Re: [tor-talk] Potential uses for the Tor network

["zaki@xxxxxxxxxx" <zaki@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Tor Hidden Services have a lot utility in the context of peer of peer
networks.

Consider how Tor and Hidden Services work in Bitcoin.

1. The user sets up a Hidden Service for their Bitcoin.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/tor.md

2. Once the user's node starts, the .onion address of their hidden service
is circulated in the bitcoin gossip network. Basically other bitcoin nodes
tell each other about all the Bitcoin node they learn about.

3. Other bitcoin nodes will learn about the new hidden service from the
nodes they are connected to and the tor aware nodes will connect with them.

Hidden Services have a number of advantages over other peer to peer
architectures.

1. Hidden Services enforce a binding keypair to each node on the peer to
peer network. This ensures that a node x.onion that we learn about through
the gossip network is the name node x.onion that we connect to. Most peer
to peer networks make the assumption that you'll be able to find some
honest nodes to connect to.

2. Tor tells the users ISP that you run Tor but tells them very little
about what other peer to peer services the users run on top of Tor.

3. Tor Hidden Services provide end to end reachability for to the peer to
peer network far more reliably than system like UPNP.



On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 1:13 PM, Moritz Bartl <moritz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 10/04/2015 09:39 PM, Bryan Gwin wrote:
> > Is it possible for someone to design some software that can
> > utilize the Tor network (i.e. software that will allow users to
> communicate
> > with each other through the Tor Network allowing for private
> > conversations).
>
> Totally! "Tor" as core component simply provides a local SOCKS proxy for
> applications. This is also what the Tor Browser uses. So, any
> application that understands how to tunnel application traffic via SOCKS
> can be "torified".
>
> For a lot more information see the community wiki page:
> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorifyHOWTO
>
> --
> Moritz Bartl
> https://www.torservers.net/
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