Secret rendezvous addresses for tor dir servers aren't necessary. In China, for example, all network traffic goes through government-owned firewalls and routers, just like the traffic at your workplace goes through company-owned routers and firewalls. The traffic can be sniffed and logged without blocking it. That way they know who's using tor. It's probably valuable to know who's trying to be a dissedent and what it is they think they're discussing privately.
As for a protocol to keep that hidden, SSL comes to mind. Personally, though, I don't believe you can ever be truly anonymous or secret, so I act accordingly.
----- Original Message ----
From: Arrakistor
<arrakistor@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "eric.jung@xxxxxxxxx" <or-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 7:00:26 PM
Subject: Re[2]: Can governments block tor?
Is there a protocol to keep that hidden? I have a hard time imagining
secret rendezvous addresses for dir servers for tor, without actually
using tor.
Regards,
Arrakistor
Saturday, August 12, 2006, 4:46:33 PM, you wrote:
> Isn't it more likely that rather than blocking it, they monitor
> who uses it (i.e., who connects to entry points?)
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Nick Mathewson <nickm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: or-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 5:20:31 PM
> Subject: Re: Can governments block tor?
> On Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 03:15:39PM -0500, Arrakistor wrote:
>>
>>
I am sure this has been answered before, but my email logs are
>> destroyed.
>>
>> Can a government find out what IP addresses that tor originally
>> connects to in order to get directory information?
> Currently, yes, if the government employs anybody who knows how to
> download Tor and read C. I would imagine that most governments do.
> We're working on this.
> rtfm'ly yrs,