[tor-relays] How can we trust the guards?

[Aeris]

> Whats the trust mechanism (if any) to ensure that the majority of guards
> are not hijacked by adversaries?

See https://blog.torproject.org/blog/lifecycle-of-a-new-relay

* You need to wait around 70d to be a fully ready guard relay consuming all 
the possible bandwidth.
* Any sybil attack will be discovered even before having the guard flag at all 
(8th day).
* And you have to provide a lot of bandwidth to the network to be on the top 
quarter of relay to have the guard flag.

So it will be difficult for an attacker to hijack enough guard nodes to be 
really dangerous.
Too costly (bandwidth), too long (70d) and too visible.

Remember too that your client use only few guards at each time and rotate them 
only each 4 to 8 weeks. So even if evil guard appear, you have to wait at 
least 4 weeks to be in danger if in danger at all (probability is low to peak 
an evil guard at the next rotation).

And last, even if you use an evil guard node, attacker need to control an 
other node (middle or exit) on one of your circuit to break anonymity.

So, evil guard nodes are not a big problem :)

Regards,
-- 
Aeris
Individual crypto-terrorist group self-radicalized on the digital Internet
https://imirhil.fr/

Protect your privacy, encrypt your communications
GPG : EFB74277 ECE4E222
OTR : 5769616D 2D3DAC72
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