nym-0.2 released

Jason Holt jason at lunkwill.org
Sat Oct 1 02:18:43 UTC 2005


nym-0.2 is now available at:

http://www.lunkwill.org/src/nym/

My tor server is currently down, so I can't set up a public trial of this, but 
perhaps someone else will.  This release makes the following improvements:

* Tokens are now issued one-per-IP to clients via a "token" CGI script. 
Tokens are still blindly issued, so nobody (including the token issuer) can 
associate tokens with IP addresses.  The list of already-served IPs could be 
periodically removed, allowing users to obtain new pseudonyms on a regular 
basis.  (Abusers will then need to be re-blocked assuming they re-misbehave).

* A token can be used to obtain a signature on a client certificate from a 
separate "CA" CGI script (potentially on a different machine).  Tokens can 
only be "spent" to obtain one cert.  Code to make a CA, client certs and have 
the certs signed is included.

* The CA public key can be installed on a third web server (or proxy) to 
require that users have a valid client certificate.  Servers can maintain a 
blacklist of misbehaving client certs.  Misbehavers will then be unable to 
access the server until they obtain a new token and client cert (via a new 
IP).



My proposal for using this to enable tor users to play at Wikipedia is as 
follows:

1. Install a token server on a public IP.  The token server can optionally be 
provided Wikipedia's blocked-IP list and refuse to issue tokens to offending 
IPs.  Tor users use their real IP to obtain a blinded token.

2. Install a CA as a hidden service.  Tor users use their unblinded tokens to 
obtain a client certificate, which they install in their browser.

3. Install a wikipedia-gateway SSL web proxy (optionally also a hidden 
service) which checks client certs and communicates a client identifier to 
MediaWiki, which MediaWiki will use in place of the REMOTE_ADDR (client IP 
address) for connections from the proxy.  When a user misbehaves, Wikipedia 
admins block the client identifier just as they would have blocked an 
offending IP address.

 						-J



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