[tor-relays] Exit flag and port 6667 vs 6697

[teor]

> On 5 Jul 2017, at 05:29, grarpamp <grarpamp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>> ...
>>> 
>>> My current, rather paranoid, list of accepted ports looks like this:
>>> 20-21, 53, 443, 993, 995, 6667. I am not sure how useful this is to
>>> Tor, and whether I will actually avoid complaints, but I guess I can
>>> only wait and see.
>> 
>> Most Tor traffic is HTTP or HTTPS, and the HTTPS proportion is growing.
>> So this is useful.
>> 
>>> My question is about 6667 - should Tor's 'Exit flag policy' allow 6697
>>> (IRC encrypted over SSL) as an alternative to 6667? I would rather
>>> support people using 6697, if I had the choice.
>> 
>> Some IRC services allow or require SSL on 6667, others require it on
>> 6697. Why not enable both?

I really do think this is a good way to tackle this issue:
we should encourage relay operators to enable *both* 6667 and 6697.

The flag minimum requirement really is a minimum.

>> So I can't see a strong case for switching to 6697, given that the Exit
>> flag is only a hint to relay operators about the minimum useful ports.
> 
> 6667 cleartext is there because tor is old... it was widely prevailing then.
> 6697 TLS became widespread much later, especially post Snowden.
> 
> What does survey of IRC nets regarding TLS capabilities look like today?
> Do users have some need to connect, out via exit, to [any particular]
> cleartext IRC services, for something that TLS IRC services do not provide?
> Do we continue endorsing cleartext upon operators who seek minimums
> and/or proffer to carry non-monitorable e2e traffic to avoid legal issues?

Port numbers and TLS ore orthogonal: port 443 can be used for cleartext,
and port 80 for encrypted traffic. In the case of IRC, it's quite common
for 6667 to be used with TLS.

And the Exit operator would need to set up DNSCrypt or similar.
Otherwise Exit DNS requests are trivially monitorable.

> Does cleartext insistance therein funnel users into choosing possibly
> harmful cleartext transports due to better speed / latency / probability of
> successful exit paths?
> What are consensus bandwidth capacity and exit node counts for 6667:6697?
> What is the traffic ratio of 6667:6697 actually exiting the network?

Good question.
We don't collect stats on individual ports, because it's hard to do
safely.

> I suspect switching minimum to 6697 is fine, or at least making it
> logical OR.

The current Exit flag requires 2 ports out of [80, 443, 6667].
Can you clarify what the two options are that you are suggesting here?

T

--
Tim Wilson-Brown (teor)

teor2345 at gmail dot com
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