How to set time.

[Watson Ladd]

Niels Elgaard Larsen wrote:
> Scott Bennett wrote:
>>      On systems that distinguish clearly among userids (ahem) and
>> especially
>> ones where different userids have different security privileges, tor
>> normally
>> changes its userid to something specific to tor during initialization,
>> usually as soon as any privileged operations have completed and before
>> any
>> ordinary tor operations have begun.  An attempt to set the system time
>> and
>> date on a system that associates privileges with userids may fail if
>> it takes
>> place after tor has relinquished extra privileges.
> 
> Yes, the timing could be tricky. A cron job that check the tor log file
> (if configuration logs it) for time offset and set the system time could
> work because TOR should work even if the clock is set some time after it
> starts. But it is not a very elegant solution.
> 
>>  An  hypothetical
>> alternative method would involve tor keeping its own clock to use in the
>> form of an offset from the system clock, but such an approach may well be
>> impractical.
> 
> On the other hand it would work better for eg. TOR browser bundle.
It would enable an entry guard to give a different time to a client, and
 so distinguish that client's connections to sites of interest via
protocols that use a timestamp sent in the clear.
> 
> 


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