Block hidden services

[Sven Anderson]

Am 29.08.2008 um 07:15 schrieb F. Fox:

> xiando wrote:
>>> is it - in analogy to exit policies - possible to block certain (or
>>> all) hidden services of using my node as directory or introduction
>>> point and to disable rendezvous point functionality for my node? (I
>>> understand that I cannot block being a rendezvous point for specific
>>> hidden services.)
>>>
>>> If not, I vote for such a feature.
>>
>> I strongly disagree with your vote for such a feature. There may be
>> anonymity issues involved. Your refusal to have involvement with  
>> hidden
>> service introduction may ease the adversarys attempts to locale my
>> hidden service and identify me as the operator.

I cannot follow how this shall be possible, can you elaborate this?  
The exit policies allow me as a tor node operator not to offer  
connections to certain IPs. In the same way I should have the  
possibility not to offer services for certain hidden services as long  
as I can identify them (that is directory and introduction point  
services).

I want to point out, that there are hidden services which are (at  
least) anonymity issues by their own.

> At the very least, such a new feature - if introduced - should be
> opt-in; by default, a node should have the ability to be an  
> introduction
> or rendezvous point.

I'm fine with that. But I think it's not fair to force Tor operators,  
that want to offer their resources for anonymous access, to  
automatically support hidden services as well. They are to different  
services and should be decoupled. So at least an option to switch off  
hidden service functionality is needed. But I prefer a flexible option  
like the one above.


Regards,

Sven

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