Quoting mxz+tor-anti-censorship-team--- via anti-censorship-team (2023-03-20 22:31:23)

a while ago (10.02.2023) I tried to send an email on the tor-talk mailing list but apparently it never got through as it's still awaiting approval. (it wasn't denied either, afaik)

I think tor-talk is being having less and less movement in favor of the forum[0], but we should either close the list or take care of the moderation. Sorry.

recently, there was an interesting side note on the cryptography mailing list [1]. Quote:

...

(People have written code to predict what continent an anonymous person using Tor is on, based on noticing over a period of time when

their remote system clocks ran faster or slower, assuming that was caused by nighttime versus daytime temperatures.)

I was wondering if any of you know about this and where I could find code that does this? Any links to research and papers would be highly appreciated, too.

Especially, I'm wondering how they do this:

• via differences in the above mentioned system clock (impressive?!)
• timing analysis with latency? things like lower latency in Europe as

there are more tor relays around compared to Argentina.

• do you need to have any prerequisites? e.g. controlling at least one

node, or the exit node, or a "clear text" server/hidden service that someone connects to?

Finally, if that's the wrong list, please refer me to the right one. Thanks!

I didn't know about that. You can ask in the forum[0], maybe someone there knows about it.

[0] https://forum.torproject.net

On Mon, Mar 20, 2023 at 03:31:23PM -0600, mxz+tor-anti-censorship-team--- via anti-censorship-team wrote:

recently, there was an interesting side note on the cryptography mailing list [1]. Quote:

...

(People have written code to predict what continent an anonymous person using Tor is on, based on noticing over a period of time when

their remote system clocks ran faster or slower, assuming that was caused by nighttime versus daytime temperatures.)

I was wondering if any of you know about this and where I could find code that does this? Any links to research and papers would be highly appreciated, too.

Especially, I'm wondering how they do this:

• via differences in the above mentioned system clock (impressive?!)
• timing analysis with latency? things like lower latency in Europe as there

are more tor relays around compared to Argentina.

• do you need to have any prerequisites? e.g. controlling at least one node,

or the exit node, or a "clear text" server/hidden service that someone connects to?

It sounds like they are referring to "Hot or Not: Revealing Hidden Services by their Clock Skew" from 2006.

https://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#HotOrNot

Section 5.3 is about geolocation.

Longitude could simply be found by finding the daily peak temperature to establish local time. To find latitude, the change in day length over a reasonably long period could be used. ... national holidays or when daylight saving time comes into effect might be evident