[or-cvs] r19102: {projects} Add section "Improving efficiency of the Tor protocol", on p (projects/performance)

[sjm217 at seul.org]

Author: sjm217
Date: 2009-03-22 08:44:32 -0400 (Sun, 22 Mar 2009)
New Revision: 19102

Modified:
   projects/performance/performance.bib
   projects/performance/performance.tex
Log:
Add section "Improving efficiency of the Tor protocol", on proposed improvements to the Tor handshake protocol

Modified: projects/performance/performance.bib
===================================================================
--- projects/performance/performance.bib	2009-03-22 02:27:38 UTC (rev 19101)
+++ projects/performance/performance.bib	2009-03-22 12:44:32 UTC (rev 19102)
@@ -172,3 +172,32 @@
   publisher = {IEEE CS},
 }
 
+ at InProceedings{overlier:pet2007,
+  author =       {Lasse {\O}verlier and Paul Syverson},
+  title =        {Improving Efficiency and Simplicity of {Tor} Circuit
+                  Establishment and Hidden Services},
+   booktitle =   {Privacy Enhancing Technologies: 7th International
+                  Symposium, {PET} 2007},
+   pages =       {134--152},
+   year =        {2007},
+   editor =      {Nikita Borisov and Philippe Golle},
+  publisher =    {Springer-Verlag, LNCS 4776}
+}
+
+ at inproceedings{kate-pet2007,
+  title = {Pairing-Based Onion Routing}, 
+  author = {Aniket Kate and Greg Zaverucha and Ian Goldberg}, 
+  booktitle = {Proceedings of the Seventh Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PET
+        2007)}, 
+  year = {2007}, 
+  month = {June}, 
+  address = {Ottawa, Canada}, 
+  editor = {Nikita Borisov and Philippe Golle}, 
+  publisher = {Springer}, 
+  www_section = {Anonymous communication}, 
+  bookurl = {http://petworkshop.org/2007/}, 
+  www_pdf_url = {http://petworkshop.org/2007/papers/PET2007_preproc_Pairing_based.pdf}, 
+  www_remarks = {Describes an circuit-establishment protocol for a Tor-like network. Uses
+        Pairing- and Identity-Based crypto for efficiency, at the expense of having all
+        private keys generated by a trusted IBE authority.}, 
+}

Modified: projects/performance/performance.tex
===================================================================
--- projects/performance/performance.tex	2009-03-22 02:27:38 UTC (rev 19101)
+++ projects/performance/performance.tex	2009-03-22 12:44:32 UTC (rev 19102)
@@ -671,6 +671,23 @@
 our time and effort are better spent on design and coding that will
 have long-term impact rather than be recurring costs.
 
+\subsection{Improving efficiency of the Tor protocol}
+\label{sec:protocol-efficiency}
+
+A number of proposals~\cite{kate-pet2007,overlier:pet2007} have been published in the literature on how to improve the efficiency of the Tor handshake protocol.
+These would reduce the latency of circuit establishment, and lower CPU load on nodes.
+Applying a modification like this would break existing clients, so Tor's version negotiation functionality would be required to permit both protocol to operate in parallel.
+Compared to the existing Tor protocol, the proposed modifications are not as well analyzed so there is a risk that they will have some weaknesses.
+Some also relax Tor's security assurances (e.g. perfect forward secrecy) in order to offer improved performance.
+
+{\bf Impact}: Low.
+
+{\bf Effort}: High.
+
+{\bf Risk}: High.
+
+{\bf Plan}: Not yet. Cryptographic overhead does not appear to be a significant component of latency. If, later on, circuit establishment overhead starts to be a significant contributor to performance problems, we should re-evaluate.
+
 \subsection{Handling fast Tor relays on Windows}
 \label{sec:overlapped-io}