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Swiss Researchers Describe a Faster, More Secure Tor
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and University College London published a paper this week describing a faster and more secure version of Tor called HORNET. On one hand, the new onion routing network can purportedly achieve speeds of up to 93 gigabits per second and "be scaled to support large numbers of users with minimal overhead". On the other hand, researchers cannot claim to be immune to "confirmation attacks" known to be implemented on Tor, but they point out that, given how HORNET works, perpetrators of such attacks would have to control significantly more ISPs across multiple geopolitical boundaries and probably sacrifice the secrecy of their operations in order to successfully deploy such attacks on HORNET.
As I look upon the Slashdot front page today, I see only one story with more than 100 comments. Most submissions here routinely get only 50, if not much fewer. One submission from yesterday only has 20 comments!
This very submission has been on the front page for over 30 minutes, and there wasn't one single comment when I started writing this one!
To really see what I'm talking about, look at Slashdot as it appeared a decade ago on July 25, 2005. Or compare it to the nearest Saturday to then, July 23, 2005.
Almost all of those submissions had at least 100 comments. Many of them had far more. In fact, it was routine to see submissions with 400 or even 500 comments. So clearly something is extremely wrong today, when 100 comments is considered a lot.
Dice, we need to have a talk about this existential problem, and how to remedy this situation.
The first thing to do is to stop with the -1 moderations that plague so many discussions here. Too much perfectly fine content ends up at -1 right away. We're pretty sure it's somebody affiliated with Slashdot who is responsible. Even if it isn't, Slashdot should not be giving mod points to whoever is engaging in this harmful moderation.
The second thing to do is to get rid of the posting limits. They made sense when submissions here routinely got hundreds of comments. Now that the numbers of comments is measured using tens, the limits should go. Users should get an unlimited number of comments a day, and the time between comments should be at most one minute. Remember, this is a discussion site. Putting up artificial barriers to discussion, like rate limits, only causes harm!
The third thing to do is to avoid the social justice submissions. Yes, they get lots of comments, but they're extremely low-quality comments. 500 of those comments are worth less than even just 10 good comments about a legitimate topic.
It's not too late to save Slashdot. With some simple and sensible changes, this site could easily be restored to its former glory. Get rid of the bad moderators, get rid of the posting limits, and let us actually converse here! Help restore this site to a place where people actually want to come and visit. Please, Dice, do the right thing!
this is becoming like the free market of anonymity software! competition means our identities win. the more rocks to over turn, the more administrative overhead is required, and the better the systems the more secure our private communications become. Security through obscurity isn't true security, but it sure helps delay the overlords when everything is obfuscated across multiple channels... you know those modern police radios, jumping channels at pre-set algorithms, encrypting across them all when possible... can you imagine something that uses all of these secure networks to randomly select paths to endpoints and dynamically adjusts to a new secure network as needed... good luck Department of Homeland Spying
i support the right to offend.
You are all cows. Cows say moo. MOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOOO! Moo cows MOOOOOOO! Moo say the cows. YOU COWS!!
Sounds like a place for those .xxx domains.
Extremist views are fairly easy to counter because of their illogical nature, trusting people to then balance the result correctly assumes YOU are somehow superior to them in your calculation of the balance.
You may believe that you can decide what is 'radicalization' but US kills far more people, so clearly you are as subjective as others. Even the word 'radicalization' was coined to permit censorship of views rather than counter-argument of those views, and your repetition of the talking points indicates indoctrination.
"There's a difference between 'expressing your opinion', 'discussing differing viewpoints', and the bullshit I've seen virtually every single day for the last 10 years or so, and it's getting worse, not better."
i.e. the other side you disagree with, but can't put counter arguments to.
If it came bundled with a privacy enhanced web browser that would limit logins (no Gmail, FB, Twitter or any of the usual providers), remove ads and JavaScript tracking and not keep browsing logs. It should be hard to make a mistake and accidentally reveal who you are by accessing an account. Also, a list of keywords should be checked against all outgoing data, acting like a firewall, to prevent it from being leaked - like, if the outgoing packet contains my name, email or other sensitive data then I don't want to relay that to the external world. Then it could be bundled with some sort of anonymous chat or email that uses throwaway accounts and encrypts data with one time pads exchanged beforehand by the parties. Also, prevent spying software by running it inside a VM. That would go a long way towards secrecy.
the new onion routing network can purportedly achieve speeds of up to 93 gigabits per second and "be scaled to support large numbers of users with minimal overhead".
As someone who ran a Tor exit node for years (and has the bright green t-shirt to prove it), I don't think the protocol has anything to do with the speeds of Tor. Not inherently, anyway. Tor is slow because the vast majority of its nodes run on asymmetric consumer links. If we all had symmetric gigabit Google fiber, it would behave substantially differently. Perhaps they've adjusted the protocol, but no amount of tweaking can get around physical reality. The bandwidth simply isn't available in the network.
n/t
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
"93 gigabits per second" sounds nice, but we must of course keep in mind the classic question of "compared to what?". This particular number is on a 120 Gb/s local network, which is nice, but not exactly the standard use case for onion routing.
The paper shows some detailed figures comparing performance to Tor in various settings over a 10 Gb/s link. Hornet is much better than Tor on very small payloads (less than 1KB). In the other comparisons, it's usually slightly better, but its goodput is actually worse than Tor.
Tor isn't slow because the protocol is bad; Tor is slow because many people are routed over a small number of servers. My Tor relay has a bandwidth limit of 350 KB/s (to stay under about 1 TB of traffic per month) which at this moment is shared by 125 connections. That's not a lot per individual user. Making this a few percent faster would still keep it firmly in the "a few KB/s per user" area.
All this is not meant to knock hornet, only the silly Ars writeup.
Whorenet :-D
"Hor" in Swedish is "Whore". Takes darkweb to a whole new level.
In his post higher up in this thread, he reveals an elitist attitude:
I'd almost wish it would go back to being accessible only by Universities, the government, and the military.
This, as well as hi anti-freedom of speech commentary, is in line with the statist views he often expresses.
The real degeneracy of Slashdot and the Internet at large is comprised of the stifling effects on free speech driven by governments and a number number of other institutions, with kheldan being one of their cheerleaders. The best times on Slashdot were not during kheldan's early years, as he would have you believe; I well remember them as the years before he ever joined and brought his odious statist, elitist views.
And kheldan: I've seen innumerous much more thoughtful, eloquent, insightful, and — above all — honest posts on 4chan than the shitposting record you've left here.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
We both know paying for whores is illegal in Sweden. But it's OK, this software is from Switzerland, and it's free.
Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence