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5) #include "head.wmi" TITLE="NLnet Project: Speed Up Tor Hidden Services"
6) 
7) <div class="main-column">
8) 
9) <!-- PUT CONTENT AFTER THIS TAG -->
10) 
11) <h2>NLnet Project: Speed Up Tor Hidden Services</h2>
12) <hr />
13) 
14) <p>
15) Tor Hidden Services allow users to set up anonymous information services,
16) like websites, that can only be accessed through the Tor network and are
17) protected against identification of the host that runs the services.

18) The most critical limitations of Tor Hidden Services are the time it takes

19) until a Hidden Service is registered in the network and the latency of
20) contact establishment when accessed by a user.
21) Due to design issues in the original Tor protocol,
22) the connection to a new Hidden Service can take several minutes, which
23) leads most users to give up before the connection has been established.
24) Using Tor Hidden Services for direct interactive user-to-user
25) communication (e.g. messaging) is nearly impossible due to the high latency
26) of Hidden Service circuit setup.
27) </p>
28) 
29) <p>
30) This project aims at speeding up Tor Hidden Services by improving the way
31) Tor circuits are set up between the user and the Hidden Service as well as
32) the way a Hidden Service is registered in the Tor network.
33) In a first step precise diagnostics of the behavior of the Hidden Services
34) in lab setups and real world situations will be conducted to find the
35) root causes of the bad timing effects.
36) Based on these diagnostics, optimization strategies will be designed and
37) verified for unwanted implications for the security and anonymity of the
38) Tor network.
39) The most promising optimizations will then be implemented to achieve a
40) notable improvement for the users. Precise success metrics will be
41) developed in the diagnostics phase, after it becomes clear where the time
42) is lost and what improvements are realistic.
43) The ultimate goal is to have the Hidden Services protocol change production
44) ready and propagated to the Tor users within a timeframe of less than
45) 12 months.
46) </p>
47) 
48) <p>

49) This project is generously funded by:
50) </p>
51) 
52) <p>
53) <a href="http://www.nlnet.nl/news/2008/20080514-awards.html">
54) <img src="$(IMGROOT)/nlnet-160x60.png" alt="The NLnet foundation" /></a>

55) </p>
56) 
57) <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">

58) <thead>
59) <tr>
60) <th><big>Project</big></th>
61) <th><big>Due Date</big></th>

62) </tr>

63) </thead>

64) 
65) <tr bgcolor="#e5e5e5">
66)   <td>
67)     <b>Deliverable A:</b> Analysis, measurements and problem
68)     clarification<br />
69)     <small><em>As Tor Hidden Services have not been actively developed
70)     further in the last year or so of Tor development, certain aspects of
71)     the problems are under-diagnosed. To identify the precise sources of
72)     latency and time loss, an extensive analysis of the deeper reasons for
73)     them needs to be conducted. Deliverable A will require about one month
74)     of work. The results of the analysis will influence the design
75)     decisions to be taken in Deliverable B.</em></small>
76)   </td>
77)   <td>
78)     June 15, 2008
79)   </td>
80) </tr>
81) 
82) <tr>
83)   <td>
84)     <b>Deliverable B:</b> Design and evaluation of the necessary
85)     changes<br />
86)     <small><em>The changes to Tor Hidden Services will affect core
87)     functionality of the protocol and therefore require a careful
88)     evaluation of possible repercussions for the security and anonymity. A
89)     two-month period is planned for the design and evaluation phase, which
90)     concludes with an extensive peer review.</em></small>
91)   </td>
92)   <td>
93)     August 15, 2008
94)   </td>
95) </tr>
96) 
97) <tr bgcolor="#e5e5e5">
98)   <td>
99)     <b>Deliverable C:</b> Implementation<br />
100)     <small><em>After design, evaluation and peer review the modifications
101)     need to be implemented and integrated with the current Tor code base.
102)     The actual implementation of the necessary changes will take
103)     approximately two months.</em></small>
104)   </td>
105)   <td>
106)     October 15, 2008
107)   </td>
108) </tr>
109) 
110) <tr>
111)   <td>
112)     <b>Deliverable D:</b> Implementation and test of the change up to
113)     release state<br />
114)     <small><em>The modification is highly critical to the security and
115)     anonymity of the Tor network, it requires extensive testing and
116)     debugging in laboratory and real life conditions. A period of three
117)     months is projected for testing and debugging, where the responsible
118)     developer is committed to the testing effort with 1/3 of its time. Part
119)     of the testing phase will be a public beta period.</em></small>
120)   </td>
121)   <td>
122)     January 15, 2009
123)   </td>
124) </tr>
125) 
126) <tr bgcolor="#e5e5e5">
127)   <td>
128)     <b>Deliverable E:</b> Rollout<br />
129)     <small><em>The actual rollout to the Tor server network will be
130)     conducted in sync with the regular Tor release schedule. As this
131)     schedule is dependent on a number of external factors, like the
132)     completion of other software projects that should go into the same
133)     release, the actual release time and the time until this release has
134)     been accepted and installed by most Tor server operators can vary. From
135)     experience a period of three to four months can be
136)     expected.</em></small>
137)   </td>
138)   <td>
139)     May 15, 2009
140)   </td>
141) </tr>
142) </table>
143) 
144) <br />
145) 
146) <a id="Reports"></a>
147) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Reports">Monthly Status Reports</a></h2>
148) <p>
149) There will be in total eight monthly status reports beginning with the
150) first deliverable on June 15, 2008 and ending with completion of
151) implementation and testing work on January 15, 2009.
152) </p>
153) 

154) <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
155) <thead>
156) <tr>
157) <th><big>Month,</big></th>
158) <th><big>Status Report</big></th>
159) </tr>
160) </thead>
161) 
162) <tr bgcolor="#e5e5e5">
163)   <td>

164)     <a id="Jun08"></a>
165)     <a class="anchor" href="#Jun08">Jun 08</a>

166)   </td>
167)   <td>
168)     <small><em>The original goal of analyzing the problems that lead to
169)     slowdown of Tor Hidden Services has been accomplished. Part of this

170)     analysis was measuring the delay that a user experiences when

171)     setting up or accessing a hidden service. Furthermore, measurement data
172)     from April 2008 could be leveraged to explore timings of internal
173)     substeps of establishing a connection to a hidden service. The results
174)     of this analysis are contained in a 22-page
175)     <a href="http://freehaven.net/~karsten/hidserv/perfanalysis-2008-06-15.pdf">report</a>
176)     that has been made public on the Tor
177)     <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Jun-2008/msg00019.html">developer

178)     mailing list</a>.</em></small>

179)     <br/>

180)     <small><em>The analysis also unveiled a few bugs which were responsible
181)     for part of the delay in making a hidden service available for

182)     clients. Some bugs have been fixed subsequent to the analysis, others
183)     will be fixed soon. The evaluation has further brought up several
184)     possible approaches to improve Tor Hidden Service performance. Some of
185)     these ideas can be applied immediately, while others require deeper
186)     analysis and new measurements. Finally, in the course of the analysis,

187)     we discovered that some improvements require more in-depth

188)     changes to Tor which are not directly related to hidden services. These
189)     changes cannot be achieved in the time frame of this

190)     project.</em></small>

191)   </td>
192) </tr>
193) 
194) <tr>
195)   <td>

196)     <a id="Jul08"></a>
197)     <a class="anchor" href="#Jul08">Jul 08</a>

198)   </td>
199)   <td>

200)     <small><em>All bugs that have been found in the analysis have been
201)     fixed. This includes the 2 bugs that have already been fixed during the

202)     analysis and 4 more bugs that were fixed within the past 30 days. While

203)     the bugfixes remove unintended performance bottlenecks due to
204)     programming errors, some of the design changes that have been spotted
205)     in the previous analysis have side-effects on anonymity or overall

206)     network load which need to be evaluated against individual performance

207)     gains. A <a href="http://freehaven.net/~karsten/hidserv/discussion-2008-07-15.pdf">report</a>
208)     has been published to the
209)     <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Jul-2008/msg00034.html">developer
210)     mailing list</a> including 7 possible design changes that need to be
211)     discussed. Some evaluations (namely Low-Bandwidth Measurements and the

212)     Grand Scaling Plan) have turned out to require more time than expected
213)     and had to be scheduled for a later time in the project than
214)     deliverable B. The current plan is to perform these evaluations within
215)     the timeframe until January 15 and work with assumptions until final
216)     results are available.</em></small>

217)   </td>
218) </tr>
219) 
220) <tr bgcolor="#e5e5e5">
221)   <td>
222)     Aug 08
223)   </td>
224)   <td>

225)     <small><em>During the past 30 days the 7 proposed designs have been
226)     further evaluated and discussed. Four of them have proven to be
227)     applicable in terms of the required changes to the code and possible
228)     anonymity implications. One has been classified as bug rather than
229)     design change. Two had to be excluded for either unforeseeable security
230)     problems, or uncertainty of actual performance
231)     improvements.</em></small>
232)     <br/>
233)     <small><em>Together with the results from July 15, the design phase has
234)     been concluded. The tasks for the upcoming implementation phase are now
235)     quite clear: One bug needs to be fixed and four design changes need to
236)     be implemented. Further, evaluations of the changed design need to be
237)     performed in order to verify their usefulness. A
238)     <a href="http://freehaven.net/~karsten/hidserv/design-2008-08-15.pdf">report</a>
239)     with the results of the design phase has been published to the
240)     <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Aug-2008/msg00025.html">developer
241)     mailing list</a>.</em></small>

242)   </td>
243) </tr>
244) 
245) <tr>
246)   <td>
247)     Sep 08
248)   </td>
249)   <td>
250)   </td>
251) </tr>
252) 
253) <tr bgcolor="#e5e5e5">
254)   <td>
255)     Oct 08
256)   </td>
257)   <td>
258)   </td>
259) </tr>
260) 
261) <tr>
262)   <td>
263)     Nov 08
264)   </td>
265)   <td>
266)   </td>
267) </tr>
268) 
269) <tr bgcolor="#e5e5e5">
270)   <td>
271)     Dec 08
272)   </td>
273)   <td>
274)   </td>
275) </tr>
276) 
277) <tr>
278)   <td>
279)     Jan 09
280)   </td>
281)   <td>
282)   </td>
283) </tr>
284) </table>
285) 
286) <br />

287) 
288) <!-- Do we want a people section? If so, would it make sense to write what

289) these people will be doing? And what exactly are these people going to