[tor-talk] Can NAT traversal be Tor's killer feature?

[Zenaan Harkness]

On 7/11/14, Helder Ribeiro <helder at discor.de> wrote:
> tl;dr: how about a virtual global flat LAN that maps static IPs to
> onion addresses?

> Exhibit 1: Ricochet IM (https://ricochet.im) uses onion addresses
> (each client runs a hidden service) as a sort of *static anonymous IP
> address* and, because it's static, it's the user's identity too, in a
> p2p/serverless chat app. It's dead simple, works like a charm behind
> the firewall at work, and protects metadata, which no other chat
> app/protocol I know does.
>
> Exhibit 2: OnionShare (https://onionshare.org/) does the same for file
> sharing, and it's actually a much *easier* user experience to send
> large files this way than any other. Why? "Static anomyous IP" (onion
> address) and NAT traversal because all hidden services work by making
> *outgoing* connections to Tor relays and don't need any open ports.

Sounds good.

Excessive popularity/ usage, without measures to 'encourage' or
otherwise to automatically facilitate expansion of the network may
well lead to network degradation.

Skype super-nodes or whatever they are (were?) called, are
automatically created on nodes where Skype detected sufficient
bandwidth and no blocking firewall, AIUI. UPnP comes to mind.