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Design For A Tor DNS-based Exit List
Status:
This is a suggested design for a DNS Exit List (DNSEL) for Tor exit nodes.
It hasn't been implemented.
Why?
It's useful for third parties to be able to tell when a given connection
is coming from a Tor exit node. Potential applications range from
"anonymous user" cloaks on IRC networks like oftc, to networks like
Freenode that apply special authentication rules to users from these
IPs, to systems like Wikipedia that may want to make a priority of
_unblocking_ shared IPs more liberally than non-shared IPs, since shared
IPs presumably have non-abusive users as well as abusive ones.
Since Tor provides exit policies, not every Tor server will connect to
every address:port combination on the Internet. Unless you're trying to
penalize hosts for supporting anonymity, it makes more sense to answer
the fine-grained question "which Tor servers will connect to _me_?" than
the coarse-grained question "which Tor servers exist?" The fine-grained
approach also helps Tor server ops who share an IP with their Tor
server: if they want to access a site that blocks Tor users, they
can exclude that site from their exit policy, and the site can learn
that they won't send it anonymous connections.
Tor already ships with a tool (the "contrib/exitlist" script) to
identify which Tor nodes might open anonymous connections to any given
exit address. But this is a bit tricky to set up, so only sites like
Freenode and OFTC that are dedicated to privacy use it.
Conversely, providers of some DNSEL implementations are providing
coarse-grained lists of Tor hosts -- sometimes even listing servers that
permit no exit connections at all. This is rather a problem, since
support for DNSEL is pretty ubiquitous.
How?
Keep a running Tor instance, and parse the cached-routers and
cached-routers.new files as new routers arrive. To tell whether a given
server allows connections to a certain address:port combo, look at the
definitions in dir-spec.txt or follow the logic of the current exitlist
script. If bug 405 is still open when you work on this
(http://bugs.noreply.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=405), you'll
probably want to extend it to look at only the newest descriptor for
each server, so you don't use obsolete exit policy data.
FetchUselessDescriptors would probably be a good torrc option to enable.
If you're also running a directory cache, you get extra-fresh
information.
The DNS interface
Standard DNSEL, if I understand right, looks like this: There's some host
at foo.example.com. You want to know if 1.2.3.4 is in the list, so you
query for an A record for 4.3.2.1.foo.example.com. If the record exists,
1.2.3.4 is in the list. If you get an NXDOMAIN error, 1.2.3.4 is not in
the list.
Assume that the DNSEL sits at some host, torhosts.example.com. Below
are some queries that could be supported, though some of them are
possibly a bad idea.
Query type 1: "General IP:Port"
Format:
{IP1}.{port}.{IP2}.ip-port.torhosts.example.com
Rule:
Iff {IP1} is a Tor server that permits connections to {port} on
{IP2}, then there should be an A record.
Example:
"1.0.0.10.80.4.3.2.1.ip-port.torhosts.example.com" should exist
if and only if there is a Tor server at 10.0.0.1 that allows
connections to port 80 on 1.2.3.4.
Example use:
I'm running an IRC server at w.x.y.z:9999, and I want to tell
whether an incoming connection is from a Tor server. I set
up my IRC server to give a special mask to any user coming from
an IP listed in 9999.z.y.x.w.ip-port.torhosts.example.com.
Later, when I get a connection from a.b.c.d, my ircd looks up
"d.c.b.a.9999.z.y.x.w.ip-port.torhosts.example.com" to see
if it's a Tor server that allows connections to my ircd.
Query type 2: "IP-port group"
Format:
{IP}.{listname}.list.torhosts.example.com
Rule:
Iff this Tor server is configured with an IP:Port list named
{listname}, and {IP} is a Tor server that permits connections to
any member of {listname}, then there exists an A record.
Example:
Suppose torhosts.example.com has a list of IP:Port called "foo".
There is an A record for 4.3.2.1.foo.list.torhosts.example.com
if and only if 1.2.3.4 is a Tor server that permits connections
to one of the addresses in list "foo".
Example use:
Suppose torhosts.example.com has a list of hosts in "examplenet",
a popular IRC network. Rather than having them each set up to
query the appropriate "ip-port" list, they could instead all be
set to query a central examplenet.list.torhosts.example.com.
Problems:
We'd be better off if each individual server queried about hosts
that allowed connections to itself. That way, if I wanted to
allow anonymous connections to foonet, but I wanted to be able to
connect to foonet from my own IP without being marked, I could add
just a few foonet addresses to my exit policy.
Query type 3: "My IP, with port"
Format:
{IP}.{port}.me.torhosts.example.com
Rule:
An A record exists iff there is a tor server at {IP} that permits
connections to {port} on the host that requested the lookup.
Example:
"4.3.2.1.80.me.torhosts.example.com" should have an A record if
and only if there is a Tor server at 1.2.3.4 that allows
connections to port 80 of the querying host.
Example use:
Somebody wants to set up a quick-and-dirty Tor detector for a
single webserver: just point them at 80.me.torhosts.example.com.
Problem:
This would be easiest to use, but DNS gets in the way. If you
create DNS records that give different results depending on who is
asking, you mess up caching. There could be a fix here, but might
not.
RECOMMENDATION: Just build ip-port for now, and see what demand is
like. There's no point in building mechanisms nobody wants.
Web interface:
Should provide the same data as the dns interface.
Other issues:
30-60 minutes is not an unreasonable TTL.
There could be some demand for address masks and port lists. Address
masks wider than /8 make me nervous here, as do port ranges.
We need an answer for what to do about hosts which exit from different
IPs than their advertised IP. One approach would be for the DNSEL
to launch periodic requests to itself through all exit servers whose
policies allow it -- and then see where the requests actually come from.
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