tor-relays

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4882 discussions

Re: [tor-relays] Tor relays source IPs spoofed to mass-scan port 22?
by Carlo P. 31 Oct '24

31 Oct '24

Just received today two abuse tickets... On October 31, 2024 at 9:29 AM, Pierre Bourdon <delroth(a)gmail.com> wrote: On Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 03:33 Pierre Bourdon <delroth(a)gmail.com> wrote: By any chance, any other relay ops seeing the same thing, or am I just going crazy? (it does kind of sound insane...) Any speculation as to the reason for this? My own write-up and explanation (and speculation) is available at https://delroth.net/posts/spoofed-mass-scan-abuse/ as a reference. I've had a few people email me saying they had the same scare moment after getting an abuse report and they ended up finding my article, so I'd like to think it's already helped a bit! I also received an email today from Hetzner's legal team saying that they have read my article (props on them, I didn't send it to them myself!). They are monitoring the situation on their side and emphasized that they do not usually take action on this kind of reports they have recently been forwarding to Tor relay operators. So at least for others hosting relays at Hetzner I don't think it's worth worrying too much. For other hosting providers, your mileage may vary. _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays -- Sent with https://mailfence.com Secure and private email

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[tor-project] Reminder: mailman 3 upgrade imminent (TPA-RFC-71)
by Antoine Beaupré 29 Oct '24

29 Oct '24

Hi, As mentioned in early October, we're in the process of upgrading our main mail server, which includes upgrading to the shiny new Mailman 3 platform. We have, right now, a prototype mailman 3 server available at: https://lists-01.torproject.org/ It's hidden behind the usual "trivial" authentication (ask us on IRC if you don't remember what it is), but should otherwise work normally. I'm going to start by migrating the TPA mailing list and we'll be testing this for a couple of days, but, next week, I'll start migrating the other mailing lists (including this one!). If people want to jump in front of that train early and be part of the beta testers, then by all means I'm happy to have your mailing list be part of the early adopters. Be warned that Mailman 3 is a significant upgrade from Mailman 2. There are some great things (like unified authentication), and some less great things (like a more complex design and "shinier" web interface that might not be everyone's taste). As a reminder, we're doing this upgrade a little rushed because the main mail server is now unsupported for security upgrades. See the details of the proposal here: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy/tpa-rfc-71-emerge… ... with the milestone tracking actual work issues in: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/tpa/-/milestones/16 (Sorry for cross-posting this, but this seems like it warrants wider distribution. As a rule of thumb, I selected mailing lists with public archives that had posts in October 2024, removing duplicates like anti-censorship-team and -alerts. I also suspect many of those mailing lists will refuse my message because I'm not subscribed, but I will have tried. :)) Phew! a. -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration _______________________________________________ tor-project mailing list tor-project(a)lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-project

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Re: [tor-relays] Please check if your relay has fallen out of the consensus
by denny.obreham＠a-n-o-n-y-m-e.net 28 Oct '24

28 Oct '24

As an update, once I showed the link from OONI to my ISP, they offered to move my server to another location at no charge. So the Tor server was moved from India to the UK. (Actually, I built a new one from scratch.) So I will mention here this ISP - Contabo.com - for their great customer service and understanding of what Tor represents. They have automatically and temporarily blocked my IP address - and informed me that they did - 2 or 3 times in the past because they felt it was under a DDoS attack, and I'm OK with that. At one point, communicating with their support team, one person even wrote this to me: We are glad to support your efforts in maintaining these relays, as they play a crucial role in fighting censorship and promoting internet freedom. Thank you for your ongoing trust and partnership. I initially chose them because they have few exit relays (only 12 as of today, 4 of them being mine, but there are about 100 other non-exit relays). With that kind of service, I'm wondering why they are not more popular for exit relays. Denny On 2024-10-22 15:41, tor-relays(a)queer.cat wrote: > > > On 22/10/24 12:08, denny.obreham(a)a-n-o-n-y-m-e.net wrote: >> I still haven't found a solution to my problem I stated earlier in my email with the subject "Exit relay not in consensus" https:// lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2024-October/021899.html <https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2024-October/021899. html> >> >> >> The most helpful answers were from Sebastian <https:// lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2024-October/021909.html> and George <https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2024- October/021918.html>. I contacted the ASN but never received a response. My ISP was useless as they jus t repeated "We don't block traffic." > > > Iâve gone through the original thread you shared and found an OONI result that supports the notion that your ASN (141995) is blocking Tor directory authorities. You can view the result here: > > https://explorer.ooni.org/m/20241001034902.297107_US_tor_d6973b06186ed4 3a > >> >> >> As of today, the server is still active and running. You can't find it in the metrics but it is still in the consensus <https://consensus- health.torproject.org/consensus-health.html? #7BDDE0E7607A5F49578768F44CD721793FA2D7AE>. >> >> >> I did not have much time lately and have no clue what I can do from this point forward. >> >> >> Denny >> >> >> On 2024-10-22 04:48, Roger Dingledine wrote: >> >> Hi folks! We're hunting down a mystery where two of our big university relays are having troubles reaching the Tor directory authorities: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/analysis/-/issues/86 Can you check to see if your relay is in a similar situation? In particular, the situation to look for is "Tor process is still running fine from your perspective, but, relay-search (https:// atlas.torproject.org/) says you are no longer running." If your relay is in this situation, the next step is to check your Tor logs, try to rule out other issues like firewall rules on your side, and then (if you're able) to start exploring traceroutes to the directory authority IP addresses vs other addresses. If you need more direct help, we can help you debug or answer other questions on #tor-relays on IRC. Thanks, -- Roger _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi- bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> tor-relays mailing list >> tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org >> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays >

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Next Tor Relay Operator meetup - October 26th, 2024 at 1900 UTC
by gus 27 Oct '24

27 Oct '24

Dear operators, Save the date: the next Tor Relay Operator will happen Saturday, October 26th, 2024 at 19.00 UTC[1]! We're still working on the agenda for this meetup, however feel free to add your topics directly to the gitlab issue below or use the tor-relays mailing list: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/relays/-/issues/100. ## Agenda 1. Announcements 2. Network Health updates - New proposal: Framework for running Tor Network Health investigations https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/policies/-/issues/25 3. OTF relay operator survey summary/presentation 4. Osservatorio Nessuno presentation - https://osservatorionessuno.org/ 5. Questions & Answers ## How to join us Meetup details: - Room link: https://tor.meet.coop/gus-og0-x74-dzn - When: Saturday, October 26th, 2024 - 19.00 UTC - Duration: 60 to 90 minutes - Tor Code of Conduct: https://community.torproject.org/policies/code_of_conduct/ - Registration: No need for a registration or anything else, just use the room-linkabove. We will open the room 10 minutes before. cheers, Gus [1] If you're confused about UTC and your timezone, @anarcat maintains a cool project called undertime - https://gitlab.com/anarcat/undertime -- The Tor Project Community Team Lead

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DDOS mitigation with nftables
by Top 25 Oct '24

25 Oct '24

Hi all, My tor relays[1] traffic decreased a lot and I think this *might* be connected to some kind of DDOS attack. So I wanted to use this situation to set up some DDOS protection. For that I stumbled upon Enkidus tor DDOS mitigation script. [2] However, this script is made for `iptables`, not `nftables`. I use `firewalld` with `nftables` on my system, since this seems to be the new default. [3] I don't really know that much about firewalls, so this situation overwhelms me a bit. In the README of Enkidus rules it says: > Practically all linux systems come with iptables or more recently with nftables which basically does the same and more. So you won't need to install iptables. Just type iptables -V . If you see a version, you have it. The same with ipset . An ipset -v will do the job. In some rare cases you may not have ipset installed and installing it is as simple as apt-get ipset or yum install ipset or... This seems to imply that the script should work fine with `nftables` as well. This is also what Enkidu seems to state in a relevant gitlab issue: [4] > nftables interprets all the iptables rules just fine so the provided scripts will work regardless of which one you have. But it's not true! The script failed on my server, complaining that the `iptables` command couldn't be found (and no rules had been applied). So how can I apply proper DDOS protection firewall rules whilst using `nftables`? Is there some easy way to modify the script to make it work? Kind regards Top [1]: https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/toptor [2]: https://github.com/Enkidu-6/tor-ddos [3]: https://wiki.debian.org/nftables [4]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40093

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Botnet targeting Tor relays
by anon＠kai.sx 24 Oct '24

24 Oct '24

Hello, I run several Linux root servers, spread over several providers, some of which serve as Tor relays. For a few weeks now I have been observing massive brute force attempts via SSH from hundreds of sources around the world. However, only the Tor relays are affected, the rest of the servers are not. Are other relay operators also observing something like this? Is there currently a botnet targeting Tor relays? Best, Kai.

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Re: [tor-relays] Please check if your relay has fallen out of the consensus
by denny.obreham＠a-n-o-n-y-m-e.net 22 Oct '24

22 Oct '24

I still haven't found a solution to my problem I stated earlier in my email with the subject "Exit relay not in consensus" [1]https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2024-October/02189 9.html The most helpful answers were from [2]Sebastian and [3]George. I contacted the ASN but never received a response. My ISP was useless as they just repeated "We don't block traffic." As of today, the server is still active and running. You can't find it in the metrics but it is still in the [4]consensus. I did not have much time lately and have no clue what I can do from this point forward. Denny On 2024-10-22 04:48, Roger Dingledine wrote: Hi folks! We're hunting down a mystery where two of our big university relays are having troubles reaching the Tor directory authorities: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/analysis/-/issues/86 Can you check to see if your relay is in a similar situation? In particular, the situation to look for is "Tor process is still running fine from your perspective, but, relay-search (https://atlas.torproject.org/) says you are no longer running." If your relay is in this situation, the next step is to check your Tor logs, try to rule out other issues like firewall rules on your side, and then (if you're able) to start exploring traceroutes to the directory authority IP addresses vs other addresses. If you need more direct help, we can help you debug or answer other questions on #tor-relays on IRC. Thanks, --Roger _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays

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Re: [tor-relays] Tor-Podcast about Tor-Messaging
by lists＠for-privacy.net 19 Oct '24

19 Oct '24

On Saturday, 19 October 2024 20:17 David Adam wrote: People are crying in the Tor forum that you have to register with an (anonymous) email. Expressions are used like: Tor Project is dictatorship. And then redshit links? OPSEC please, use frontents: https://github.com/libreddit/libreddit-instances/blob/master/instances.md Onion or clearnet + > /r/Spot_On_Encryption/comments1g7ejidtormessaging_introducing_reflectors_exitrelay/ For all the other centralized cloudflared nonsense: https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends -- ╰_╯ Ciao Marco! Debian GNU/Linux It's free software and it gives you freedom!

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Tor Relay Operator Community Health - Final report (June 2024)
by gus 17 Oct '24

17 Oct '24

Hello, I wanted to share the "Tor Relay Operator Community Health - Final Project report" (June 2024) made by Ana and Victoria. You can access the report via these links: - Main report: https://www.sr2.uk/reports/2024-TorRelayOperatorCommunityHealth.pdf - Mirror: https://gitlab.torproject.org/-/project/60/uploads/846d7d1816aee92fd2ee283b… best, Gus -- The Tor Project Community Team Lead

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[proposal] Framework for running Tor Network Health investigations
by gus 15 Oct '24

15 Oct '24

Dear Tor relay operators, Inspired by the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations, Network Health Team and Community Team has developed a framework for conducting Network Health investigations. This proposal provides clear guidelines for conducting ethically sensitive investigations transparently, responsibly, and in a way that upholds the trust of the Tor user base and wider internet freedom community. You can read and comment on this proposal here: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/policies/-/issues/25 Alternatively, you can read the full text below. Gus ``` * Filename: 101-running-network-health-investigations.md * Title: Framework for running Tor Network Health investigations * Author: Gus - gus at torproject.org, GeKo - gk at torproject.org * Created: 2024-10-15 * Status: Draft ``` ## Overview This proposal outlines a framework for conducting open source investigations of Tor Network Health related events and actors that potentially harm Tor users or the Tor network, such as denial-of-service attacks or malicious relay operators. Investigations of other types of network incidents, like censorship events, are out of scope of this proposal, even though they might want to follow the framework outlined here as well. Inspired by the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations [1] (hereafter: Berkeley Protocol), but adapted to the needs of the Tor Community, this proposal provides clear guidelines for conducting ethically sensitive investigations transparently, responsibly, and in a way that upholds the trust of the Tor user base and wider internet freedom community. ## Motivation It is easy to contribute to the Tor network by setting up and running relays. While this low threshold is good for growing the network it, unfortunately, makes it easy as well for malicious actors trying to harm Tor users or the network. Using publicly accessible data and open-source resources empowers the Network Health team and open-source investigators to actively protect the Tor network against such malicious actors. However, thus far there are no guidelines on how to do such investigations in an ethical, reliable and reproducible manner which might prevent volunteers from looking closer at the Tor network out of fear they might do something wrong or harm users or the Tor Project. This proposal is meant to resolve that issue, encouraging interested volunteers to stay vigilant and help protecting the Tor network and its users. At the same time, it aims at providing transparency into how we at the Tor Project use publicly available data during network health investigations ourselves, as we follow the framework developed below as well. ## Framework The framework outlined in this proposal is following the open source investigation cycle as developed in Chapter 6 of the Berkeley Protocol, concluding with a section about guidelines for reporting the findings safely to the Tor Project, so we can take action if needed. The individual stages of the investigation process will be adapted to the Tor context while following the methodological, professional, and ethical principles collected in Chapter 2 of the Berkeley Protocol. Those principles are in particular important as advancing human rights is at the core of Tor's mission. The framework below does not address any security or legal concerns that could arise from doing open source investigations into network incidents or actors. In particular, if the planned investigation might result in danger or harm (be it physical, legal, or otherwise) to yourself or a third party, we urge you to additionally consult the legal and security sections of the Berkeley Protocol first for advice and proper planning of the investigation before it starts. Finally, keep in mind that investigators must adhere to the Tor Project's [Community Policies](https://community.torproject.org/policies). For instance, investigators must respect relay operators' human rights and privacy rights conventions as described in the [evalution criteria for solution to combat malicious relays](https://community.torproject.org/policies/relays/evaluation-criteri…. ## Table of Contents 1. Searching and Monitoring 2. Preliminary assessment 3. Collection 4. Preservation 5. Verification 6. Analysis 7. Reporting ### 1. Searching and Monitoring 1.1. When searching for information and monitoring sources, investigators need to be aware of biases, both their own and those inherent in information online, which might taint the results. Developing and deploying several working hypotheses, which are guiding the search and monitoring efforts, is helping with biases but is not a panacea. Ultimately, it's crucial to be aware of potential biases involved in investigative work and countering them e.g. by broadening and diversifying search and monitoring efforts. 1.2. Besides useful external tools, like regular search engines or specialized ones (e.g., https://shodan.io/), investigators can deploy a collection of tools developed and maintained by the Tor Project to look into network anomalies and bad relay behavior. These tools can be found on the [Network Health GitLab repository](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/). It is recommended to avoid rewriting tools that already exist, for example, a Tor exit scanner to spot machine-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. Instead please contribute to the code that's actively developed. In case you're working on innovative open-source methods to detect malicious actors and publishing them could tip attackers, please contact bad-relays(a)lists.torproject.org so we can think about ways to use those methods while not giving attackers an even larger advantage in the bad relay arms race.[2] 1.3. Running scanners is important to keep the network healthy, but be mindful that this is putting strain on the network and the data you are looking for might already be available by other means. 1.4. As a public network, the Tor network already provides relay information such as relays IP addresses, ISPs, operating systems, fingerprints, Tor versions, and more. Investigators can query or consult this data as long as it does not disrupt relay operations or compromise the privacy of Tor users. Such publicly accessible network information is available via Tor Metrics and Onionoo. To learn more, refer to the Onionoo[3] and Tor Metrics sources[4] documentation. Moreover, there are tools available as well, like OrNetStats[5], that build upon those sources providing further insight into the network and its relays. 1.5. Moreover, as a transparent and open source project we provide public analyses and investigations of a lot of previous and current incidents in our [bug tracker](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo). Please consult that issue tracker as well to avoid duplicated work or false positives. For instance, sometimes there are some DNS resolution issues at exit nodes preventing users from reaching a website. We are aware of that as we are continuously scanning for that problem and dealing with affected exit nodes on a regular basis. 1.6. It must be acknowledged that legit investigations into malicious activities and bad relays may extend beyond using open-source data. Other methodologies and strategies for gathering information, like whistleblowing or using a relay's MetricsPort[6], are out of scope of this framework. 1.7. Finally, it is important to highlight that running modified Tor software or deploying offensive hacking techniques against relays or the Tor network which could harm users, relay operators and the Tor network itself won't be considered part of an open-source investigation under this framework. Rather, those actions will be considered a malicious activity. ### 2. Preliminary assessment 2.1. As searching and monitoring efforts lead to more and more results it is important to make a preliminary assessment of them early on to avoid over-collection. Over-collection is not just problematic because it will make the analysis process slower and more difficult: there are more results to analyze, more storage used and needed, etc. The risks of leaking information or infringing on rights to privacy of individuals are rising as well. 2.2. Similarly to the search and monitoring efforts, assessing the results through the lens of hypotheses is important as they help to focus on the evidence and avoid speculation. 2.3. During the assessment of results make sure they are relevant, reliable and safe to collect. If there is no risk of results being removed from the internet then their collection is not needed either. ### 3. Collection 3.1. Data collected close to the event under investigation may produce better results. For example, tracking IP addresses involved in a DDoS attacks might not be useful after a long period of time as the attackers' infrastructure might have been reassigned to a new customer. 3.2. As the investigation progresses and new evidence shows up, older, previously collected data might not be needed anymore. Please consider deleting it for the same reasons as stated in section 2.1. above. 3.3. Apart from collecting relevant content itself, it is important to save associated metadata as well in order for other investigators to more easily reproduce the investigation's findings and double-check used source material: URLs of the content, the time when it was accessed, source of a website in question, and anything else that helps to explain the context of the capture/collection should be stored, too. 3.4. In cases where malicious content, such as injected JavaScript, is identified during the scanning of exit nodes, it is crucial to capture and archive the website’s source code for both analysis and as evidence of a bad exit relay. ### 4. Preservation 4.1. Preserving the collected content is essential in network health investigations because the information can change, disappear, or be altered over time, making it unreliable and unusable for the investigation. To ensure the integrity of the data, network health investigators must follow preservation principles, based on archivist standards, as outlined in the Berkeley Protocol (section 6D). These principles include authenticity, availability, identity (keeping track of the origin and nature of the evidence), persistence, renderability, and understandability. 4.2. The decentralized and dynamic nature of the Tor network makes collecting and preserving public relay information a significant challenge. The network changes as relays join or leave, making historical data collection and preservation essential for investigations. For example, relay information is only available on the Tor Metrics website for one week before it is archived and removed from the relay search portal. To ensure access to historical relay information, investigators need to download relay descriptors from [CollecTor](https://metrics.torproject.org/collector.html). 4.3. Tools like archive.today and the Internet Archive (web.archive.org) are useful for capturing and publicly preserving snapshots of digital content, such as relay information, websites, social media content, and other online information that needs to be collected during an investigation. For a private archive collection, see the [ArchiveBox project](https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox). 4.4. When using open source tools to monitor the network, it is important to preserve the results. This includes maintaining logs with metadata such as timestamps, relay fingerprints, targeted URLs and other information like errors. Trusted services like archive.today or the Internet Archive should be used to preserve the original version of the website. 4.5. Investigators must maintain both evidentiary and working copies of collected digital content. An evidentiary copy is a preserved, unaltered version of the original evidence, used to maintain the authenticity of the original content. Working copies can be created for analysis, allowing changes in format or structure without compromising the integrity of the original data. 4.6. Investigators should regularly back up both evidentiary and working copies to secure storage systems, ensuring that data is not lost or corrupted during the investigation process. Please note that while relay descriptors are important for verification and analysis, they can be re-downloaded from the Tor Metrics website, so backing up this data is not needed. ### 5. Verification 5.1. Verification is a process to ensure the accuracy and validity of information collected during network health investigations. Verification can be done using closed and confidential sources or based exclusively on open sources. Without using a verification method, the information collected may be invalid or unreliable for detecting and removing bad relays. (Verification can be split into three key methods: source analysis, technical and investigative analysis.) 5.2. Investigators must evaluate the credibility and impartiality of the source from which the evidence originates. This includes verifying whether the output from open source tools, social media or websites are reliable. 5.3. Information should be cross-verified by consulting other sources to avoid relying on non validated, manipulated, biased or outdated data. Please be aware that some relay information displayed on the Tor Metrics website are not validated, for example, operator's contact information. 5.4. When verifying collected information, network health investigators should begin by looking for unique or distinguishing features. Such features might include groups of relays joining or leaving the network from a particular Autonomous System (AS), new relay operating in an obscure or popular AS, similarities and other patterns. These identification methods rely on searching and monitoring the Tor network activity. 5.5. While geolocation can be a useful tool in network health investigations and analysis, it is important to remember that the geolocation of Tor relays is often inaccurate. This data must be cross-verified with other IP geolocation databases to ensure reliability. 5.6. Investigators should evaluate the information collected for internal consistency during the verification process. This helps determine whether the information is consistent and coherent, and aligns with itself, ensuring its credibility on its own terms. ### 6. Analysis 6.1. Be mindful that a network health analysis might find false-positives. There are a number of possible reasons for that. Among other things: - the data from Tor Metrics isn't always reliable, and what could initially appear as an action of a malicious actor could actually be the result of a glitch in the Metrics database or other network events, like a denial-of-service attack or a major Tor version upgrade. Please double check if Tor Metrics services (Metrics website, relay-search, Onionoo, etc) status are/were healthy and accurate at the time of the incident. - properly analyzing scanning results can be tricky. During an anomaly investigation, you may discover new and intriguing censorship facts, where exit nodes seem to mess with user traffic resulting in blocked websites. Yet, the underlying problem is that they are just using [the DNS resolvers of their ISP](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/team/-/issues/92) or the blocking of websites is done even further upstream. - Tor has location-biases that might impact the analysis. For instance, when investigating bandwidth related anomalies in the network or outright attacks it might just look like some relays are involved based on bandwidth scanner data. However, that might in fact be related to the still existing location-dependency of our bandwidth scanning efforts instead. 6.2. When starting the analysis keep in mind that it might be useful to translate, aggregate or reformat collected material so that it's easier to process with tools planned to be deployed. For instance, it is not uncommon to change the format of collected information to make it more easily searchable. 6.3. If any of your collected data is at risk of getting altered, lost or destroyed during an analysis it is advisable to use a working copy instead. That way it is possible to re-do the analysis with the same data later on, for instance with a different set of tools that might produce better results. See items 4.5. and 4.6. 6.4. There are many open source tools and services available to assist with your data analysis. As the Network Health Team needs to verify findings without the need to buy or purchase any product, it is important to prioritize platforms and/or products that do not require the purchase of a license to access the results. 6.5. Shifting the focus from 'who' to 'how' an anomaly or attack is happening may yield more valuable insights. In general, attackers have a _modus operandi_. Making a profile of a potential attacker, including their resources and techniques, can significantly help and support your analysis. 6.6. During the analysis investigators may be able to identify attacks such as Sybil, MITM, (distributed) denial-of-service, impersonation of relay operators, DNS poisoning, and social engineering (for example, Tor relay MyFamily evasion) attacks. A list of harmful behaviors can be found in [Criteria for rejecting bad relays](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/team/-/wikis/Crite… and also on [Network Health blog posts](https://blog.torproject.org/malicious-relays-health-tor-network/). ### 7. Reporting 7.1. As said in 6.6, the canonical definition and criteria for bad relays in the Tor network are established and followed by the [Criteria for rejecting bad relays](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/team/-/wikis/Crite… document. However, if you've observed a behavior that you may consider malicious and can cause harm to Tor users or to the network, but is not covered by the criteria, please file a ticket on [GitLab](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/team). Make sure the ticket is confidential[7] if there is a risk of tipping off an attacker (see 7.7.). 7.2. If investigators detect relays with one of the described issues or behaviors from the Criteria for rejecting bad relays, please report them with a detailed description to our bad relays mailing list (bad-relays(a)lists.torproject.org) including: - The relay's IP address or fingerprint. The fingerprint is a forty-character hex string such as 203933ED4E55EF8A3C3518427D1A1ED6A4CC285E. - What kind of behavior did you see and when? - Any additional information we'll need to reproduce the issue. 7.3. It is better to report attacks earlier than later, as attackers might turn them on and off to avoid the risk of detection. Waiting too long before getting back to us might make it therefore harder or outright impossible to replicate your findings. 7.4. Without replicable findings, the Network Health Team is unable to reject relays. However, we'd like to hear your results nevertheless, as we might have additional information or did our own investigation already that could help reproducing them. 7.5. When reporting to us, investigators don't need to identify themselves by their legal names. Pseudonyms and anonymous tips are welcome. 7.6. Writing a blog post or a research paper about your findings is very much welcomed. However, please coordinate the disclosure part with us first, so that the risk and potential harm to our users is minimized. 7.7. Don't tip off the attacker. While much of the data on suspicious relay activity is public, putting together all the pieces of an investigation should be done discretely. Revealing publicly an investigation result could inadvertently inform the attacker, helping them to evade future detection. 7.8. Additionally in the case of bridges, investigators must be careful on not publicly revealing the bridges' IP addresses. Revealing publicly the IP addresses of bridges without consulting the Network Health Team might be considered as malicious intent. ## References [1] Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations (2022) - https://www.ohchr.org/en/publications/policy-and-methodological-publication… [2] [tor-talk] Why make bad-relays a closed mailing list? (2014) - https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-July/034219.html [3] Onionoo documentation - https://metrics.torproject.org/onionoo.html [4] Metrics sources documentation - https://metrics.torproject.org/sources.html [5] OrNetStats - https://nusenu.github.io/OrNetStats/ [6] MetricsPort - https://support.torproject.org/glossary/metrics-port/ [7] Confidential issues in GitLab - https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/confidential_issues.html -- The Tor Project Community Team Lead

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