One hop proxy [Re: Can nickname be duplicate?]

[Pei Hanru]

> Before tor is available, people often used proxy located abroad their own
> country to visit banned sites, but this was a unstable way, such proxy
> server was hard to find, once one of these proxy become well-known, it would
> soon be listed on the banned IP list of censor system. Furthermore, it
> cannot avoid "key-words" filter if data streamed from client to proxy (or
> vice-versa) is not encrypted.
> 
> The solution is a proxy without fixed IP and can also encrypt data, Tor is a
> good tool! But we just need such a proxy, thus so many relays is not needed,
> and such relays will slow down the speed of communication.

There're already some one-hop-proxy tools for this specific purpose (I'm
not going to mention them publicly and assuming you're familiar with
them, if not, please drop me a private mail), and generally they're
faster than Tor.

> So, my idea is to find a way to get rid of relays, what I need is just exit
> nodes abroad my country and other totalitarian governed regions, I've found
> that generally one circuit contains three nodes when tor is used to browse
> website, that is to say my data is encrypted for three times. In fact, to
> me, one exit node with a high bandwidth abroad is enough.

There will be a lot of problems with one-hop circuit. For example, if
"bad" people know that there are one-hop circuits in the Tor network,
they will be more interested in attacking Tor, setting up more malicious
nodes, etc., the consequence is a mess.

I agree with you that Tor is slow, especially in China, we need to
improve this, but alas, it is easier said than done.

> Of course what I have said above does not necessarily fit every country. In
> my country, as long as you do not spread out those banned information, the
> police would not bother you just for the reason that you browse them
> personally.

I'm also from China, haven't investigated such "browsing unsuitable
material but not spreading" issue you described. How do you draw the
above conclusion? Is it written somewhere?

Hanru