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[Political/Legal] Passing ideas on German Tor nodes



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Just a couple ideas I had, regarding the issue of German Tor nodes and
the upcoming data retention policies; keep in mind that my own knowledge
regarding the Tor network isn't all that deep, so these may be flawed.

However, let's suppose that we're in a time when German Tor nodes are
now actively keeping logs of all connections. What would be the best way to:

1.) Protect the anonymity of Tor users as much as possible, while
2.) Attempting to allow some way for German Tor nodes to contribute to
the overall capacity of the network.

If I read things right, there are two things - barring client
misconfigurations or other SNAFUs - that are likely to reveal the
identity of a client:

* An adversary owning all three Tor nodes in a circuit, in which case
the client is *definitely* screwed;
* An adversary owning the entry guard and exit node in a circuit, which
may allow an end-to-end attack.

So, what if a maximum of one German Tor node were allowed in a circuit?
Would that achieve both numbered goals?

Given the logging, it might be wise to not allow the German node to be
the exit node; I'm not sure about the entry guard.

I would think that a German middleman node would be safe, though, right?

- --
F. Fox
CompTIA A+, Net+, Security+
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