[tor-talk] Tor2web support for HTTPS on .onion

[Giovanni Pellerano]

sure Andrew, i'm glad of your interest in knowing more.

Tor2web is basically a proxy for Tor Hidden Services designed by Aaron
Swarz and Virgil Griffith. The software was designed in order to
support freedom of speech and amplify the visibility/reachability of
the contents onto the public internet surface by making possible
normal web users to visit hidden services resources by means of a
common browser and without the need for the user to install Tor/TBB.

from end-user point of view, every hidden service is reachable this way:
http://antani123.onion  is mapped onyo https://antani123.tor2web.org

In addition depending on the software configuration there are various
use cases possible:

1) one can setup an independent generic proxy like for example
tor2web.org and provide access to whatever content of the darknet to
normal web users by means of a common browser. you find more info
about current nodes part of the let me say official network or totally
independent on the github wiki page [1] [2].
2) one can setup a specific proxy for a single or few hidden services.
e.g. we use it in Globaleaks [3] where, depending on the threat model
of the whistleblowing initiative [4], a Tor2web setup can be
instantiated in order to provide reachability for anonymous
whistleblowing initiatives and the reasons may vary:
- the initiative want to provide a landing page for the whistleblower
accessing the initiative while still not accepting submissions over
Tor2web (e.g. https://secure.publeaks.nl);
- the initiative is runned by anonymous that protects the real
infrastructure behind an hidden service but they user Tor2web want to
amplify their reachability on the internet: e.g. mafiealeaks runs this
way (https://secure.mafialeaks.org)

[1] https://github.com/globaleaks/Tor2web-3.0/wiki
[2] https://github.com/globaleaks/Tor2web-3.0/wiki/Infrastructure
[3] https://github.com/globaleaks/GlobaLeaks/wiki
[4] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1niYFyEar1FUmStC03OidYAIfVJf18ErUFwSWCmWBhcA/pub

best,

evilaliv3