(FWD) Re: Whitedust article

[Roger Dingledine]

[Forwarding because our good friend Mixminion isn't on the
list either. Tor is already tackling the below problems, though
we're not currently aiming to defeat a China-level adversary:
http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#China
-RD]

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To: or-talk at freehaven.net
From: nobody at mixmaster.it
Subject: Re: Whitedust article
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 07:06:17 +0100 (CET)

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In <439E4FFA.5040600 at gmail.com> Void Beast <daemonik.dragon at gmail.com> wrote:
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>
>Ok, so we should place rules of some kind...
>So who should police these rules and how should they be impemented?
>
>Many people have different configurations so the rules may be different for
>each person.
>So we should perhaps rely on ourselves to impose our own rules? But then,
>will that cause outsiders to look upon tor as unregulated and therefore
>unsafe?
>
>This is interesting so far...  Who else has an idea?

Network admins DO have legit concerns about people abusing both Tor and their
systems, however as I understand it from the Tor website, Tor's primary goal 
is functional anonymity that can protect people in harsh circumstances.  One
good example is that people are using things like Tor and Freenet to get
information through the Bamboo Firewall of China.  In order to remain effective,
Tor must remain able to function in spite of people attempting to shut it down
or block it.

I think my ideas are reletively simple concepts:

1  Encourage more node operators to become directory servers.
   (this one's a no-brainer)

2  Add (unless it's already there) an ability to have Tor use an 
   'accessible' port like 80 or 443 to contact directory servers instead of
   the default port that people trying to stop Tor will likely be watching.

3  Implement decentralized directory functions.  Take a page from Freenet
   and let the client attempt to get directory info from any node it is able
   to contact.  Even if each node can only tell about the ones that it has
   contacted, it shouldn't take long for Tor to build enough directory info
   to allow it to route to a full directory server through the network.
   combined with the use of a separatly downloadable file similar to the freenet
   seednode.ref, a current copy of which would be included in the installer
   along with directons for getting a fresh one from a Tor website if it's
   needed.



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