[tor-bugs] #20082 [Core Tor/Tor]: Lower initial descriptor upload delay for ephemeral services
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki
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Tue Sep 6 13:05:45 UTC 2016
#20082: Lower initial descriptor upload delay for ephemeral services
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Reporter: twim | Owner:
Type: enhancement | Status: new
Priority: Medium | Milestone: Tor: 0.2.???
Component: Core Tor/Tor | Version:
Severity: Normal | Resolution:
Keywords: tor-hs, research, | Actual Points:
Parent ID: | Points:
Reviewer: | Sponsor: SponsorR-can
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Comment (by dgoulet):
That 30 seconds delay pre-dates my knowledge of hidden service so I have
no clue why it was chosen. I doubt very much it was about mitigating any
kind of "startup time correlation" attack because a random delay was added
to it but then we realized it was borked so in the end it always been 30
seconds...
So indeed... why keep a delay at all for services? Descriptor publication
to a directory only happens once all intro points circuit are ready and
those are established at startup. If you think about it, it's actually a
very _specific_ pattern to detect a service startup. As a guard you see 5
circuits being established at once (yes we need 3 IPs but we launch 2
extras for better luck) then 2 of them dies quickly and you have a 6th
circuit almost 30 seconds after the initial launch of those... I'm not
saying that by removing that delay we'll make it go away but I really
don't see the point of the delay here to hide anything. Thus, I'm all for
_removing_ it unless armadev had a reason to add that delay :) 10 years
ago :).
Also let's keep in mind that this would be _very_ useful to answer for
prop224.
--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/20082#comment:3>
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