[tor-talk] Better Privacy for Tor Node Operators

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Sun Apr 24 19:55:59 UTC 2011


> If you run a Tor node at your home IP address you will loose the
> positive side effect of a dynamic IP address and your IP layer anonymity
> decreases to that of a static IP address because your node identity
> links all your public IP addresses.

Many (most) residential ISP's allocate their users from DHCP, technically
dynamic. Yet DHCP keys off the user's MAC address, and preferentially,
if available, assigns the user their most recently used IP from the database
in response to a DISCOVER/REQUEST. Been a while since checked, but I
think this is also true if the lease is expired and there is no demand to
recycle the former address. So the user is often effectively static. Some
users defeat this nature of DHCP and obtain a different IP on demand
by installing a new MAC.
It is not clear whether ISP's will gravitate towards providing static or
dynamic when they start delivering IPv6.

For those users who do, by whatever means, end up with a different IP
address each time they go online, and who wish to avoid tracking across
said IP changes by regenerating their Tor keys each time... what is the
minimum recommended time that such a node needs to become and
remain useful in the Tor network? Sub hour, hours, day, days?


More information about the tor-talk mailing list