[tor-bugs] #17716 [Tor]: Do clients need to do authority clock checks?

Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki blackhole at torproject.org
Sat Nov 28 00:34:04 UTC 2015


#17716: Do clients need to do authority clock checks?
-----------------------------+--------------------------------
     Reporter:  teor         |      Owner:
         Type:  enhancement  |     Status:  new
     Priority:  Medium       |  Milestone:  Tor: 0.2.8.x-final
    Component:  Tor          |    Version:
     Severity:  Normal       |   Keywords:
Actual Points:               |  Parent ID:  #4483
       Points:               |    Sponsor:
-----------------------------+--------------------------------
 The current code in #4483 tracks if a client has done a clock check with
 an authority.

 But it doesn't do anything with that information at the moment:
 * making clients wait to contact an authority during bootstrap negates the
 point of fallback directories (#15775)
 * making clients continue to contact authorities after bootstrapping risks
 an inadvertent DoS on the authorities.

 How important are client clock checks?
 Do we need to launch a connection every N hours / days simply to check our
 clock with an authority?
 Is it worth the extra load on the authorities?
 Do we trust the clocks on fallback directories?

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17716>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
The Tor Project: anonymity online


More information about the tor-bugs mailing list