[tor-talk] Bad Exit Node Control

[Roc Admin]

I'm working on an updated version of SnakesOnATor (SOAT) that was used
to monitor the Tor network for bad exit nodes. This is a similar
function to InspectTor hosted on a .onion site but that page owner has
not been reachable and has not reached out to other Tor folk.

The main problem with InspecTor is that he/she is recommending that
because a bad exit node has been detected, users should change their
Tor configs to never use those nodes. This would eventually negatively
affect a user's anonymity as they would create a network fingerprint
unlike any others.

But this is, AFAIK, going to be the same problem that SOAT or any
future solution would have. Namely, that there is no official
mechanism to kick off a bad exit. If I understand correctly, this was
a manual process in the past that entailed emailing the op and
eventually kicking them off?

I'm looking for feedback on the above statements. Maybe I'm missing
something or do not know about the underlyings of the process.

If I do understand it correctly, I wonder if a solution is necessary
that integrates monitoring and removing bad exit nodes and malicious
activity, If we agree that users should not change their routes, then
routes should be changed on a global level to remove bad exits by an
authoritative party. Such a solution would be a challenge to say the
least because what stops a bad Op from spinning up a new node. Maybe
this is the reason we haven't done this in the past.


ROCAdmin