Re: Proposal of a new hidden wiki

[Karsten Loesing <karsten.loesing@xxxxxxx>]

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Hi,

>> I like the distributed private key idea.

Yes, that's really a nice idea. And it might even work.

>> My question
>> is: what would determine which server got chosen?
> 
> I think that if two or more hidden services used the same private key,
> thus the same .onion hostname, the master servers would always point
> to the latest updated.

Correct. A hidden service uploads a current descriptor (containing
contact information) if a) there is some significant change in contact
information or b) an hour passes.

> Then, they could, just to
> equal host usage, schedule tor restarts each 2 hours. So, in even
> hours host A would respond, and in pair hours host B would respond.
> And this, automatically.

That's a bad idea, because it does not really improve availability if a
hidden service is restarted every two hours.

The two services should rather be run in parallel all the time. Then,
after some maths, one would (probably -- am no mathematician) find that
both services have their own descriptors published half the time, and
thus receive half of the client accesses. (Note that the one-hour
intervals break as soon as the list of introduction points changes --
that means that starting the nodes with a certain timing does not
significantly improve this solution.)

However, I am quite sure that the developers did not have this variant
of content replication in mind when they designed the hidden services.
That means that it might break. But why not try it? :)

- --Karsten
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