privoxy (was Re: ipv6)

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Mon Aug 9 14:29:34 UTC 2004


On Mon, Aug 09, 2004 at 10:16:14AM -0400, Patrick McFarland wrote:

> Remember that theres two remote options: enable-remote-toggle and
> enable-edit-actions. Also, iirc. you can change what it points to

I did already catch that, as it's mentioned in conf comments.

> through the web interface, so I'd double check to see if its still
> pointed at tor.

Yep, no one has bothered to point it elsewhere. Has only been running a few
minutes.
  
> > Is there a way to authenticate privoxy access? (I don't have IPsec up yet).
> > Another question: is it possible to wrap sessions to privoxy in SSL? Is
> > Stunnel the way to go?
> 
> http proxies work by having the browser go "GET
> http://someremoteurl.com/" like browsers usually do with web servers.
> The http proxy then does the request on behalf of the browser, and the
> web server returns data to the proxy, then the proxy returns the data
> to the browser.
> 
> The way this works, the http proxy is almost transparent, and you
> can't add anything the browser wouldnt already be doing.  Stunnel

Currently the connection to the privoxy/tor part is in clear. I'd like to 1)
encrypt and 2) authenticate that. I think an ssh tunnel is the way to go.

> doesn't look useful for this either.

Anonymizing proxies are largely useless, if Mallory sees the last leg to the journey
(browser<-->proxy).
 
> > > security issue it is. Its something I wouldn't do.
> > 
> > Do you have a specific threat model in mind, or is this the classical
> > "minimize the number of unnecessary services" rule?
> 
> The minimize the number of services rule. I was trying to think of an
> exact problem (like an open proxy can be used as a ddos zombie box),
> but since it only outputs into tor, tor itself is capable of doing
> stuff like this on it's own.

Thanks.
 
> The only thing you now have a problem with is a dos attack against
> your own box: if someone floods your box with connections to the
> proxy, it will chew cpu and memory like mad. (Im assuming a tor flood
> wouldn't be as bad)

It's largely a hypothetical threat, I hope (everybody: please don't feel
compelled to prove me wrong, if you're reading it).

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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