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Re: [tor-relays] Thoughts on InspecTor?
by Scott Bennett 02 Feb '12

02 Feb '12

On Thu, 2 Feb 2012 00:25:19 -0500 Roger Dingledine <arma(a)mit.edu> wrote: >On Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 11:36:57PM -0500, Steve Snyder wrote: >> This application claims to identify bad Tor nodes for the purpose of >> excluding them from use: >> >> http://xqz3u5drneuzhaeo.onion/users/badtornodes/ >> >> Anyone have any thoughts on this? > >In general it is a poor plan to change your routing strategy in a way >that makes you different from most Tor users. If you change it enough, >you end up making a signature for your behavior where an attacker can >say "hey, that's the guy who never uses German relays". The result is >that you harm your anonymity. Nobody has really researched how much harm >comes from how much difference -- and we recommend against doing things >that are poorly understood. > >> The sum of bad-exit-flags (8), > >As far as I can tell, >http://xqz3u5drneuzhaeo.onion/users/badtornodes/overview.html#blocking >are all tiny relays so it doesn't much matter whether you badexit them >(you're probably never going to encounter them in practice anyway). > >For the question of exit relays in Iran, see >https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4207 >https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4923 > The latter ticket's discussion section is quite interesting. After reading through it, it seems to me that the problem in Roger's point C would be best dealt with in vidalia without regard to IP address or presumed country. When asking whether the user wishes to run a relay, vidalia's dialog could include an instruction something like this: "Before you decide to run a tor relay, please consider whether the government of the country where you live and/or would like to operate a relay might target you for any kind of abuse if that government noticed that you were running a tor relay." As long as the people who have volunteered to provide translations for vidalia's and/or tor's textual interactions with users have sufficient skills to provide such a cautionary note in all of the most necessary languages plus two or three languages spoken widely around the world, then that should take care of the matter. I share the concerns of both Roger and Sebastian regarding undesirable potential results of automating the rejection of entire countries of relays. Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ********************************************************************** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army." * * -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * **********************************************************************

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Thoughts on InspecTor?
by Steve Snyder 02 Feb '12

02 Feb '12

This application claims to identify bad Tor nodes for the purpose of excluding them from use: http://xqz3u5drneuzhaeo.onion/users/badtornodes/ Anyone have any thoughts on this? The sum of bad-exit-flags (8), exit nodes that alter payload (4), and long-term-misconfigured (27) suggests excluding 39 nodes within the Tor config file. Is this reasonable? Are these exclusions appropriate for relays, or for end users, or neither, or both?

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torrc "permission denied" warning
by tony 26 Jan '12

26 Jan '12

In the Tor logs for a relay, I get the following message: Dec 19 19:42:23.662 [notice] Renaming old configuration file to "/etc/tor/torrc.orig.1" Dec 19 19:42:23.662 [warn] Couldn't rename configuration file "/etc/tor/torrc" to "/etc/tor/torrc.orig.1": Permission denied I've played around with file permissions but it doesn't help. Tor seems to be working. Does the error matter? Running Tor on a Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS Feedback much appreciated.

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This is what you get....compile problem OSX10.4
by Geoff Down 24 Jan '12

24 Jan '12

Can anyone help with this please? % sudo ./configure --with-libevent-dir=/opt/local/lib/ && make && make install -> checking for libevent directory... configure: WARNING: We found the libraries for libevent, but we could not find the C header files. You may need to install a devel package. % port contents libevent ->Port libevent contains: /opt/local/bin/event_rpcgen.py /opt/local/include/evdns.h /opt/local/include/event.h /opt/local/include/event2/buffer.h /opt/local/include/event2/buffer_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/bufferevent.h /opt/local/include/event2/bufferevent_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/bufferevent_ssl.h /opt/local/include/event2/bufferevent_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/dns.h /opt/local/include/event2/dns_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/dns_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/event-config.h /opt/local/include/event2/event.h /opt/local/include/event2/event_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/event_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/http.h /opt/local/include/event2/http_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/http_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/keyvalq_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/listener.h /opt/local/include/event2/rpc.h /opt/local/include/event2/rpc_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/rpc_struct.h /opt/local/include/event2/tag.h /opt/local/include/event2/tag_compat.h /opt/local/include/event2/thread.h /opt/local/include/event2/util.h /opt/local/include/evhttp.h /opt/local/include/evrpc.h /opt/local/include/evutil.h /opt/local/lib/libevent-2.0.5.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent.a /opt/local/lib/libevent.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent.la /opt/local/lib/libevent_core-2.0.5.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_core.a /opt/local/lib/libevent_core.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_core.la /opt/local/lib/libevent_extra-2.0.5.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_extra.a /opt/local/lib/libevent_extra.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_extra.la /opt/local/lib/libevent_openssl-2.0.5.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_openssl.a /opt/local/lib/libevent_openssl.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_openssl.la /opt/local/lib/libevent_pthreads-2.0.5.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_pthreads.a /opt/local/lib/libevent_pthreads.dylib /opt/local/lib/libevent_pthreads.la /opt/local/lib/pkgconfig/libevent.pc /opt/local/lib/pkgconfig/libevent_openssl.pc /opt/local/lib/pkgconfig/libevent_pthreads.pc I'm flying blind here - should libevent be a binary or just a load of source files? I've only a vague idea of what the error messages mean, let alone how to fix them. GD -- http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service

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Do bridges care about DNS?
by Steve Snyder 24 Jan '12

24 Jan '12

Do bridges have a need for name resolution, or it it just a matter of passing a packet from one IP address to another (i.e. from user to Tor node)? Thanks.

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Re: [tor-relays] How can I tell if my bridge is working?
by Scott Bennett 22 Jan '12

22 Jan '12

On Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:58:45 -0500 Roger Dingledine <arma(a)mit.edu> wrote: >On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 08:35:30PM -0500, Steve Snyder wrote: >> New operator of a Tor bridge here. How can I tell that it is being used? >> >> With a regular relay I can look up the stats on TorStatus, or I can see >> that there are n current connections. But a bridge won't be published, >> and the lower volume of traffic means that there may not be many active >> connections at any given time. >> >> So how do I know if it is working? I mean beyond the absence of any >> errors logged? > >Answer 1: absence of any errors logged. Then just trust. :) > >Answer 2: Use a Tor controller. Vidalia has a "who has used my bridge >lately?" button you can push to learn by-country statistics. Or try >'arm' if you prefer command-line controllers. > >Answer 3: We publish sanitized bridge descriptors on the metrics site: >https://metrics.torproject.org/data.html#bridgedesc >We're working on usable interfaces to let you look up the descriptor >for your bridge (including the usage statistics that it publishes). Stay >tuned. > Answer 4: this isn't exactly what you want, yet it still provides relevant information. Use the HeartbeatPeriod command in your torrc file to provide usage information on a periodic basis with your choice of period. The message logged gives the uptime in days and hours and a rounded figure for bytes sent and bytes received since initialization, so if your node is *only* used as a bridge, these messages will give you rough idea of your bridge's usage. Note, of course, that some of the traffic will be stuff that your node needs for its operation, e.g., a consensus file. Be advised that each period incurs about 1 s of delay in logging the information, so if you want information every hour exactly, for example, you need to specify a period of 3599 s, not 3600 s. Note, too, that the default period is 21,600 s, or 6 hr. Again, "HearbeatPeriod 21599 seconds" should yield a message logged every six hours exactly. Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ********************************************************************** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army." * * -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * **********************************************************************

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Tor Status graphs
by Geoff Down 22 Jan '12

22 Jan '12

Hi, the read/write graphs in my relay's TorStatus.blutmagie.de page have been broken for some time (flat-lined) but I assumed that was down to my old software. However, I see that all the relays' pages are the same. Is this data no longer available? I had a quick look in the archives for an answer. GD -- http://www.fastmail.fm - IMAP accessible web-mail

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How can I tell if my bridge is working?
by Steve Snyder 22 Jan '12

22 Jan '12

New operator of a Tor bridge here. How can I tell that it is being used? With a regular relay I can look up the stats on TorStatus, or I can see that there are n current connections. But a bridge won't be published, and the lower volume of traffic means that there may not be many active connections at any given time. So how do I know if it is working? I mean beyond the absence of any errors logged? Thanks.

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Re: [tor-relays] How can I tell if my bridge is working?
by robbie macg 21 Jan '12

21 Jan '12

Hi, I may have misunderstood the question. I think the simplest way to determine if your bridge is up and running correctly is to check the contents of /var/log/tor/log. Alternatively, try using Vidalia to connect to your own bridge. and log an error. These methods often work well for newer users. You may have something more sophisticated in mind or be trying to accomplish some thing else. If hat's the case, I apologize. Cheers, Robbie > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:17:16 -0500 > From: "cmeclax-sazri" <cmeclax-sazri(a)ixazon.dynip.com> > To: tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org > Subject: Re: [tor-relays] How can I tell if my bridge is working? > Message-ID: <201201200917.16804.cmeclax-sazri(a)ixazon.dynip.com> > Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > On Thursday, January 19, 2012 20:35:30 Steve Snyder wrote: >> New operator of a Tor bridge here. How can I tell that it is being used? > > Telnet to port 9051 and type ?authenticate "blurdyboop"?. Then type > ?setevents > bw? and it'll tell you how many bytes go in and out. I'm not sure how to > tell > that there are client connections, but it's probably another setevents > command. > > cmeclax > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > tor-relays mailing list > tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays > > > End of tor-relays Digest, Vol 12, Issue 19 > ****************************************** >

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Tor Deprecation Notice
by Damian Johnson 20 Jan '12

20 Jan '12

Hi all. As per ticket 4788 [1] we'll soon be removing relays that are out of date and no longer safe to run, which includes anything older than version 0.2.1.30. When I last checked this included 257 relays [2] and I've already notified the 107 of those that had contact information available. If you're running one of those relays then you'll need to upgrade to keep operating. Sorry about the inconvenience and thanks for running a relay! -Damian [1] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4788 [2] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/attachment/ticket/4788/old_relays.…

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