Hello list,

here is the vanguard proposal that supersedes proposal 247.

It specifies the newest vanguard design which we've been working on: https://github.com/mikeperry-tor/vanguards

FWIW, the above project is still in experimental state and we are expecting to launch it officially in the short term future. Until then, feel free to experiment with it if you feel like it.

Check out the proposal and code and let us know if you have any questions or feedback!

Thanks!

---

Filename: 292-mesh-vanguards.txt Title: Mesh-based vanguards Authors: George Kadianakis and Mike Perry Created: 2018-05-08 Status: Open Supersedes: 247

0. Motivation

A guard discovery attack allows attackers to determine the guard node of a Tor client. The hidden service rendezvous protocol provides an attack vector for a guard discovery attack since anyone can force an HS to construct a 3-hop circuit to a relay (#9001).

Following the guard discovery attack with a compromise and/or coercion of the guard node can lead to the deanonymization of a hidden service.

1. Overview

This document tries to make the above guard discovery + compromise attack harder to launch. It introduces a configuration option which makes the hidden service also pin the second and third hops of its circuits for a longer duration.

With this new path selection, we force the adversary to perform a Sybil attack and two compromise attacks before succeeding. This is an improvement over the current state where the Sybil attack is trivial to pull off, and only a single compromise attack is required.

With this new path selection, an attacker is forced to do a one or more node compromise attacks before learning the guard node of a hidden service. This increases the uncertainty of the attacker, since compromise attacks are costly and potentially detectable, so an attacker will have to think twice before beginning a chain of node compromise attacks that they might not be able to complete.

1.1. Tor integration

The mechanisms introduced in this proposal are currently implemented partially in Tor and partially through an external Python script: https://github.com/mikeperry-tor/vanguards

The Python script uses the new Tor configuration options HSLayer2Nodes and HSLayer3Nodes to be able to select nodes for the guard layers. The Python script is tasked with maintaining and rotating the guard nodes as needed based on the lifetimes described in this proposal.

In the future, we are aiming to include the whole functionality into Tor, with no need for external scripts.

1.2. Visuals

Here is how a hidden service rendezvous circuit currently looks like:

-> middle_1 -> middle_A -> middle_2 -> middle_B -> middle_3 -> middle_C -> middle_4 -> middle_D HS -> guard -> middle_5 -> middle_E -> middle_6 -> middle_F -> middle_7 -> middle_G -> middle_8 -> middle_H -> ... -> ... -> middle_n -> middle_n

this proposal pins the two middle positions into a much more restricted sets, as follows:

-> guard_2A -> guard_3A -> guard_1A -> guard_2B -> guard_3B HS -> guard_3C -> guard_1B -> guard_2C -> guard_3D -> guard_3E -> guard_2D -> guard_3F

Additionally, to avoid linkability, we insert an extra middle node after the third layer guard for client side intro and hsdir circuits, and service-side rendezvous circuits. This means that the set of paths for Client (C) and Service (S) side look like this:

C - G - L2 - L3 - R S - G - L2 - L3 - HSDIR S - G - L2 - L3 - I C - G - L2 - L3 - M - I C - G - L2 - L3 - M - HSDIR S - G - L2 - L3 - M - R

1.3. Threat model, Assumptions, and Goals

Consider an adversary with the following powers:

- Can launch a Sybil guard discovery attack against any node of a rendezvous circuit. The slower the rotation period of the node, the longer the attack takes. Similarly, the higher the percentage of the network is compromised, the faster the attack runs.

- Can compromise any node on the network, but this compromise takes time and potentially even coercive action, and also carries risk of discovery.

We also make the following assumptions about the types of attacks:

1. A Sybil attack is observable by both people monitoring the network for large numbers of new nodes, as well as vigilant hidden service operators. It will require either large amounts of traffic sent towards the hidden service, multiple test circuits, or both.

2. A Sybil attack against the second or first layer Guards will be more noisy than a Sybil attack against the third layer guard, since the second and first layer Sybil attack requires a timing side channel in order to determine success, whereas the Sybil success is almost immediately obvious to third layer guard, since it will be instructed to connect to a cooperating malicious rend point by the adversary.

3. As soon as the adversary is confident they have won the Sybil attack, an even more aggressive circuit building attack will allow them to determine the next node very fast (an hour or less).

4. The adversary is strongly disincentivized from compromising nodes that may prove useless, as node compromise is even more risky for the adversary than a Sybil attack in terms of being noticed.

Given this threat model, our security parameters were selected so that the first two layers of guards should be hard to attack using a Sybil guard discovery attack and hence require a node compromise attack. Ideally, we want the node compromise attacks to carry a non-negligible probability of being useless to the adversary by the time they complete.

On the other hand, the outermost layer of guards should rotate fast enough to _require_ a Sybil attack.

See our vanguard simulator project for a simulation of the above adversary model and a motivation for the parameters selected within this proposal: https://github.com/asn-d6/vanguard_simulator https://github.com/asn-d6/vanguard_simulator/wiki/Optimizing-vanguard-topolo...

2. Design

When a hidden service picks its guard nodes, it also picks an additional NUM_LAYER2_GUARDS-sized set of middle nodes for its `second_guard_set`, as well as a NUM_LAYER3_GUARDS-sized set of middle nodes for its `third_guard_set`.

When a hidden service needs to establish a circuit to an HSDir, introduction point or a rendezvous point, it uses nodes from `second_guard_set` as the second hop of the circuit and nodes from `third_guard_set` as third hop of the circuit.

A hidden service rotates nodes from the 'second_guard_set' at a random time between MIN_SECOND_GUARD_LIFETIME hours and MAX_SECOND_GUARD_LIFETIME hours.

A hidden service rotates nodes from the 'third_guard_set' at a random time between MIN_THIRD_GUARD_LIFETIME and MAX_THIRD_GUARD_LIFETIME hours.

Each node's rotation time is tracked independently, to avoid disclosing the rotation times of the primary and second-level guards.

2.1. Security parameters

We set NUM_LAYER2_GUARDS to 4 nodes and NUM_LAYER3_GUARDS to 6 nodes.

We set MIN_SECOND_GUARD_LIFETIME to 1 day, and MAX_SECOND_GUARD_LIFETIME to 45 days inclusive, for an average rotation rate of 29.5 days, using the max(X,X) distribution specified in Section 3.3.

We set MIN_THIRD_GUARD_LIFETIME to 1 hour, and MAX_THIRD_GUARD_LIFETIME to 48 hours inclusive, for an average rotation rate of 31.5 hours, using the max(X,X) distribution specified in Section 3.3.

See Section 3 for more analysis on these constants.

2.2. Path restriction changes

In order to avoid information leaks and ensure paths can be built, path restrictions must be loosened.

In particular, we allow the following: 1. Nodes from the same /16 and same family for any/all hops 2. Guard nodes can be chosen for RP/IP/HSDIR 3. Guard nodes can be chosen for hop before RP/IP/HSDIR.

The first change prevents the situation where paths cannot be built if two layers all share the same subnet and/or node family. It also prevents the the use of a different entry guard based on the family or subnet of the IP, HSDIR, or RP.

The second change prevents an adversary from forcing the use of a different entry guard by enumerating all guard-flaged nodes as the RP.

The third change prevents an adversary from learning the guard node by way of noticing which nodes were not chosen for the hop before it.

3. Rationale and Security Parameter Selection

3.1. Sybil rotation counts for a given number of Guards

The probability of Sybil success for Guard discovery can be modeled as the probability of choosing 1 or more malicious middle nodes for a sensitive circuit over some period of time.

P(At least 1 bad middle) = 1 - P(All Good Middles) = 1 - P(One Good middle)^(num_middles) = 1 - (1 - c/n)^(num_middles)

c/n is the adversary compromise percentage

In the case of Vanguards, num_middles is the number of Guards you rotate through in a given time period. This is a function of the number of vanguards in that position (v), as well as the number of rotations (r).

P(At least one bad middle) = 1 - (1 - c/n)^(v*r)

Here's detailed tables in terms of the number of rotations required for a given Sybil success rate for certain number of guards.

1.0% Network Compromise: Sybil Success One Two Three Four Five Six Eight Nine Ten Twelve Sixteen 10% 11 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 15% 17 9 6 5 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 25% 29 15 10 8 6 5 4 4 3 3 2 50% 69 35 23 18 14 12 9 8 7 6 5 60% 92 46 31 23 19 16 12 11 10 8 6 75% 138 69 46 35 28 23 18 16 14 12 9 85% 189 95 63 48 38 32 24 21 19 16 12 90% 230 115 77 58 46 39 29 26 23 20 15 95% 299 150 100 75 60 50 38 34 30 25 19 99% 459 230 153 115 92 77 58 51 46 39 29

5.0% Network Compromise: Sybil Success One Two Three Four Five Six Eight Nine Ten Twelve Sixteen 10% 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 15% 4 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 25% 6 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 50% 14 7 5 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 60% 18 9 6 5 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 75% 28 14 10 7 6 5 4 4 3 3 2 85% 37 19 13 10 8 7 5 5 4 4 3 90% 45 23 15 12 9 8 6 5 5 4 3 95% 59 30 20 15 12 10 8 7 6 5 4 99% 90 45 30 23 18 15 12 10 9 8 6

10.0% Network Compromise: Sybil Success One Two Three Four Five Six Eight Nine Ten Twelve Sixteen 10% 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 15% 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 25% 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 50% 7 4 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 60% 9 5 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 75% 14 7 5 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 85% 19 10 7 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 90% 22 11 8 6 5 4 3 3 3 2 2 95% 29 15 10 8 6 5 4 4 3 3 2 99% 44 22 15 11 9 8 6 5 5 4 3

The rotation counts in these tables were generated with: def num_rotations(c, v, success): r = 0 while 1-math.pow((1-c), v*r) < success: r += 1 return r

3.2. Rotation Period

As specified in Section 1.2, the primary driving force for the third layer selection was to ensure that these nodes rotate fast enough that it is not worth trying to compromise them, because it is unlikely for compromise to succeed and yield useful information before the nodes stop being used.

From the table in Section 3.1, with NUM_LAYER2_GUARDS=4 and NUM_LAYER3_GUARDS=6, it can be seen that this means that the Sybil attack on layer3 will complete with 50% chance in 12*31.5 hours (15.75 days) for the 1% adversary, ~4 days for the 5% adversary, and 2.62 days for the 10% adversary.

Since rotation of each node happens independently, the distribution of when the adversary expects to win this Sybil attack in order to discover the next node up is uniform. This means that on average, the adversary should expect that half of the rotation period of the next node is already over by the time that they win the Sybil.

With this fact, we choose our range and distribution for the second layer rotation to be short enough to cause the adversary to risk compromising nodes that are useless, yet long enough to require a Sybil attack to be noticeable in terms of client activity. For this reason, we choose a minimum second-layer guard lifetime of 1 day, since this gives the adversary a minimum expected value of 12 hours for during which they can compromise a guard before it might be rotated. If the total expected rotation rate is 29.5 days, then the adversary can expect overall to have 14.75 days remaining after completing their Sybil attack before a second-layer guard rotates away.

3.3. Rotation distributions

In order to skew the distribution of the third layer guard towards higher values, we use max(X,X) for the distribution, where X is a random variable that takes on values from the uniform distribution.

Here's a table of expectation (arithmetic means) for relevant ranges of X (sampled from 0..N-1). The table was generated with the following python functions:

def ProbMinXX(N, i): return (2.0*(N-i)-1)/(N*N) def ProbMaxXX(N, i): return (2.0*i+1)/(N*N)

def ExpFn(N, ProbFunc): exp = 0.0 for i in xrange(N): exp += i*ProbFunc(N, i) return exp

The current choice for second-layer guards is noted with **, and the current choice for third-layer guards is noted with ***.

Range Min(X,X) Max(X,X) 40 12.84 26.16 41 13.17 26.83 42 13.50 27.50 43 13.84 28.16 44 14.17 28.83 45 14.50 29.50** 46 14.84 30.16 47 15.17 30.83 48 15.50 31.50***

The Cumulative Density Function (CDF) tells us the probability that a guard will no longer be in use after a given number of time units have passed.

Because the Sybil attack on the third node is expected to complete at any point in the second node's rotation period with uniform probability, if we want to know the probability that a second-level Guard node will still be in use after t days, we first need to compute the probability distribution of the rotation duration of the second-level guard at a uniformly random point in time. Let's call this P(R=r).

For P(R=r), the probability of the rotation duration depends on the selection probability of a rotation duration, and the fraction of total time that rotation is likely to be in use. This can be written as:

P(R=r) = ProbMaxXX(X=r)*r / \sum_{i=1}^N ProbMaxXX(X=i)*i

or in Python:

def ProbR(N, r, ProbFunc=ProbMaxXX): return ProbFunc(N, r)*r/ExpFn(N, ProbFunc)

For the full CDF, we simply sum up the fractional probability density for all rotation durations. For rotation durations less than t days, we add the entire probability mass for that period to the density function. For durations d greater than t days, we take the fraction of that rotation period's selection probability and multiply it by t/d and add it to the density. In other words:

def FullCDF(N, t, ProbFunc=ProbR): density = 0.0 for d in xrange(N): if t >= d: density += ProbFunc(N, d) # The +1's below compensate for 0-indexed arrays: else: density += ProbFunc(N, d)*(float(t+1))/(d+1) return density

Computing this yields the following distribution for our current parameters:

t P(SECOND_ROTATION <= t) 1 0.03247 2 0.06494 3 0.09738 4 0.12977 5 0.16207 10 0.32111 15 0.47298 20 0.61353 25 0.73856 30 0.84391 35 0.92539 40 0.97882 45 1.00000

This CDF tells us that for the second-level Guard rotation, the adversary can expect that 3.3% of the time, their third-level Sybil attack will provide them with a second-level guard node that has only 1 day remaining before it rotates. 6.5% of the time, there will be only 2 day or less remaining, and 9.7% of the time, 3 days or less.

Note that this distribution is still a day-resolution approximation.

4. Security concerns and mitigations

4.1. Mitigating fingerprinting of new HS circuits

By pinning the middle nodes of rendezvous circuits, we make it easier for all hops of the circuit to detect that they are part of a special hidden service circuit with varying degrees of certainty.

The Guard node is able to recognize a Vanguard client with a high degree of certainty because it will observe a client IP creating the overwhelming majority of its circuits to just a few middle nodes in any given 31.5 day time period.

The middle nodes will be able to tell with a variable certainty that depends on both its traffic volume and upon the popularity of the service, because they will see a large number of circuits that tend to pick the same Guard and Exit.

The final nodes will be able to tell with a similar level of certainty that depends on their capacity and the service popularity, because they will see a lot of handshakes that all tend to have the same second hops.

The most serious of these is the Guard fingerprinting issue. When proposal 254-padding-negotiation is implemented, services that enable this feature should use those padding primitives to create fake circuits to random middle nodes that are not their guards, in an attempt to look more like a client.

Additionally, if Tor Browser implements "virtual circuits" based on SOCKS username+password isolation in order to enforce the re-use of paths when SOCKS username+passwords are re-used, then the number of middle nodes in use during a typical user's browsing session will be proportional to the number of sites they are viewing at any one time. This is likely to be much lower than one new middle node every ten minutes, and for some users, may be close to the number of Vanguards we're considering.

This same reasoning is also an argument for increasing the number of second-level guards beyond just two, as it will spread the hidden service's traffic over a wider set of middle nodes, making it both easier to cover, and behave closer to a client using SOCKS virtual circuit isolation.

5. Default vs optional behavior

We suggest this torrc option to be optional because it changes path selection in a way that may seriously impact hidden service performance, especially for high traffic services that happen to pick slow guard nodes.

However, by having this setting be disabled by default, we make hidden services who use it stand out a lot. For this reason, we should in fact enable this feature globally, but only after we verify its viability for high-traffic hidden services, and ensure that it is free of second-order load balancing effects.

Even after that point, until Single Onion Services are implemented, there will likely still be classes of very high traffic hidden services for whom some degree of location anonymity is desired, but for which performance is much more important than the benefit of Vanguards, so there should always remain a way to turn this option off.

In the meantime, a reference implementation is available at: https://github.com/mikeperry-tor/vanguards/blob/master/vanguards/vanguards.p...

Appendix A: Full Python program for generating tables in this proposal

#!/usr/bin/python import math

############ Section 3.1 ################# def num_rotations(c, v, success): i = 0 while 1-math.pow((1-c), v*i) < success: i += 1 return i

def rotation_line(c, pct): print " %2d%% %6d%6d%6d%6d%6d%6d%6d%6d%6d%6d%8d" % \ (pct, num_rotations(c, 1, pct/100.0), num_rotations(c, 2, pct/100.0), \ num_rotations(c, 3, pct/100.0), num_rotations(c, 4, pct/100.0), num_rotations(c, 5, pct/100.0), num_rotations(c, 6, pct/100.0), num_rotations(c, 8, pct/100.0), num_rotations(c, 9, pct/100.0), num_rotations(c, 10, pct/100.0), num_rotations(c, 12, pct/100.0), num_rotations(c, 16, pct/100.0))

def rotation_table_31(): for c in [1,5,10]: print "\n %2.1f%% Network Compromise: " % c print " Sybil Success One Two Three Four Five Six Eight Nine Ten Twelve Sixteen" for success in [10,15,25,50,60,75,85,90,95,99]: rotation_line(c/100.0, success)

############ Section 3.3 ################# def ProbMinXX(N, i): return (2.0*(N-i)-1)/(N*N) def ProbMaxXX(N, i): return (2.0*i+1)/(N*N)

def ExpFn(N, ProbFunc): exp = 0.0 for i in xrange(N): exp += i*ProbFunc(N, i) return exp

def ProbUniformX(N, i): return 1.0/N

def ProbR(N, r, ProbFunc=ProbMaxXX): return ProbFunc(N, r)*r/ExpFn(N, ProbFunc)

def FullCDF(N, t, ProbFunc=ProbR): density = 0.0 for d in xrange(N): if t >= d: density += ProbFunc(N, d) # The +1's below compensate for 0-indexed arrays: else: density += ProbFunc(N, d)*float(t+1)/(d+1) return density

def expectation_table_33(): print "\n Range Min(X,X) Max(X,X)" for i in xrange(10,49): print " %2d %2.2f %2.2f" % (i, ExpFn(i,ProbMinXX), ExpFn(i, ProbMaxXX))

def CDF_table_33(): print "\n t P(SECOND_ROTATION <= t)" for i in xrange(1,46): print " %2d %2.5f" % (i, FullCDF(45, i-1))

########### Output ############

# Section 3.1 rotation_table_31()

# Section 3.3 expectation_table_33() CDF_table_33()

----------------------

1. https://onionbalance.readthedocs.org/en/latest/design.html#overview