2 handling into two different steps: + "top half" and "bottom half" process, as also mentioned in [POW_VERIFY] + section above. + +A.3.1. Top half and bottom half scheduler + + The top half process is responsible for queuing introductions into the + priority queue as follows: + + a) Unpack cell from inbuf to local buffer. + + b) Decrypt cell (AES operations). + + c) Parse INTRODUCE2 cell header and validate PoW. + + d) Return to mainloop event which essentially means step (1). + + The top-half basically does all operations of section [MAIN_LOOP] except from (4). + + An then, the bottom-half process is responsible for handling introductions + and doing rendezvous. To achieve this we introduce a new mainloop event to + process the priority queue _after_ the top-half event has completed. This new + event would do these operations sequentially: + + a) Pop INTRODUCE2 cell from priority queue. + + b) Parse and process INTRODUCE2 cell. + + c) End event and yield back to mainloop. + +A.3.2. Scheduling the bottom half process [BOTTOM_HALF_SCHEDULER] + + The question now becomes: when should the "bottom half" event get triggered + from the mainloop? + + We propose that this event is scheduled in when the network I/O event + queues at least 1 cell into the priority queue. Then, as long as it has a + cell in the queue, it would re-schedule itself for immediate execution + meaning at the next mainloop round, it would execute again. + + The idea is to try to empty the queue as fast as it can in order to provide a + fast response time to an introduction request but always leave a chance for + more cells to appear between cell processing by yielding back to the + mainloop. With this we are aiming to always have the most up-to-date version + of the priority queue when we are completing introductions: this way we are + prioritizing clients that spent a lot of time and effort completing their PoW. + + If the size of the queue drops to 0, it stops scheduling itself in order to + not create a busy loop. The network I/O event will re-schedule it in time. + + Notice that the proposed solution will make the service handle 1 single + introduction request at every main loop event. However, when we do + performance measurements we might learn that it's preferable to bump the + number of cells in the future from 1 to N where N <= 32. + +A.4 Performance measurements + + This section will detail the performance measurements we've done on tor.git + for handling an INTRODUCE2 cell and then a discussion on how much more CPU + time we can add (for PoW validation) before it badly degrades our + performance. + +A.4.1 Tor measurements [TOR_MEASUREMENTS] + + In this section we will derive measurement numbers for the "top half" and + "bottom half" parts of handling an introduction cell. + + These measurements have been done on tor.git at commit + 80031db32abebaf4d0a91c01db258fcdbd54a471. + + We've measured several set of actions of the INTRODUCE2 cell handling process + on Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2650 v4. Our service was accessed by an array of + clients that sent introduction requests for a period of 60 seconds. + + 1. Full Mainloop Event + + We start by measuring the full time it takes for a mainloop event to + process an inbuf containing INTRODUCE2 cells. The mainloop event processed + 2.42 cells per invocation on average during our measurements. + + Total measurements: 3279 + + Min: 0.30 msec - 1st Q.: 5.47 msec - Median: 5.91 msec + Mean: 13.43 msec - 3rd Q.: 16.20 msec - Max: 257.95 msec + + 2. INTRODUCE2 cell processing (bottom-half) + + We also measured how much time the "bottom half" part of the process + takes. That's the heavy part of processing an introduction request as seen + in step (4) of the [MAIN_LOOP] section: + + Total measurements: 7931 + + Min: 0.28 msec - 1st Q.: 5.06 msec - Median: 5.33 msec + Mean: 5.29 msec - 3rd Q.: 5.57 msec - Max: 14.64 msec + + 3. Connection data read (top half) + + Now that we have the above pieces, we can use them to measure just the + "top half" part of the procedure. That's when bytes are taken from the + connection inbound buffer and parsed into an INTRODUCE2 cell where basic + validation is done. + + There is an average of 2.42 INTRODUCE2 cells per mainloop event and so we + divide that by the full mainloop event mean time to get the time for one + cell. From that we substract the "bottom half" mean time to get how much + the "top half" takes: + + => 13.43 / (7931 / 3279) = 5.55 + => 5.55 - 5.29 = 0.26 + + Mean: 0.26 msec + + To summarize, during our measurements the average number of INTRODUCE2 cells + a mainloop event processed is ~2.42 cells (7931 cells for 3279 mainloop + invocations). + + This means that, taking the mean of mainloop event times, it takes ~5.55msec + (13.43/2.42) to completely process an INTRODUCE2 cell. Then if we look deeper + we see that the "top half" of INTRODUCE2 cell processing takes 0.26 msec in + average, whereas the "bottom half" takes around 5.33 msec. + + The heavyness of the "bottom half" is to be expected since that's where 95% + of the total work takes place: in particular the rendezvous path selection + and circuit launch. + +A.2. References + + [REF_EQUIX]: https://github.com/tevador/equix + https://github.com/tevador/equix/blob/master/devlog.md + [REF_TABLE]: The table is based on the script below plus some manual editing for readability: + https://gist.github.com/asn-d6/99a936b0467b0cef88a677baaf0bbd04 + [REF_BOTNET]: https://media.kasperskycontenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2009/07/01... + [REF_CREDS]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2020-March/014198.html + [REF_TARGET]: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Target + [REF_TLS]: https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-nygren-tls-client-puzzles-02.txt + https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-nir-tls-puzzles-00.html + https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipsecme-ddos-protection-10 + [REF_TLS_1]: https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-nygren-tls-client-puzzles-02.txt + [REF_TEVADOR_1]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2020-May/014268.html + [REF_TEVADOR_2]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2020-June/014358.html + [REF_TEVADOR_SIM]: https://github.com/tevador/scratchpad/blob/master/tor-pow/effort_sim.md