git.schokokeks.org
Repositories
Help
Report an Issue
tor-webwml.git
Code
Commits
Branches
Tags
Suche
Strukturansicht:
4f357d6de
Branches
Tags
bridges
docs-debian
jobs
master
press-clips
tor-webwml.git
torbutton
en
design
index.html.en
add in the torbutton design subsection
Andrew Lewman
commited
4f357d6de
at 2010-08-18 14:11:14
index.html.en
Blame
History
Raw
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>Torbutton Design Documentation</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.75.2" /></head><body><div class="article" title="Torbutton Design Documentation"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a id="design"></a>Torbutton Design Documentation</h2></div><div><div class="author"><h3 class="author"><span class="firstname">Mike</span> <span class="surname">Perry</span></h3><div class="affiliation"><div class="address"><p><code class="email"><<a class="email" href="mailto:mikeperry.fscked/org">mikeperry.fscked/org</a>></code></p></div></div></div></div><div><p class="pubdate">Jun 28 2010</p></div></div><hr /></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#id2910402">1. Introduction</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#adversary">1.1. Adversary Model</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#requirements">1.2. Torbutton Requirements</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#layout">1.3. Extension Layout</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#id2907285">2. Components</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2927418">2.1. Hooked Components</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2922900">2.2. New Components</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#id2907191">3. Chrome</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#browseroverlay">3.1. Browser Overlay - torbutton.xul</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2922887">3.2. Preferences Window - preferences.xul</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2922834">3.3. Other Windows</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#id2917336">4. Toggle Code Path</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934128">4.1. Button Click</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2915503">4.2. Proxy Update</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2931338">4.3. Settings Update</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#id2898010">5. Description of Options</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2910532">5.1. Test Settings</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#plugins">5.2. Disable plugins on Tor Usage (crucial)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2917719">5.3. Isolate Dynamic Content to Tor State (crucial)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#jshooks">5.4. Hook Dangerous Javascript</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2897638">5.5. Resize windows to multiples of 50px during Tor usage (recommended)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2924640">5.6. Disable Updates During Tor</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2892217">5.7. Redirect Torbutton Updates Via Tor (recommended)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2892261">5.8. Disable Search Suggestions during Tor (recommended)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2892300">5.9. Disable livemarks updates during Tor usage (recommended)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2892371">5.10. Block Tor/Non-Tor access to network from file:// urls (recommended)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2892443">5.11. Close all Tor/Non-Tor tabs and windows on toggle (optional)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2892524">5.12. Isolate Access to History navigation to Tor state (crucial)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2892609">5.13. History Access Settings</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2892721">5.14. Clear History During Tor Toggle (optional)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934267">5.15. Block Password+Form saving during Tor/Non-Tor</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934328">5.16. Block Tor disk cache and clear all cache on Tor Toggle</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934378">5.17. Block disk and memory cache during Tor</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934430">5.18. Clear Cookies on Tor Toggle</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934481">5.19. Store Non-Tor cookies in a protected jar</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934538">5.20. Store both Non-Tor and Tor cookies in a protected jar (dangerous)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934577">5.21. Manage My Own Cookies (dangerous)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934592">5.22. Disable DOM Storage during Tor usage (crucial)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934696">5.23. Clear HTTP Auth on Tor Toggle (recommended)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934733">5.24. Clear cookies on Tor/Non-Tor shutdown</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934788">5.25. Reload cookie jar/clear cookies on Firefox crash</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934863">5.26. On crash recovery or session restored startup, restore via: Tor, Non-Tor</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934935">5.27. On normal startup, set state to: Tor, Non-Tor, Shutdown State</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2934994">5.28. Prevent session store from saving Non-Tor/Tor-loaded tabs</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2935059">5.29. Set user agent during Tor usage (crucial)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2935233">5.30. Spoof US English Browser</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2935326">5.31. Don't send referrer during Tor Usage</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2935366">5.32. Strip platform and language off of Google Search Box queries</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2935407">5.33. Automatically use an alternate search engine when presented with a Google Captcha</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2935487">5.34. Store SSL/CA Certs in separate jars for Tor/Non-Tor (recommended)</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#FirefoxBugs">6. Relevant Firefox Bugs</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#FirefoxSecurity">6.1. Bugs impacting security</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#FirefoxWishlist">6.2. Bugs blocking functionality</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#FirefoxMiscBugs">6.3. Low Priority Bugs</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#TestPlan">7. Testing</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#SingleStateTesting">7.1. Single state testing</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2936532">7.2. Multi-state testing</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#HackTorbutton">7.3. Active testing (aka How to Hack Torbutton)</a></span></dt></dl></dd></dl></div><div class="sect1" title="1. Introduction"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="id2910402"></a>1. Introduction</h2></div></div></div><p> This document describes the goals, operation, and testing procedures of the Torbutton Firefox extension. It is current as of Torbutton 1.2.5. </p><div class="sect2" title="1.1. Adversary Model"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="adversary"></a>1.1. Adversary Model</h3></div></div></div><p> A Tor web browser adversary has a number of goals, capabilities, and attack types that can be used to guide us towards a set of requirements for the Torbutton extension. Let's start with the goals. </p><div class="sect3" title="Adversary Goals"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="adversarygoals"></a>Adversary Goals</h4></div></div></div><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Bypassing proxy settings</strong></span><p>The adversary's primary goal is direct compromise and bypass of Tor, causing the user to directly connect to an IP of the adversary's choosing.</p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Correlation of Tor vs Non-Tor Activity</strong></span><p>If direct proxy bypass is not possible, the adversary will likely happily settle for the ability to correlate something a user did via Tor with their non-Tor activity. This can be done with cookies, cache identifiers, javascript events, and even CSS. Sometimes the fact that a user uses Tor may be enough for some authorities.</p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>History disclosure</strong></span><p> The adversary may also be interested in history disclosure: the ability to query a user's history to see if they have issued certain censored search queries, or visited censored sites. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Location information</strong></span><p> Location information such as timezone and locality can be useful for the adversary to determine if a user is in fact originating from one of the regions they are attempting to control, or to zero-in on the geographical location of a particular dissident or whistleblower. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Miscellaneous anonymity set reduction</strong></span><p> Anonymity set reduction is also useful in attempting to zero in on a particular individual. If the dissident or whistleblower is using a rare build of Firefox for an obscure operating system, this can be very useful information for tracking them down, or at least <a class="link" href="#fingerprinting">tracking their activities</a>. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>History records and other on-disk information</strong></span><p> In some cases, the adversary may opt for a heavy-handed approach, such as seizing the computers of all Tor users in an area (especially after narrowing the field by the above two pieces of information). History records and cache data are the primary goals here. </p></li></ol></div></div><div class="sect3" title="Adversary Capabilities - Positioning"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="adversarypositioning"></a>Adversary Capabilities - Positioning</h4></div></div></div><p> The adversary can position themselves at a number of different locations in order to execute their attacks. </p><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Exit Node or Upstream Router</strong></span><p> The adversary can run exit nodes, or alternatively, they may control routers upstream of exit nodes. Both of these scenarios have been observed in the wild. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Adservers and/or Malicious Websites</strong></span><p> The adversary can also run websites, or more likely, they can contract out ad space from a number of different adservers and inject content that way. For some users, the adversary may be the adservers themselves. It is not inconceivable that adservers may try to subvert or reduce a user's anonymity through Tor for marketing purposes. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Local Network/ISP/Upstream Router</strong></span><p> The adversary can also inject malicious content at the user's upstream router when they have Tor disabled, in an attempt to correlate their Tor and Non-Tor activity. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Physical Access</strong></span><p> Some users face adversaries with intermittent or constant physical access. Users in Internet cafes, for example, face such a threat. In addition, in countries where simply using tools like Tor is illegal, users may face confiscation of their computer equipment for excessive Tor usage or just general suspicion. </p></li></ol></div></div><div class="sect3" title="Adversary Capabilities - Attacks"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="attacks"></a>Adversary Capabilities - Attacks</h4></div></div></div><p> The adversary can perform the following attacks from a number of different positions to accomplish various aspects of their goals. It should be noted that many of these attacks (especially those involving IP address leakage) are often performed by accident by websites that simply have Javascript, dynamic CSS elements, and plugins. Others are performed by adservers seeking to correlate users' activity across different IP addresses, and still others are performed by malicious agents on the Tor network and at national firewalls. </p><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Inserting Javascript</strong></span><p> If not properly disabled, Javascript event handlers and timers can cause the browser to perform network activity after Tor has been disabled, thus allowing the adversary to correlate Tor and Non-Tor activity and reveal a user's non-Tor IP address. Javascript also allows the adversary to execute <a class="ulink" href="http://whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com/" target="_top">history disclosure attacks</a>: to query the history via the different attributes of 'visited' links to search for particular google queries, sites, or even to <a class="ulink" href="http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-estimate-gender/" target="_top">profile users based on gender and other classifications</a>. Finally, Javascript can be used to query the user's timezone via the <code class="function">Date()</code> object, and to reduce the anonymity set by querying the <code class="function">navigator</code> object for operating system, CPU, locale, and user agent information. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Inserting Plugins</strong></span><p> Plugins are abysmal at obeying the proxy settings of the browser. Every plugin capable of performing network activity that the author has investigated is also capable of performing network activity independent of browser proxy settings - and often independent of its own proxy settings. Sites that have plugin content don't even have to be malicious to obtain a user's Non-Tor IP (it usually leaks by itself), though <a class="ulink" href="http://decloak.net" target="_top">plenty of active exploits</a> are possible as well. In addition, plugins can be used to store unique identifiers that are more difficult to clear than standard cookies. <a class="ulink" href="http://epic.org/privacy/cookies/flash.html" target="_top">Flash-based cookies</a> fall into this category, but there are likely numerous other examples. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Inserting CSS</strong></span><p> CSS can also be used to correlate Tor and Non-Tor activity and reveal a user's Non-Tor IP address, via the usage of <a class="ulink" href="http://www.tjkdesign.com/articles/css%20pop%20ups/" target="_top">CSS popups</a> - essentially CSS-based event handlers that fetch content via CSS's onmouseover attribute. If these popups are allowed to perform network activity in a different Tor state than they were loaded in, they can easily correlate Tor and Non-Tor activity and reveal a user's IP address. In addition, CSS can also be used without Javascript to perform <a class="ulink" href="http://ha.ckers.org/weird/CSS-history.cgi" target="_top">CSS-only history disclosure attacks</a>. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Read and insert cookies</strong></span><p> An adversary in a position to perform MITM content alteration can inject document content elements to both read and inject cookies for arbitrary domains. In fact, many "SSL secured" websites are vulnerable to this sort of <a class="ulink" href="http://seclists.org/bugtraq/2007/Aug/0070.html" target="_top">active sidejacking</a>. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Create arbitrary cached content</strong></span><p> Likewise, the browser cache can also be used to <a class="ulink" href="http://crypto.stanford.edu/sameorigin/safecachetest.html" target="_top">store unique identifiers</a>. Since by default the cache has no same-origin policy, these identifiers can be read by any domain, making them an ideal target for adserver-class adversaries. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a id="fingerprinting"></a><span class="command"><strong>Fingerprint users based on browser attributes</strong></span><p> There is an absurd amount of information available to websites via attributes of the browser. This information can be used to reduce anonymity set, or even <a class="ulink" href="http://mandark.fr/0x000000/articles/Total_Recall_On_Firefox..html" target="_top">uniquely fingerprint individual users</a>. </p><p> For illustration, let's perform a back-of-the-envelope calculation on the number of anonymity sets for just the resolution information available in the <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM:window" target="_top">window</a> and <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM:window.screen" target="_top">window.screen</a> objects. Browser window resolution information provides something like (1280-640)*(1024-480)=348160 different anonymity sets. Desktop resolution information contributes about another factor of 5 (for about 5 resolutions in typical use). In addition, the dimensions and position of the desktop taskbar are available, which can reveal hints on OS information. This boosts the count by a factor of 5 (for each of the major desktop taskbars - Windows, OSX, KDE and Gnome, and None). Subtracting the browser content window size from the browser outer window size provide yet more information. Firefox toolbar presence gives about a factor of 8 (3 toolbars on/off give 2<sup>3</sup>=8). Interface effects such as titlebar fontsize and window manager settings gives a factor of about 9 (say 3 common font sizes for the titlebar and 3 common sizes for browser GUI element fonts). Multiply this all out, and you have (1280-640)*(1024-480)*5*5*8*9 ~= 2<sup>29</sup>, or a 29 bit identifier based on resolution information alone. </p><p> Of course, this space is non-uniform and prone to incremental changes. However, if a bit vector space consisting of the above extracted attributes were used instead of the hash approach from <a class="ulink" href="http://mandark.fr/0x000000/articles/Total_Recall_On_Firefox..html" target="_top">The Hacker Webzine article above</a>, minor changes in browser window resolution will no longer generate totally new identifiers. </p><p> To add insult to injury, <a class="ulink" href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/content/tor/torbutton/" target="_top">chrome URL disclosure attacks</a> mean that each and every extension on <a class="ulink" href="https://addons.mozilla.org" target="_top">addons.mozilla.org</a> adds another bit to that 2<sup>29</sup>. With hundreds of popular extensions and thousands of extensions total, it is easy to see that this sort of information is an impressively powerful identifier if used properly by a competent and determined adversary such as an ad network. Again, a nearest-neighbor bit vector space approach here would also gracefully handle incremental changes to installed extensions. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>Remotely or locally exploit browser and/or OS</strong></span><p> Last, but definitely not least, the adversary can exploit either general browser vulnerabilities, plugin vulnerabilities, or OS vulnerabilities to install malware and surveillance software. An adversary with physical access can perform similar actions. Regrettably, this last attack capability is outside of Torbutton's ability to defend against, but it is worth mentioning for completeness. </p></li></ol></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="1.2. Torbutton Requirements"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="requirements"></a>1.2. Torbutton Requirements</h3></div></div></div><div class="note" title="Note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><h3 class="title">Note</h3> Since many settings satisfy multiple requirements, this design document is organized primarily by Torbutton components and settings. However, if you are the type that would rather read the document from the requirements perspective, it is in fact possible to search for each of the following requirement phrases in the text to find the relevant features that help meet that requirement. </div><p> From the above Adversary Model, a number of requirements become clear. </p><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><a id="proxy"></a><span class="command"><strong>Proxy Obedience</strong></span><p>The browser MUST NOT bypass Tor proxy settings for any content.</p></li><li class="listitem"><a id="isolation"></a><span class="command"><strong>Network Isolation</strong></span><p>Pages MUST NOT perform any network activity in a Tor state different from the state they were originally loaded in.</p></li><li class="listitem"><a id="state"></a><span class="command"><strong>State Separation</strong></span><p>Browser state (cookies, cache, history, 'DOM storage'), accumulated in one Tor state MUST NOT be accessible via the network in another Tor state.</p></li><li class="listitem"><a id="undiscoverability"></a><span class="command"><strong>Tor Undiscoverability</strong></span><p>With the advent of bridge support in Tor 0.2.0.x, there are now a class of Tor users whose network fingerprint does not obviously betray the fact that they are using Tor. This should extend to the browser as well - Torbutton MUST NOT reveal its presence while Tor is disabled.</p></li><li class="listitem"><a id="disk"></a><span class="command"><strong>Disk Avoidance</strong></span><p>The browser SHOULD NOT write any Tor-related state to disk, or store it in memory beyond the duration of one Tor toggle.</p></li><li class="listitem"><a id="location"></a><span class="command"><strong>Location Neutrality</strong></span><p>The browser SHOULD NOT leak location-specific information, such as timezone or locale via Tor.</p></li><li class="listitem"><a id="setpreservation"></a><span class="command"><strong>Anonymity Set Preservation</strong></span><p>The browser SHOULD NOT leak any other anonymity set reducing information (such as user agent, extension presence, and resolution information) automatically via Tor. The assessment of the attacks above should make it clear that anonymity set reduction is a very powerful method of tracking and eventually identifying anonymous users. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a id="updates"></a><span class="command"><strong>Update Safety</strong></span><p>The browser SHOULD NOT perform unauthenticated updates or upgrades via Tor.</p></li><li class="listitem"><a id="interoperate"></a><span class="command"><strong>Interoperability</strong></span><p>Torbutton SHOULD interoperate with third-party proxy switchers that enable the user to switch between a number of different proxies. It MUST provide full Tor protection in the event a third-party proxy switcher has enabled the Tor proxy settings.</p></li></ol></div></div><div class="sect2" title="1.3. Extension Layout"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="layout"></a>1.3. Extension Layout</h3></div></div></div><p>Firefox extensions consist of two main categories of code: 'Components' and 'Chrome'. Components are a fancy name for classes that implement a given interface or interfaces. In Firefox, components <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XPCOM" target="_top">can be written</a> in C++, Javascript, or a mixture of both. Components have two identifiers: their '<a class="ulink" href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xpcom/book/cxc/html/quicktour2.html#1005005" target="_top">Contract ID</a>' (a human readable path-like string), and their '<a class="ulink" href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xpcom/book/cxc/html/quicktour2.html#1005329" target="_top">Class ID</a>' (a GUID hex-string). In addition, the interfaces they implement each have a hex 'Interface ID'. It is possible to 'hook' system components - to reimplement their interface members with your own wrappers - but only if the rest of the browser refers to the component by its Contract ID. If the browser refers to the component by Class ID, it bypasses your hooks in that use case. Technically, it may be possible to hook Class IDs by unregistering the original component, and then re-registering your own, but this relies on obsolete and deprecated interfaces and has proved to be less than stable.</p><p>'Chrome' is a combination of XML and Javascript used to describe a window. Extensions are allowed to create 'overlays' that are 'bound' to existing XML window definitions, or they can create their own windows. The DTD for this XML is called <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XUL_Reference" target="_top">XUL</a>.</p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="2. Components"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="id2907285"></a>2. Components</h2></div></div></div><p> Torbutton installs components for two purposes: hooking existing components to reimplement their interfaces; and creating new components that provide services to other pieces of the extension. </p><div class="sect2" title="2.1. Hooked Components"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2927418"></a>2.1. Hooked Components</h3></div></div></div><p>Torbutton makes extensive use of Contract ID hooking, and implements some of its own standalone components as well. Let's discuss the hooked components first.</p><div class="sect3" title="@mozilla.org/browser/sessionstore;1 - components/nsSessionStore36.js"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="sessionstore"></a><a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/nsISessionStore" target="_top">@mozilla.org/browser/sessionstore;1</a> - <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/nsSessionStore36.js" target="_top">components/nsSessionStore36.js</a></h4></div></div></div><p>These components address the <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirements of Torbutton. As stated in the requirements, Torbutton needs to prevent Tor tabs from being written to disk by the Firefox session store for a number of reasons, primary among them is the fact that Firefox can crash at any time, and a restart can cause you to fetch tabs in the incorrect Tor state.</p><p>These components illustrate a complication with Firefox hooking: you can only hook member functions of a class if they are published in an interface that the class implements. Unfortunately, the sessionstore has no published interface that is amenable to disabling the writing out of Tor tabs in specific. As such, Torbutton had to include the <span class="emphasis"><em>entire</em></span> nsSessionStore from both Firefox 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 and 3.6 with a couple of modifications to prevent tabs that were loaded with Tor enabled from being written to disk, and some version detection code to determine which component to load. The <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/nsSessionStore36.diff" target="_top">diff against the original session store</a> is included in the git repository.</p></div><div class="sect3" title="@mozilla.org/uriloader/external-protocol-service;1 , @mozilla.org/uriloader/external-helper-app-service;1, and @mozilla.org/mime;1 - components/external-app-blocker.js"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="appblocker"></a><a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/xpcomref/applications/Firefox/3.5/components/%40mozilla.org/uriloader/external-protocol-service%3B1" target="_top">@mozilla.org/uriloader/external-protocol-service;1 </a>, <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/xpcomref/applications/Firefox/3.5/components/%40mozilla.org/uriloader/external-helper-app-service%3B1" target="_top">@mozilla.org/uriloader/external-helper-app-service;1</a>, and <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/xpcomref/applications/Firefox/3.5/components/%40mozilla.org/mime%3B1" target="_top">@mozilla.org/mime;1</a> - <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/external-app-blocker.js" target="_top">components/external-app-blocker.js</a></h4></div></div></div><p> Due to <a class="link" href="#FirefoxBugs" title="6. Relevant Firefox Bugs">Firefox Bug</a> <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440892" target="_top">440892</a> allowing Firefox 3.x to automatically launch some applications without user intervention, Torbutton had to wrap the three components involved in launching external applications to provide user confirmation before doing so while Tor is enabled. Since external applications do not obey proxy settings, they can be manipulated to automatically connect back to arbitrary servers outside of Tor with no user intervention. Fixing this issue helps to satisfy Torbutton's <a class="link" href="#proxy">Proxy Obedience</a> Requirement. </p></div><div class="sect3" title="@mozilla.org/browser/sessionstartup;1 - components/crash-observer.js"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="id2924906"></a><a class="ulink" href="http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/browser/components/sessionstore/src/nsSessionStartup.js" target="_top">@mozilla.org/browser/sessionstartup;1</a> - <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/crash-observer.js" target="_top">components/crash-observer.js</a></h4></div></div></div><p>This component wraps the Firefox Session Startup component that is in charge of <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Session_store_API" target="_top">restoring saved sessions</a>. The wrapper's only job is to intercept the <code class="function">doRestore()</code> function, which is called by Firefox if it is determined that the browser crashed and the session needs to be restored. The wrapper notifies the Torbutton chrome that the browser crashed by setting the pref <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.crashed</strong></span>, or that it is a normal startup via the pref <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.noncrashed</strong></span>. The Torbutton Chrome <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/NsIPrefBranch2#addObserver.28.29" target="_top">listens for a preference change</a> for this value and then does the appropriate cleanup. This includes setting the Tor state to the one the user selected for crash recovery in the preferences window (<span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.restore_tor</strong></span>), and restoring cookies for the corresponding cookie jar, if it exists.</p><p>By performing this notification, this component assists in the <a class="link" href="#proxy">Proxy Obedience</a>, and <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect3" title="@mozilla.org/browser/global-history;2 - components/ignore-history.js"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="id2921641"></a><a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/xpcomref/applications/Firefox/3.5/components/%40mozilla.org/browser/global-history;2" target="_top">@mozilla.org/browser/global-history;2</a> - <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/ignore-history.js" target="_top">components/ignore-history.js</a></h4></div></div></div><p>This component was contributed by <a class="ulink" href="http://www.collinjackson.com/" target="_top">Collin Jackson</a> as a method for defeating CSS and Javascript-based methods of history disclosure. The global-history component is what is used by Firefox to determine if a link was visited or not (to apply the appropriate style to the link). By hooking the <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIGlobalHistory2#isVisited.28.29" target="_top">isVisited</a> and <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIGlobalHistory2#addURI.28.29" target="_top">addURI</a> methods, Torbutton is able to selectively prevent history items from being added or being displayed as visited, depending on the Tor state and the user's preferences. </p><p> This component helps satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> and <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirements of Torbutton. </p></div><div class="sect3" title="@mozilla.org/browser/livemark-service;2 - components/block-livemarks.js"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="livemarks"></a><a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/xpcomref/applications/Firefox/3.5/components/%40mozilla.org/browser/livemark-service;2" target="_top">@mozilla.org/browser/livemark-service;2</a> - <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/block-livemarks.js" target="_top">components/block-livemarks.js</a></h4></div></div></div><p> The <a class="ulink" href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/livebookmarks.html" target="_top">livemark</a> service is started by a timer that runs 5 seconds after Firefox startup. As a result, we cannot simply call the stopUpdateLivemarks() method to disable it. We must wrap the component to prevent this start() call from firing in the event the browser starts in Tor mode. </p><p> This component helps satisfy the <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> and <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> requirements. </p></div></div><div class="sect2" title="2.2. New Components"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2922900"></a>2.2. New Components</h3></div></div></div><p>Torbutton creates four new components that are used throughout the extension. These components do not hook any interfaces, nor are they used anywhere besides Torbutton itself.</p><div class="sect3" title="@torproject.org/cookie-jar-selector;2 - components/cookie-jar-selector.js"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="id2909775"></a><a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/cookie-jar-selector.js" target="_top">@torproject.org/cookie-jar-selector;2 - components/cookie-jar-selector.js</a></h4></div></div></div><p>The cookie jar selector (also based on code from <a class="ulink" href="http://www.collinjackson.com/" target="_top">Collin Jackson</a>) is used by the Torbutton chrome to switch between Tor and Non-Tor cookies. Its operations are simple: sync cookies to disk, then move the current cookies.txt file to the appropriate backup location (cookies-tor.txt or cookies-nontor.txt), and then moving the other cookie jar into place.</p><p> This component helps to address the <a class="link" href="#state">State Isolation</a> requirement of Torbutton. </p></div><div class="sect3" title="@torproject.org/torbutton-logger;1 - components/torbutton-logger.js"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="id2906606"></a><a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/torbutton-logger.js" target="_top">@torproject.org/torbutton-logger;1 - components/torbutton-logger.js</a></h4></div></div></div><p>The torbutton logger component allows on-the-fly redirection of torbutton logging messages to either Firefox stderr (<span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.logmethod=0</strong></span>), the Javascript error console (<span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.logmethod=1</strong></span>), or the DebugLogger extension (if available - <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.logmethod=2</strong></span>). It also allows you to change the loglevel on the fly by changing <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.loglevel</strong></span> (1-5, 1 is most verbose). </p></div><div class="sect3" title="@torproject.org/content-window-mapper;1 - components/window-mapper.js"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="windowmapper"></a><a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/window-mapper.js" target="_top">@torproject.org/content-window-mapper;1 - components/window-mapper.js</a></h4></div></div></div><p>Torbutton tags Firefox <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL_Tutorial/Tabboxes" target="_top">tabs</a> with a special variable that indicates the Tor state the tab was most recently used under to fetch a page. The problem is that for many Firefox events, it is not possible to determine the tab that is actually receiving the event. The Torbutton window mapper allows the Torbutton chrome and other components to look up a <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL/tabbrowser" target="_top">browser tab</a> for a given <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIDOMWindow" target="_top">HTML content window</a>. It does this by traversing all windows and all browsers, until it finds the browser with the requested <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL/tabbrowser#p-contentWindow" target="_top">contentWindow</a> element. Since the content policy and page loading in general can generate hundreds of these lookups, this result is cached inside the component. </p></div><div class="sect3" title="@torproject.org/cssblocker;1 - components/cssblocker.js"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="contentpolicy"></a><a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/cssblocker.js" target="_top">@torproject.org/cssblocker;1 - components/cssblocker.js</a></h4></div></div></div><p>This is a key component to Torbutton's security measures. When Tor is toggled, Javascript is disabled, and pages are instructed to stop loading. However, CSS is still able to perform network operations by loading styles for onmouseover events and other operations. In addition, favicons can still be loaded by the browser. The cssblocker component prevents this by implementing and registering an <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIContentPolicy" target="_top">nsIContentPolicy</a>. When an nsIContentPolicy is registered, Firefox checks every attempted network request against its <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIContentPolicy#shouldLoad()" target="_top">shouldLoad</a> member function to determine if the load should proceed. In Torbutton's case, the content policy looks up the appropriate browser tab using the <a class="link" href="#windowmapper" title="@torproject.org/content-window-mapper;1 - components/window-mapper.js">window mapper</a>, and checks that tab's load tag against the current Tor state. If the tab was loaded in a different state than the current state, the fetch is denied. Otherwise, it is allowed.</p> This helps to achieve the <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> requirements of Torbutton. <p>In addition, the content policy also blocks website javascript from <a class="ulink" href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/content/tor/torbutton/" target="_top">querying for versions and existence of extension chrome</a> while Tor is enabled, and also masks the presence of Torbutton to website javascript while Tor is disabled. </p><p> Finally, some of the work that logically belongs to the content policy is instead handled by the <span class="command"><strong>torbutton_http_observer</strong></span> and <span class="command"><strong>torbutton_weblistener</strong></span> in <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/torbutton.js" target="_top">torbutton.js</a>. These two objects handle blocking of Firefox 3 favicon loads, popups, and full page plugins, which for whatever reason are not passed to the Firefox content policy itself (see Firefox Bugs <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437014" target="_top">437014</a> and <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=401296" target="_top">401296</a>). </p><p> This helps to fulfill both the <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> and the <a class="link" href="#undiscoverability">Tor Undiscoverability</a> requirements of Torbutton.</p></div></div></div><div class="sect1" title="3. Chrome"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="id2907191"></a>3. Chrome</h2></div></div></div><p>The chrome is where all the torbutton graphical elements and windows are located. Each window is described as an <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XUL_Reference" target="_top">XML file</a>, with zero or more Javascript files attached. The scope of these Javascript files is their containing window.</p><div class="sect2" title="3.1. Browser Overlay - torbutton.xul"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="browseroverlay"></a>3.1. Browser Overlay - <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/torbutton.xul" target="_top">torbutton.xul</a></h3></div></div></div><p>The browser overlay, torbutton.xul, defines the toolbar button, the status bar, and events for toggling the button. The overlay code is in <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/torbutton.js" target="_top">chrome/content/torbutton.js</a>. It contains event handlers for preference update, shutdown, upgrade, and location change events.</p><p>The <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIWebProgressListener#onLocationChange" target="_top">location change</a> <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIWebProgress" target="_top">webprogress listener</a>, <span class="command"><strong>torbutton_weblistener</strong></span> is one of the most important parts of the chrome from a security standpoint. It is a <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIWebProgressListener" target="_top">webprogress listener</a> that handles receiving an event every time a page load or iframe load occurs. This class eventually calls down to <code class="function">torbutton_update_tags()</code> and <code class="function">torbutton_hookdoc()</code>, which apply the browser Tor load state tags, plugin permissions, and install the Javascript hooks to hook the <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/window.screen" target="_top">window.screen</a> object to obfuscate browser and desktop resolution information. </p><p> The browser overlay helps to satisfy a number of Torbutton requirements. These are better enumerated in each of the Torbutton preferences below. However, there are also a number of Firefox preferences set in <code class="function">torbutton_update_status()</code> that aren't governed by any Torbutton setting. These are: </p><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.security.ports.banned" target="_top">network.security.ports.banned</a><p> Torbutton sets this setting to add ports 8123, 8118, 9050 and 9051 (which it reads from <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.banned_ports</strong></span>) to the list of ports Firefox is forbidden to access. These ports are Polipo, Privoxy, Tor, and the Tor control port, respectively. This is set for both Tor and Non-Tor usage, and prevents websites from attempting to do http fetches from these ports to see if they are open, which addresses the <a class="link" href="#undiscoverability">Tor Undiscoverability</a> requirement. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.send_pings" target="_top">browser.send_pings</a><p> This setting is currently always disabled. If anyone ever complains saying that they *want* their browser to be able to send ping notifications to a page or arbitrary link, I'll make this a pref or Tor-only. But I'm not holding my breath. I haven't checked if the content policy is called for pings, but if not, this setting helps with meeting the <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> requirement. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.safebrowsing.remoteLookups" target="_top">browser.safebrowsing.remoteLookups</a><p> Likewise for this setting. I find it hard to imagine anyone who wants to ask Google in real time if each URL they visit is safe, especially when the list of unsafe URLs is downloaded anyway. This helps fulfill the <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirement, by preventing your entire browsing history from ending up on Google's disks. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.safebrowsing.enabled" target="_top">browser.safebrowsing.enabled</a><p> Safebrowsing does <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=360387" target="_top">unauthenticated updates under Firefox 2</a>, so it is disabled during Tor usage. This helps fulfill the <a class="link" href="#updates">Update Safety</a> requirement. Firefox 3 has the fix for that bug, and so safebrowsing updates are enabled during Tor usage. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.protocol-handler.warn-external.%28protocol%29" target="_top">network.protocol-handler.warn-external.(protocol)</a><p> If Tor is enabled, we need to prevent random external applications from launching without at least warning the user. This group of settings only partially accomplishes this, however. Applications can still be launched via plugins. The mechanisms for handling this are described under the "Disable Plugins During Tor Usage" preference. This helps fulfill the <a class="link" href="#proxy">Proxy Obedience</a> requirement, by preventing external applications from accessing network resources at the command of Tor-fetched pages. Unfortunately, due to <a class="link" href="#FirefoxBugs" title="6. Relevant Firefox Bugs">Firefox Bug</a> <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440892" target="_top">440892</a>, these prefs are no longer obeyed. They are set still anyway out of respect for the dead. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo" target="_top">browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo</a><p> To help satisfy the Torbutton <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> and <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> requirements, Torbutton needs to purge the Undo Tab history on toggle to prevent repeat "Undo Close" operations from accidentally restoring tabs from a different Tor State. This purge is accomplished by setting this preference to 0 and then restoring it to the previous user value upon toggle. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong>security.enable_ssl2</strong></span><p> TLS Session IDs can persist for an indefinite duration, providing an identifier that is sent to TLS sites that can be used to link activity. This is particularly troublesome now that we have certificate verification in place in Firefox 3: The OCSP server can use this Session ID to build a history of TLS sites someone visits, and also correlate their activity as users move from network to network (such as home to work to coffee shop, etc), inside and outside of Tor. To handle this and to help satisfy our <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation Requirement</a>, we currently toggle <span class="command"><strong>security.enable_ssl2</strong></span>, which clears the SSL Session ID cache via the pref observer at <a class="ulink" href="http://mxr.mozilla.org/security/source/security/manager/ssl/src/nsNSSComponent.cpp#2134" target="_top">nsNSSComponent.cpp line 2134</a>. This is an arcane and potentially fragile fix. It would be better if there were a more standard interface for accomplishing the same thing. <a class="link" href="#FirefoxBugs" title="6. Relevant Firefox Bugs">Firefox Bug</a> <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=448747" target="_top">448747</a> has been filed for this. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong><a class="ulink" href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/geolocation/" target="_top">geo.enabled</a></strong></span><p> Torbutton disables Geolocation support in Firefox 3.5 and above whenever tor is enabled. This helps Torbutton maintain its <a class="link" href="#location">Location Neutrality</a> requirement. While Firefox does prompt before divulging geolocational information, the assumption is that Tor users will never want to give their location away during Tor usage, and even allowing websites to prompt them to do so will only cause confusion and accidents to happen. Moreover, just because users may approve a site to know their location in non-Tor mode does not mean they want it divulged during Tor mode. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong><a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.zoom.siteSpecific" target="_top">browser.zoom.siteSpecific</a></strong></span><p> Firefox actually remembers your zoom settings for certain sites. CSS and Javascript rule can use this to recognize previous visitors to a site. This helps Torbutton fulfill its <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirement. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong><a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/controlling_dns_prefetching" target="_top">network.dns.disablePrefetch</a></strong></span><p> Firefox 3.5 and above implement prefetching of DNS resolution for hostnames in links on a page to decrease page load latency. While Firefox does typically disable this behavior when proxies are enabled, we set this pref for added safety during Tor usage. Additionally, to prevent Tor-loaded tabs from having their links prefetched after a toggle to Non-Tor mode occurs, we also set the docShell attribute <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/apidocs/interface/nsIDocShell" target="_top"> allowDNSPrefetch</a> to false on Tor loaded tabs. This happens in the same positions in the code as those for disabling plugins via the allowPlugins docShell attribute. This helps Torbutton fulfill its <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> requirement. </p></li><li class="listitem"><span class="command"><strong><a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.cache.offline.enable" target="_top">browser.cache.offline.enable</a></strong></span><p> Firefox has the ability to store web applications in a special cache to allow them to continue to operate while the user is offline. Since this subsystem is actually different than the normal disk cache, it must be dealt with separately. Thus, Torbutton sets this preference to false whenever Tor is enabled. This helps Torbutton fulfill its <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> and <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirements. </p></li></ol></div></div><div class="sect2" title="3.2. Preferences Window - preferences.xul"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2922887"></a>3.2. Preferences Window - <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/preferences.xul" target="_top">preferences.xul</a></h3></div></div></div><p>The preferences window of course lays out the Torbutton preferences, with handlers located in <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/preferences.js" target="_top">chrome/content/preferences.js</a>.</p></div><div class="sect2" title="3.3. Other Windows"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2922834"></a>3.3. Other Windows</h3></div></div></div><p>There are additional windows that describe popups for right clicking on the status bar, the toolbutton, and the about page.</p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="4. Toggle Code Path"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="id2917336"></a>4. Toggle Code Path</h2></div></div></div><p> The act of toggling is connected to <code class="function">torbutton_toggle()</code> via the <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/torbutton.xul" target="_top">torbutton.xul</a> and <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/popup.xul" target="_top">popup.xul</a> overlay files. Most of the work in the toggling process is present in <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/torbutton.js" target="_top">torbutton.js</a> </p><p> Toggling is a 3 stage process: Button Click, Proxy Update, and Settings Update. These stages are reflected in the prefs <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.tor_enabled</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.proxies_applied</strong></span>, and <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.settings_applied</strong></span>. The reason for the three stage preference update is to ensure immediate enforcement of <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> via the <a class="link" href="#contentpolicy" title="@torproject.org/cssblocker;1 - components/cssblocker.js">content policy</a>. Since the content window javascript runs on a different thread than the chrome javascript, it is important to properly convey the stages to the content policy to avoid race conditions and leakage, especially with <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=409737" target="_top">Firefox Bug 409737</a> unfixed. The content policy does not allow any network activity whatsoever during this three stage transition. </p><div class="sect2" title="4.1. Button Click"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934128"></a>4.1. Button Click</h3></div></div></div><p> This is the first step in the toggling process. When the user clicks the toggle button or the toolbar, <code class="function">torbutton_toggle()</code> is called. This function checks the current Tor status by comparing the current proxy settings to the selected Tor settings, and then sets the proxy settings to the opposite state, and sets the pref <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.tor_enabled</strong></span> to reflect the new state. It is this proxy pref update that gives notification via the <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/NsIPrefBranch2#addObserver.28.29" target="_top">pref observer</a> <span class="command"><strong>torbutton_unique_pref_observer</strong></span> to perform the rest of the toggle. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="4.2. Proxy Update"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2915503"></a>4.2. Proxy Update</h3></div></div></div><p> When Torbutton receives any proxy change notifications via its <span class="command"><strong>torbutton_unique_pref_observer</strong></span>, it calls <code class="function">torbutton_set_status()</code> which checks against the Tor settings to see if the Tor proxy settings match the current settings. If so, it calls <code class="function">torbutton_update_status()</code>, which determines if the Tor state has actually changed, and sets <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.proxies_applied</strong></span> to the appropriate Tor state value, and ensures that <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.tor_enabled</strong></span> is also set to the correct value. This is decoupled from the button click functionalty via the pref observer so that other addons (such as SwitchProxy) can switch the proxy settings between multiple proxies. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="4.3. Settings Update"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2931338"></a>4.3. Settings Update</h3></div></div></div><p> The next stage is also handled by <code class="function">torbutton_update_status()</code>. This function sets scores of Firefox preferences, saving the original values to prefs under <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.saved.*</strong></span>, and performs the history clearing, cookie jaring, and ssl certificate jaring work of Torbutton. At the end of its work, it sets <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.settings_applied</strong></span>, which signifies the completion of the toggle operation to the <a class="link" href="#contentpolicy" title="@torproject.org/cssblocker;1 - components/cssblocker.js">content policy</a>. </p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="5. Description of Options"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="id2898010"></a>5. Description of Options</h2></div></div></div><p>This section provides a detailed description of Torbutton's options. Each option is presented as the string from the preferences window, a summary, the preferences it touches, and the effect this has on the components, chrome, and browser properties.</p><div class="sect2" title="5.1. Test Settings"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2910532"></a>5.1. Test Settings</h3></div></div></div><p> This button under the Proxy Settings tab provides a way to verify that the proxy settings are correct, and actually do route through the Tor network. It performs this check by issuing an <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XMLHttpRequest" target="_top">XMLHTTPRequest</a> for <a class="ulink" href="https://check.torproject.org/?TorButton=True" target="_top">https://check.torproject.org/?Torbutton=True</a>. This is a special page that returns very simple, yet well-formed XHTML that Torbutton can easily inspect for a hidden link with an id of <span class="command"><strong>TorCheckResult</strong></span> and a target of <span class="command"><strong>success</strong></span> or <span class="command"><strong>failure</strong></span> to indicate if the user hit the page from a Tor IP, a non-Tor IP. This check is handled in <code class="function">torbutton_test_settings()</code> in <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/torbutton.js" target="_top">torbutton.js</a>. Presenting the results to the user is handled by the <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/preferences.xul" target="_top">preferences window</a> callback <code class="function">torbutton_prefs_test_settings()</code> in <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/preferences.js" target="_top">preferences.js</a>. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.2. Disable plugins on Tor Usage (crucial)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="plugins"></a>5.2. Disable plugins on Tor Usage (crucial)</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.no_tor_plugins</strong></span></p><p>Java and plugins <a class="ulink" href="http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/net/class-use/NetworkInterface.html" target="_top">can query</a> the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0095.html" target="_top">local IP address</a> and report it back to the remote site. They can also <a class="ulink" href="http://decloak.net" target="_top">bypass proxy settings</a> and directly connect to a remote site without Tor. Every browser plugin we have tested with Firefox has some form of network capability, and every one ignores proxy settings or worse - only partially obeys them. This includes but is not limited to: QuickTime, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, mplayerplug-in, AcroRead, and Flash. </p><p> Enabling this preference causes the above mentioned Torbutton chrome web progress listener <span class="command"><strong>torbutton_weblistener</strong></span> to disable Java via <span class="command"><strong>security.enable_java</strong></span> and to disable plugins via the browser <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL%3aProperty%3adocShell" target="_top">docShell</a> attribute <span class="command"><strong>allowPlugins</strong></span>. These flags are set every time a new window is created (<code class="function">torbutton_tag_new_browser()</code>), every time a web load event occurs (<code class="function">torbutton_update_tags()</code>), and every time the tor state is changed (<code class="function">torbutton_update_status()</code>). As a backup measure, plugins are also prevented from loading by the content policy in <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/cssblocker.js" target="_top">@torproject.org/cssblocker;1</a> if Tor is enabled and this option is set. </p><p>All of this turns out to be insufficient if the user directly clicks on a plugin-handled mime-type. <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=401296" target="_top">In this case</a>, the browser decides that maybe it should ignore all these other settings and load the plugin anyways, because maybe the user really did want to load it (never mind this same load-style could happen automatically with meta-refresh or any number of other ways..). To handle these cases, Torbutton stores a list of plugin-handled mime-types, and sets the pref <span class="command"><strong>plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types</strong></span> to this list. Additionally, (since nothing can be assumed when relying on Firefox preferences and internals) if it detects a load of one of them from the web progress listener, it cancels the request, tells the associated DOMWindow to stop loading, clears the document, AND throws an exception. Anything short of all this and the plugin managed to find some way to load. </p><p> All this could be avoided, of course, if Firefox would either <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=401296" target="_top">obey allowPlugins</a> for directly visited URLs, or notify its content policy for such loads either <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309524" target="_top">via</a> <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=380556" target="_top">shouldProcess</a> or shouldLoad. The fact that it does not is not very encouraging. </p><p> Since most plugins completely ignore browser proxy settings, the actions performed by this setting are crucial to satisfying the <a class="link" href="#proxy">Proxy Obedience</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.3. Isolate Dynamic Content to Tor State (crucial)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2917719"></a>5.3. Isolate Dynamic Content to Tor State (crucial)</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.isolate_content</strong></span></p><p>Enabling this preference is what enables the <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/cssblocker.js" target="_top">@torproject.org/cssblocker;1</a> content policy mentioned above, and causes it to block content load attempts in pages an opposite Tor state from the current state. Freshly loaded <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL/tabbrowser" target="_top">browser tabs</a> are tagged with a <span class="command"><strong>__tb_load_state</strong></span> member in <code class="function">torbutton_update_tags()</code> and this value is compared against the current tor state in the content policy.</p><p>It also kills all Javascript in each page loaded under that state by toggling the <span class="command"><strong>allowJavascript</strong></span> <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL%3aProperty%3adocShell" target="_top">docShell</a> property, and issues a <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XPCOM_Interface_Reference/nsIWebNavigation#stop()" target="_top">webNavigation.stop(webNavigation.STOP_ALL)</a> to each browser tab (the equivalent of hitting the STOP button).</p><p> Unfortunately, <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=409737" target="_top">Firefox bug 409737</a> prevents <span class="command"><strong>docShell.allowJavascript</strong></span> from killing all event handlers, and event handlers registered with <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM:element.addEventListener" target="_top">addEventListener()</a> are still able to execute. The <a class="link" href="#contentpolicy" title="@torproject.org/cssblocker;1 - components/cssblocker.js">Torbutton Content Policy</a> should prevent such code from performing network activity within the current tab, but activity that happens via a popup window or via a Javascript redirect can still slip by. For this reason, Torbutton blocks popups by checking for a valid <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM:window.opener" target="_top">window.opener</a> attribute in <code class="function">torbutton_check_progress()</code>. If the window has an opener from a different Tor state, its load is blocked. The content policy also takes similar action to prevent Javascript redirects. This also has the side effect/feature of preventing the user from following any links from a page loaded in an opposite Tor state. </p><p> This setting is responsible for satisfying the <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.4. Hook Dangerous Javascript"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="jshooks"></a>5.4. Hook Dangerous Javascript</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.kill_bad_js</strong></span></p><p>This setting enables injection of the <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/jshooks.js" target="_top">Javascript hooking code</a>. This is done in the chrome in <code class="function">torbutton_hookdoc()</code>, which is called ultimately by both the <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIWebProgressListener" target="_top">webprogress listener</a> <span class="command"><strong>torbutton_weblistener</strong></span> and the <a class="link" href="#contentpolicy" title="@torproject.org/cssblocker;1 - components/cssblocker.js">content policy</a> (the latter being a hack to handle javascript: urls). In the Firefox 2 days, this option did a lot more than it does now. It used to be responsible for timezone and improved useragent spoofing, and history object cloaking. However, now it only provides obfuscation of the <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/window.screen" target="_top">window.screen</a> object to mask your browser and desktop resolution. The resolution hooks effectively make the Firefox browser window appear to websites as if the renderable area takes up the entire desktop, has no toolbar or other GUI element space, and the desktop itself has no toolbars. These hooks drastically reduce the amount of information available to do <a class="link" href="#fingerprinting">anonymity set reduction attacks</a> and help to meet the <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> requirements. Unfortunately, Gregory Fleischer discovered it is still possible to retrieve the original screen values by using <a class="ulink" href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/tor/torbutton/unmask-sandbox-xpcnativewrapper.html" target="_top">XPCNativeWrapper</a> or <a class="ulink" href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/tor/torbutton/unmask-components-lookupmethod.html" target="_top">Components.lookupMethod</a>. We are still looking for a workaround as of Torbutton 1.2.5. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.5. Resize windows to multiples of 50px during Tor usage (recommended)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2897638"></a>5.5. Resize windows to multiples of 50px during Tor usage (recommended)</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.resize_windows</strong></span></p><p> This option drastically cuts down on the number of distinct anonymity sets that divide the Tor web userbase. Without this setting, the dimensions for a typical browser window range from 600-1200 horizontal pixels and 400-1000 vertical pixels, or about 600x600 = 360000 different sets. Resizing the browser window to multiples of 50 on each side reduces the number of sets by 50^2, bringing the total number of sets to 144. Of course, the distribution among these sets are not uniform, but scaling by 50 will improve the situation due to this non-uniformity for users in the less common resolutions. Obviously the ideal situation would be to lie entirely about the browser window size, but this will likely cause all sorts of rendering issues, and is also not implementable in a foolproof way from extension land. </p><p> The implementation of this setting is spread across a couple of different locations in the Torbutton javascript <a class="link" href="#browseroverlay" title="3.1. Browser Overlay - torbutton.xul">browser overlay</a>. Since resizing minimized windows causes them to be restored, and since maximized windows remember their previous size to the pixel, windows must be resized before every document load (at the time of browser tagging) via <code class="function">torbutton_check_round()</code>, called by <code class="function">torbutton_update_tags()</code>. To prevent drift, the extension tracks the original values of the windows and uses this to perform the rounding on document load. In addition, to prevent the user from resizing a window to a non-50px multiple, a resize listener (<code class="function">torbutton_do_resize()</code>) is installed on every new browser window to record the new size and round it to a 50px multiple while Tor is enabled. In all cases, the browser's contentWindow.innerWidth and innerHeight are set. This ensures that there is no discrepancy between the 50 pixel cutoff and the actual renderable area of the browser (so that it is not possible to infer toolbar size/presence by the distance to the nearest 50 pixel roundoff). </p><p> This setting helps to meet the <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.6. Disable Updates During Tor"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2924640"></a>5.6. Disable Updates During Tor</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.no_updates</strong></span></p><p>This setting causes Torbutton to disable the four <a class="ulink" href="http://wiki.mozilla.org/Update:Users/Checking_For_Updates#Preference_Controls_and_State" target="_top">Firefox update settings</a> during Tor usage: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.update.enabled</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>app.update.enabled</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>app.update.auto</strong></span>, and <span class="command"><strong>browser.search.update</strong></span>. These prevent the browser from updating extensions, checking for Firefox upgrades, and checking for search plugin updates while Tor is enabled. </p><p> This setting satisfies the <a class="link" href="#updates">Update Safety</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.7. Redirect Torbutton Updates Via Tor (recommended)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2892217"></a>5.7. Redirect Torbutton Updates Via Tor (recommended)</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.update_torbutton_via_tor</strong></span></p><p>This setting causes Torbutton to install an <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIProtocolProxyFilter" target="_top">nsIProtocolProxyFilter</a> in order to redirect all version update checks and Torbutton update downloads via Tor, regardless of if Tor is enabled or not. This was done both to address concerns about data retention done by <a class="ulink" href="https://www.addons.mozilla.org" target="_top">addons.mozilla.org</a>, as well as to help censored users meet the <a class="link" href="#undiscoverability">Tor Undiscoverability</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.8. Disable Search Suggestions during Tor (recommended)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2892261"></a>5.8. Disable Search Suggestions during Tor (recommended)</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.no_search</strong></span></p><p> This setting causes Torbutton to disable <a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.search.suggest.enabled" target="_top"><span class="command"><strong>browser.search.suggest.enabled</strong></span></a> during Tor usage. This governs if you get Google search suggestions during Tor usage. Your Google cookie is transmitted with google search suggestions, hence this is recommended to be disabled. </p><p> While this setting doesn't satisfy any Torbutton requirements, the fact that cookies are transmitted for partially typed queries does not seem desirable for Tor usage. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.9. Disable livemarks updates during Tor usage (recommended)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2892300"></a>5.9. Disable livemarks updates during Tor usage (recommended)</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.disable_livemarks</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p> This option causes Torbutton to prevent Firefox from loading <a class="ulink" href="http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/livebookmarks.html" target="_top">Livemarks</a> during Tor usage. Because people often have very personalized Livemarks (such as RSS feeds of Wikipedia articles they maintain, etc). This is accomplished both by <a class="link" href="#livemarks" title="@mozilla.org/browser/livemark-service;2 - components/block-livemarks.js">wrapping the livemark-service component</a> and by calling stopUpdateLivemarks() on the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/xpcomref/applications/Firefox/3.5/components/%40mozilla.org/browser/livemark-service;2" target="_top">Livemark service</a> when Tor is enabled. </p><p> This helps satisfy the <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> and <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.10. Block Tor/Non-Tor access to network from file:// urls (recommended)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2892371"></a>5.10. Block Tor/Non-Tor access to network from file:// urls (recommended)</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.block_tor_file_net</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.block_nontor_file_net</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p> These settings prevent file urls from performing network operations during the respective Tor states. Firefox 2's implementation of same origin policy allows file urls to read and <a class="ulink" href="http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/content-disposition-hacking/" target="_top">submit arbitrary files from the local filesystem</a> to arbitrary websites. To make matters worse, the 'Content-Disposition' header can be injected arbitrarily by exit nodes to trick users into running arbitrary html files in the local context. These preferences cause the <a class="link" href="#contentpolicy" title="@torproject.org/cssblocker;1 - components/cssblocker.js">content policy</a> to block access to any network resources from File urls during the appropriate Tor state. </p><p> This preference helps to ensure Tor's <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> requirement, by preventing file urls from executing network operations in opposite Tor states. Also, allowing pages to submit arbitrary files to arbitrary sites just generally seems like a bad idea. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.11. Close all Tor/Non-Tor tabs and windows on toggle (optional)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2892443"></a>5.11. Close all Tor/Non-Tor tabs and windows on toggle (optional)</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.close_nontor</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.close_tor</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p> These settings cause Torbutton to enumerate through all windows and close all tabs in each window for the appropriate Tor state. This code can be found in <code class="function">torbutton_update_status()</code>. The main reason these settings exist is as a backup mechanism in the event of any Javascript or content policy leaks due to <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=409737" target="_top">Firefox Bug 409737</a>. Torbutton currently tries to block all Javascript network activity via the content policy, but until that bug is fixed, there is some risk that there are alternate ways to bypass the policy. This option is available as an extra assurance of <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> for those who would like to be sure that when Tor is toggled all page activity has ceased. It also serves as a potential future workaround in the event a content policy failure is discovered, and provides an additional level of protection for the <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> protection so that browser state is not sitting around waiting to be swapped out longer than necessary. </p><p> While this setting doesn't satisfy any Torbutton requirements, the fact that cookies are transmitted for partially typed queries does not seem desirable for Tor usage. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.12. Isolate Access to History navigation to Tor state (crucial)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2892524"></a>5.12. Isolate Access to History navigation to Tor state (crucial)</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.block_js_history</strong></span></p><p> This setting determines if Torbutton installs an <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/apidocs/interface/nsISHistoryListener" target="_top">nsISHistoryListener</a> attached to the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/apidocs/interface/nsISHistory" target="_top">sessionHistory</a> of of each browser's <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL%3aProperty%3awebNavigation" target="_top">webNavigatator</a>. The nsIShistoryListener is instantiated with a reference to the containing browser window and blocks the back, forward, and reload buttons on the browser navigation bar when Tor is in an opposite state than the one to load the current tab. In addition, Tor clears the session history during a new document load if this setting is enabled. </p><p> This is marked as a crucial setting in part because Javascript access to the history object is indistinguishable from user clicks, and because <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=409737" target="_top">Firefox Bug 409737</a> allows javascript to execute in opposite Tor states, javascript can issue reloads after Tor toggle to reveal your original IP. Even without this bug, however, Javascript is still able to access previous pages in your session history that may have been loaded under a different Tor state, to attempt to correlate your activity. </p><p> This setting helps to fulfill Torbutton's <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> and (until Bug 409737 is fixed) <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.13. History Access Settings"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2892609"></a>5.13. History Access Settings</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.block_thread</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.block_nthread</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.block_thwrite</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.block_nthwrite</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p>These four settings govern the behavior of the <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/ignore-history.js" target="_top">components/ignore-history.js</a> history blocker component mentioned above. By hooking the browser's view of the history itself via the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/xpcomref/applications/Firefox/3.5/components/%40mozilla.org/browser/global-history;2" target="_top">@mozilla.org/browser/global-history;2</a> and <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/xpcomref/applications/Firefox/3.5/components/%40mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1" target="_top">@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1</a> components, this mechanism defeats all document-based <a class="ulink" href="http://whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com/" target="_top">history disclosure attacks</a>, including <a class="ulink" href="http://ha.ckers.org/weird/CSS-history.cgi" target="_top">CSS-only attacks</a>. The component also hooks functions involved in writing history to disk via both the <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Places_migration_guide#History" target="_top">Places Database</a> and the older Firefox 2 mechanisms. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> and <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.14. Clear History During Tor Toggle (optional)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2892721"></a>5.14. Clear History During Tor Toggle (optional)</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.clear_history</strong></span></p><p>This setting governs if Torbutton calls <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIBrowserHistory#removeAllPages.28.29" target="_top">nsIBrowserHistory.removeAllPages</a> and <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/apidocs/interface/nsISHistory" target="_top">nsISHistory.PurgeHistory</a> for each tab on Tor toggle.</p><p> This setting is an optional way to help satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.15. Block Password+Form saving during Tor/Non-Tor"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934267"></a>5.15. Block Password+Form saving during Tor/Non-Tor</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.block_tforms</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.block_ntforms</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p>These settings govern if Torbutton disables <span class="command"><strong>browser.formfill.enable</strong></span> and <span class="command"><strong>signon.rememberSignons</strong></span> during Tor and Non-Tor usage. Since form fields can be read at any time by Javascript, this setting is a lot more important than it seems. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> and <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.16. Block Tor disk cache and clear all cache on Tor Toggle"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934328"></a>5.16. Block Tor disk cache and clear all cache on Tor Toggle</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.clear_cache</strong></span> </p><p>This option causes Torbutton to call <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsICacheService#evictEntries.28.29" target="_top">nsICacheService.evictEntries(0)</a> on Tor toggle to remove all entries from the cache. In addition, this setting causes Torbutton to set <a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.cache.disk.enable" target="_top">browser.cache.disk.enable</a> to false. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> and <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.17. Block disk and memory cache during Tor"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934378"></a>5.17. Block disk and memory cache during Tor</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.block_cache</strong></span></p><p>This setting causes Torbutton to set <a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.cache.memory.enable" target="_top">browser.cache.memory.enable</a>, <a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.cache.disk.enable" target="_top">browser.cache.disk.enable</a> and <a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.http.use-cache" target="_top">network.http.use-cache</a> to false during tor usage. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> and <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.18. Clear Cookies on Tor Toggle"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934430"></a>5.18. Clear Cookies on Tor Toggle</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.clear_cookies</strong></span> </p><p> This setting causes Torbutton to call <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsICookieManager#removeAll.28.29" target="_top">nsICookieManager.removeAll()</a> on every Tor toggle. In addition, this sets <a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.cookie.lifetimePolicy" target="_top">network.cookie.lifetimePolicy</a> to 2 for Tor usage, which causes all cookies to be demoted to session cookies, which prevents them from being written to disk. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> and <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.19. Store Non-Tor cookies in a protected jar"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934481"></a>5.19. Store Non-Tor cookies in a protected jar</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.cookie_jars</strong></span> </p><p> This setting causes Torbutton to use <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/cookie-jar-selector.js" target="_top">@torproject.org/cookie-jar-selector;2</a> to store non-tor cookies in a cookie jar during Tor usage, and clear the Tor cookies before restoring the jar. </p><p> This setting also sets <a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.cookie.lifetimePolicy" target="_top">network.cookie.lifetimePolicy</a> to 2 for Tor usage, which causes all cookies to be demoted to session cookies, which prevents them from being written to disk. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> and <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.20. Store both Non-Tor and Tor cookies in a protected jar (dangerous)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934538"></a>5.20. Store both Non-Tor and Tor cookies in a protected jar (dangerous)</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.dual_cookie_jars</strong></span> </p><p> This setting causes Torbutton to use <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/cookie-jar-selector.js" target="_top">@torproject.org/cookie-jar-selector;2</a> to store both Tor and Non-Tor cookies into protected jars. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.21. Manage My Own Cookies (dangerous)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934577"></a>5.21. Manage My Own Cookies (dangerous)</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: None</p><p>This setting disables all Torbutton cookie handling by setting the above cookie prefs all to false.</p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.22. Disable DOM Storage during Tor usage (crucial)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934592"></a>5.22. Disable DOM Storage during Tor usage (crucial)</h3></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="5.22.1. Do not write Tor/Non-Tor cookies to disk"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934594"></a>5.22.1. Do not write Tor/Non-Tor cookies to disk</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.tor_memory_jar</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.nontor_memory_jar</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p> These settings (contributed by arno) cause Torbutton to set <a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.cookie.lifetimePolicy" target="_top">network.cookie.lifetimePolicy</a> to 2 during the appropriate Tor state, and to store cookies acquired in that state into a Javascript <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Core_JavaScript_1.5_Guide:Processing_XML_with_E4X" target="_top">E4X</a> object as opposed to writing them to disk. </p><p> This allows Torbutton to provide an option to preserve a user's cookies while still satisfying the <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirement. </p></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.disable_domstorage</strong></span> </p><p> This setting causes Torbutton to toggle <span class="command"><strong>dom.storage.enabled</strong></span> during Tor usage to prevent <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM:Storage" target="_top">DOM Storage</a> from being used to store persistent information across Tor states.</p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.23. Clear HTTP Auth on Tor Toggle (recommended)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934696"></a>5.23. Clear HTTP Auth on Tor Toggle (recommended)</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.clear_http_auth</strong></span> </p><p> This setting causes Torbutton to call <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/apidocs/interface/nsIHttpAuthManager" target="_top">nsIHttpAuthManager.clearAll()</a> every time Tor is toggled. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.24. Clear cookies on Tor/Non-Tor shutdown"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934733"></a>5.24. Clear cookies on Tor/Non-Tor shutdown</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.shutdown_method</strong></span> </p><p> This option variable can actually take 3 values: 0, 1, and 2. 0 means no cookie clearing, 1 means clear only during Tor-enabled shutdown, and 2 means clear for both Tor and Non-Tor shutdown. When set to 1 or 2, Torbutton listens for the <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Observer_Notifications#Application_shutdown" target="_top">quit-application-granted</a> event in <code class="function">https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/crash-observer.js</code> and use <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/cookie-jar-selector.js" target="_top">@torproject.org/cookie-jar-selector;2</a> to clear out all cookies and all cookie jars upon shutdown. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.25. Reload cookie jar/clear cookies on Firefox crash"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934788"></a>5.25. Reload cookie jar/clear cookies on Firefox crash</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.reload_crashed_jar</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.crashed</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p>This is no longer a user visible option, and is enabled by default. In the event of a crash, the Torbutton <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/crash-observer.js" target="_top">components/crash-observer.js</a> component will notify the Chrome (via the <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.crashed</strong></span> pref and a <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/NsIPrefBranch2#addObserver.28.29" target="_top">pref observer</a> in the chrome that listens for this update), and Torbutton will load the correct jar for the current Tor state via the <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/cookie-jar-selector.js" target="_top">@torproject.org/cookie-jar-selector;2</a> component.</p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirement in the event of Firefox crashes. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.26. On crash recovery or session restored startup, restore via: Tor, Non-Tor"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934863"></a>5.26. On crash recovery or session restored startup, restore via: Tor, Non-Tor</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.restore_tor</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.crashed</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.normal_exit</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p>This option works with the Torbutton <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/crash-observer.js" target="_top">crash-observer.js</a> to set the Tor state after a crash is detected (via the <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.crashed</strong></span> pref). To confirm for false positives (such as session restore failures, upgrade, normal session restore, etc), Torbutton also sets the pref extensions.torbutton.normal_exit during Firefox exit and checks this value as well during startup. </p><p> Since the Tor state after a Firefox crash is unknown/indeterminate, this setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirement in the event of Firefox crashes by ensuring all cookies, settings and saved sessions are reloaded from a fixed Tor state. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.27. On normal startup, set state to: Tor, Non-Tor, Shutdown State"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934935"></a>5.27. On normal startup, set state to: Tor, Non-Tor, Shutdown State</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.startup_state</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.noncrashed</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.normal_exit</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p>This option also works with the Torbutton <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/crash-observer.js" target="_top">crash-observer.js</a> to set the Tor state after a normal startup is detected (via the <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.noncrashed</strong></span> pref). To confirm for false positives (such as session restore failures, etc), Torbutton also sets the pref extensions.torbutton.normal_exit in torbutton_uninstall_observer() during Firefox exit and checks this value as well during startup. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.28. Prevent session store from saving Non-Tor/Tor-loaded tabs"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2934994"></a>5.28. Prevent session store from saving Non-Tor/Tor-loaded tabs</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.nonontor_sessionstore</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.notor_sessionstore</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p>If these options are enabled, the <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/components/nsSessionStore3.js" target="_top">replacement nsSessionStore.js</a> component checks the <span class="command"><strong>__tb_tor_fetched</strong></span> tag of tabs before writing them out. If the tag is from a blocked Tor state, the tab is not written to disk. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirement, and also helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirement in the event of Firefox crashes. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.29. Set user agent during Tor usage (crucial)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2935059"></a>5.29. Set user agent during Tor usage (crucial)</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.set_uagent</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.platform_override</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.oscpu_override</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.buildID_override</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.productsub_override</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.appname_override</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.appversion_override</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.useragent_override</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.useragent_vendor</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.useragent_vendorSub</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p>On face, user agent switching appears to be straight-forward in Firefox. It provides several options for controlling the browser user agent string: <span class="command"><strong>general.appname.override</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>general.appversion.override</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>general.platform.override</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>general.oscpu.override</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>general.productSub.override</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>general.buildID.override</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>general.useragent.override</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>general.useragent.vendor</strong></span>, and <span class="command"><strong>general.useragent.vendorSub</strong></span>. If the Torbutton preference <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.set_uagent</strong></span> is true, Torbutton copies all of the other above prefs into their corresponding browser preferences during Tor usage.</p><p> It also turns out that it is possible to detect the original Firefox version by <a class="ulink" href="http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20070516/read-firefox-settings-poc/" target="_top">inspecting certain resource:// files</a>. These cases are handled by Torbutton's <a class="link" href="#contentpolicy" title="@torproject.org/cssblocker;1 - components/cssblocker.js">content policy</a>. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.30. Spoof US English Browser"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2935233"></a>5.30. Spoof US English Browser</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.spoof_english</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.spoof_charset</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.spoof_language</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p> This option causes Torbutton to set <span class="command"><strong>general.useragent.locale</strong></span> <span class="command"><strong>intl.accept_languages</strong></span> to the value specified in <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.spoof_locale</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.spoof_charset</strong></span> and <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.spoof_language</strong></span> during Tor usage, as well as hooking <span class="command"><strong>navigator.language</strong></span> via its <a class="link" href="#jshooks" title="5.4. Hook Dangerous Javascript">javascript hooks</a>. </p><p> This setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> and <a class="link" href="#location">Location Neutrality</a> requirements. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.31. Don't send referrer during Tor Usage"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2935326"></a>5.31. Don't send referrer during Tor Usage</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.disable_referer</strong></span> </p><p> This option causes Torbutton to set <a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferrer" target="_top">network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferrer</a> and <a class="ulink" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.http.sendRefererHeader" target="_top">network.http.sendRefererHeader</a> during Tor usage.</p><p> This setting also does not directly satisfy any Torbutton requirement, but some may desire to mask their referrer for general privacy concerns. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.32. Strip platform and language off of Google Search Box queries"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2935366"></a>5.32. Strip platform and language off of Google Search Box queries</h3></div></div></div><p>Option: <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.fix_google_srch</strong></span> </p><p> This option causes Torbutton to use the <a class="ulink" href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Search_Service:API" target="_top">@mozilla.org/browser/search-service;1</a> component to wrap the Google search plugin. On many platforms, notably Debian and Ubuntu, the Google search plugin is set to reveal a lot of language and platform information. This setting strips off that info while Tor is enabled. </p><p> This setting helps Torbutton to fulfill its <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> requirement. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.33. Automatically use an alternate search engine when presented with a Google Captcha"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2935407"></a>5.33. Automatically use an alternate search engine when presented with a Google Captcha</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.asked_google_captcha</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.dodge_google_captcha</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.google_redir_url</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p> Google's search engine has rate limiting features that cause it to <a class="ulink" href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2007/07/reason-behind-were-sorry-message.html" target="_top">present captchas</a> and sometimes even outright ban IPs that issue large numbers of search queries, especially if a lot of these queries appear to be searching for software vulnerabilities or unprotected comment areas. </p><p> Despite multiple discussions with Google, we were unable to come to a solution or any form of compromise that would reduce the number of captchas and outright bans seen by Tor users issuing regular queries. </p><p> As a result, we've implemented this option as an <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL_School/Intercepting_Page_Loads#HTTP_Observers" target="_top">'http-on-modify-request'</a> http observer to optionally redirect banned or captcha-triggering Google queries to search engines that do not rate limit Tor users. The current options are ixquick.com, bing.com, yahoo.com and scroogle.org. These are encoded in the preferences <span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.redir_url.[1-4]</strong></span>. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="5.34. Store SSL/CA Certs in separate jars for Tor/Non-Tor (recommended)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2935487"></a>5.34. Store SSL/CA Certs in separate jars for Tor/Non-Tor (recommended)</h3></div></div></div><p>Options: </p><table border="0" summary="Simple list" class="simplelist"><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.jar_certs</strong></span></td></tr><tr><td><span class="command"><strong>extensions.torbutton.jar_ca_certs</strong></span></td></tr></table><p> </p><p> These settings govern if Torbutton attempts to isolate the user's SSL certificates into separate jars for each Tor state. This isolation is implemented in <code class="function">torbutton_jar_certs()</code> in <a class="ulink" href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/torbutton/master/src/chrome/content/torbutton.js" target="_top">chrome/content/torbutton.js</a>, which calls <code class="function">torbutton_jar_cert_type()</code> and <code class="function">torbutton_unjar_cert_type()</code> for each certificate type in the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/xpcomref/applications/Firefox/3.5/components/%40mozilla.org/security/nsscertcache;1" target="_top">@mozilla.org/security/nsscertcache;1</a>. Certificates are deleted from and imported to the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oxymoronical.com/experiments/xpcomref/applications/Firefox/3.5/components/%40mozilla.org/security/x509certdb;1" target="_top">@mozilla.org/security/x509certdb;1</a>. </p><p> The first time this pref is used, a backup of the user's certificates is created in their profile directory under the name <code class="filename">cert8.db.bak</code>. This file can be copied back to <code class="filename">cert8.db</code> to fully restore the original state of the user's certificates in the event of any error. </p><p> Since exit nodes and malicious sites can insert content elements sourced to specific SSL sites to query if a user has a certain certificate, this setting helps to satisfy the <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> requirement of Torbutton. Unfortunately, <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435159" target="_top">Firefox Bug 435159</a> prevents it from functioning correctly in the event of rapid Tor toggle, so it is currently not exposed via the preferences UI. </p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="6. Relevant Firefox Bugs"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="FirefoxBugs"></a>6. Relevant Firefox Bugs</h2></div></div></div><p> </p><div class="sect2" title="6.1. Bugs impacting security"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="FirefoxSecurity"></a>6.1. Bugs impacting security</h3></div></div></div><p> Torbutton has to work around a number of Firefox bugs that impact its security. Most of these are mentioned elsewhere in this document, but they have also been gathered here for reference. In order of decreasing severity, they are: </p><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=429070" target="_top">Bug 429070 - exposing Components.interfaces to untrusted content leaks information about installed extensions</a><p> <a class="ulink" href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/" target="_top">Gregory Fleischer</a> demonstrated at Defcon 17 that these interfaces can also be used to <a class="ulink" href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/tor/torbutton/fingerprint-firefox.html" target="_top">fingerprint Firefox down the to the minor version</a>. Note that his test has not been updated since 3.5.3, hence it reports 3.5.3 for more recent Firefoxes. This bug interferes with Torbutton's ability to satisfy its <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> requirement. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=280661" target="_top">Bug 280661 - SOCKS proxy server connection timeout hard-coded</a><p> This bug prevents us from using the Firefox SOCKS layer directly, and currently requires us to ship an auxiliary HTTP proxy called <a class="ulink" href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/" target="_top">Polipo</a>. If this patch were landed, we would no longer need to ship Polipo, which has a number of privacy and security issues of its own (in addition to being unmaintained). </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418986" target="_top">Bug 418986 - window.screen provides a large amount of identifiable information</a><p> As <a class="link" href="#fingerprinting">mentioned above</a>, a large amount of information is available from <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM:window.screen" target="_top">window.screen</a>. Currently, there is no way to obscure this information without Javascript hooking. This bug is a feature request to provide some other method to change these values. This bug interferes with Torbutton's ability to fulfill its <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> requirement. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435159" target="_top">Bug 435159 - nsNSSCertificateDB::DeleteCertificate has race conditions</a><p> In Torbutton 1.2.0rc1, code was added to attempt to isolate SSL certificates the user has installed. Unfortunately, the method call to delete a certificate from the current certificate database acts lazily: it only sets a variable that marks a cert for deletion later, and it is not cleared if that certificate is re-added. This means that if the Tor state is toggled quickly, that certificate could remain present until it is re-inserted (causing an error dialog), and worse, it would still be deleted after that. The lack of this functionality is considered a Torbutton security bug because cert isolation is considered a <a class="link" href="#state">State Separation</a> feature. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=575230" target="_top">Bug 575230 - Provide option to reduce precision of Date()</a><p> Currently it is possible to <a class="ulink" href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/firm-uses-typing-cadence-to-finger-unauthorized-users.ars" target="_top">fingerprint users based on their typing cadence</a> using the high precision timer available to javascript. Using this same precision, it is possible to compute an identifier based upon the clock drift of the client from some nominal source. The latter is not much of a concern for Tor users, as the variable delay to load and run a page is measured on the order of seconds, but the high precision timer can still be used to fingerprint aspects of a browser's javascript engine and processor, and apparently also a user's typing cadence. This bug hinders Torbutton's ability to satisfy its <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> requirement. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=409737" target="_top">Bug 409737 - javascript.enabled and docShell.allowJavascript do not disable all event handlers</a><p> This bug allows pages to execute javascript via addEventListener and perhaps other callbacks. In order to prevent this bug from enabling an attacker to break the <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> requirement, Torbutton 1.1.13 began blocking popups and history manipulation from different Tor states. So long as there are no ways to open popups or redirect the user to a new page, the <a class="link" href="#contentpolicy" title="@torproject.org/cssblocker;1 - components/cssblocker.js">Torbutton content policy</a> should block Javascript network access. However, if there are ways to open popups or perform redirects such that Torbutton cannot block them, pages may still have free reign to break that requirement and reveal a user's original IP address. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=448743" target="_top">Bug 448743 - Decouple general.useragent.locale from spoofing of navigator.language</a><p> Currently, Torbutton spoofs the <span class="command"><strong>navigator.language</strong></span> attribute via <a class="link" href="#jshooks" title="5.4. Hook Dangerous Javascript">Javascript hooks</a>. Unfortunately, these do not work on Firefox 3. It would be ideal to have a pref to set this value (something like a <span class="command"><strong>general.useragent.override.locale</strong></span>), to avoid fragmenting the anonymity set of users of foreign locales. This issue impedes Torbutton from fully meeting its <a class="link" href="#setpreservation">Anonymity Set Preservation</a> requirement on Firefox 3. </p></li></ol></div></div><div class="sect2" title="6.2. Bugs blocking functionality"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="FirefoxWishlist"></a>6.2. Bugs blocking functionality</h3></div></div></div><p> The following bugs impact Torbutton and similar extensions' functionality. </p><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=445696" target="_top">Bug 445696 - Extensions cannot determine if firefox is fullScreen</a><p> The windowState property of <a class="ulink" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL/window" target="_top">ChromeWindows</a> does not accurately reflect the true state of the window in some cases on Linux. This causes Torbutton to attempt to resize maximized and minimized windows when it should not. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=290456" target="_top">Bug 290456 - Block/clear Flash MX "cookies" as well</a><p> Today, it is possible to allow plugins if you have a transparent proxy such as <a class="ulink" href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/" target="_top">Incognito</a> to prevent proxy bypass. However, flash cookies can still be used to link your Tor and Non-Tor activity, and this reveal your IP to an adversary that does so. This can be solved by manually removing your flash cookies (like <a class="ulink" href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623" target="_top">BetterPrivacy</a> does), but it would be nice if there was a standard way to do this from a Firefox API. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=417869" target="_top">Bug 417869 - Browser context is difficult to obtain from many XPCOM callbacks</a><p> It is difficult to determine which tabbrowser many XPCOM callbacks originate from, and in some cases absolutely no context information is provided at all. While this doesn't have much of an effect on Torbutton, it does make writing extensions that would like to do per-tab settings and content filters (such as FoxyProxy) difficult to impossible to implement securely. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418321" target="_top">Bug 418321 - Components do not expose disk interfaces</a><p> Several components currently provide no way of reimplementing their disk access to easily satisfy Torbutton's <a class="link" href="#disk">Disk Avoidance</a> requirements. Workarounds exist, but they are <a class="link" href="#sessionstore" title="@mozilla.org/browser/sessionstore;1 - components/nsSessionStore36.js">clunky</a>, and some of them involve disabling functionality during Tor usage. </p></li></ol></div></div><div class="sect2" title="6.3. Low Priority Bugs"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="FirefoxMiscBugs"></a>6.3. Low Priority Bugs</h3></div></div></div><p> The following bugs have an effect upon Torbutton, but are superseded by more practical and more easily fixable variant bugs above; or have stable, simple workarounds. </p><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435151" target="_top">Bug 435151 - XPCSafeJSObjectWrapper breaks evalInSandbox</a><p> Under Firefox 3, the XPCSafeJSObjectWrapper breaks when you try to use constructors of classes defined from within the scope of the sandbox, among other things. This prevents Torbutton from applying the Timezone hooks under Firefox 3, but a better solution for Torbutton's specific date hooking needs would be a fix for the above mentioned Bug 392274. Of course, many more extensions may be interested in the sandbox hooking functionality working properly though. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440892" target="_top">Bug 440892 - network.protocol-handler.warn-external are ignored</a><p> Sometime in the Firefox 3 development cycle, the preferences that governed warning a user when external apps were launched got disconnected from the code that does the launching. Torbutton depended on these prefs to prevent websites from launching specially crafted documents and application arguments that caused Proxy Bypass. We currently work around this issue by <a class="link" href="#appblocker" title="@mozilla.org/uriloader/external-protocol-service;1 , @mozilla.org/uriloader/external-helper-app-service;1, and @mozilla.org/mime;1 - components/external-app-blocker.js">wrapping the app launching components</a> to present a popup before launching external apps while Tor is enabled. While this works, it would be nice if these prefs were either fixed or removed. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437014" target="_top">Bug 437014 - nsIContentPolicy::shouldLoad no longer called for favicons</a><p> Firefox 3.0 stopped calling the shouldLoad call of content policy for favicon loads. Torbutton had relied on this call to block favicon loads for opposite Tor states. The workaround it employs for Firefox 3 is to cancel the request when it arrives in the <span class="command"><strong>torbutton_http_observer</strong></span> used for blocking full page plugin loads. This seems to work just fine, but is a bit dirty. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309524" target="_top">Bug 309524</a> and <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=380556" target="_top">Bug 380556</a> - nsIContentPolicy::shouldProcess is not called. <p> This is a call that would be useful to develop a better workaround for the allowPlugins issue above. If the content policy were called before a URL was handed over to a plugin or helper app, it would make the workaround for the above allowPlugins bug a lot cleaner. Obviously this bug is not as severe as the others though, but it might be nice to have this API as a backup. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=401296" target="_top">Bug 401296 - docShell.allowPlugins not honored for direct links</a> (Perhaps subset of <a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=282106" target="_top">Bug 282106</a>?) <p> Similar to the javascript plugin disabling attribute, the plugin disabling attribute is also not perfect — it is ignored for direct links to plugin handled content, as well as meta-refreshes to plugin handled content. This requires Torbutton to listen to a number of different http events to intercept plugin-related mime type URLs and cancel their requests. Again, since plugins are quite horrible about obeying proxy settings, loading a plugin pretty much ensures a way to break the <a class="link" href="#isolation">Network Isolation</a> requirement and reveal a user's original IP address. Torbutton's code to perform this workaround has been subverted at least once already by Kyle Williams. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=419598" target="_top">Bug 419598 - 'var Date' is deletable</a><p> Based on Page 62 of the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Ecma-262.pdf" target="_top">ECMA-262 Javascript spec</a>, it seems like it should be possible to do something like the following to prevent the Date object from being unmasked: </p><pre class="screen"> with(window) { var Date = fakeDate; var otherVariable = 42; } delete window.Date; // Should fail. Instead succeeds, revealing original Date. delete window.otherVariable; // Fails, leaving window.otherVariable set to 42. </pre><p> From the ECMA-262 spec: </p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"> If the variable statement occurs inside a FunctionDeclaration, the variables are defined with function-local scope in that function, as described in s10.1.3. Otherwise, they are defined with global scope (that is, they are created as members of the global object, as described in 10.1.3) using property attributes { DontDelete }. Variables are created when the execution scope is entered. A Block does not define a new execution scope. Only Program and FunctionDeclaration produce a new scope. Variables are initialized to undefined when created. A variable with an Initialiser is assigned the value of its AssignmentExpression when the VariableStatement is executed, not when the variable is created. </blockquote></div><p> In fact, this is exactly how the with statement with a variable declaration behaves <span class="emphasis"><em>for all other variables other than ones that shadow system variables</em></span>. Some variables (such as <span class="command"><strong>window.screen</strong></span>, and <span class="command"><strong>window.history</strong></span>) can't even be shadowed in this way, and give an error about lacking a setter. If such shadowing were possible, it would greatly simplify the Javascript hooking code, which currently relies on undocumented semantics of <span class="command"><strong>__proto__</strong></span> to copy the original values in the event of a delete. This <span class="command"><strong>__proto__</strong></span> hack unfortunately does not work for the Date object though. </p></li></ol></div></div></div><div class="sect1" title="7. Testing"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="TestPlan"></a>7. Testing</h2></div></div></div><p> The purpose of this section is to cover all the known ways that Tor browser security can be subverted from a penetration testing perspective. The hope is that it will be useful both for creating a "Tor Safety Check" page, and for developing novel tests and actively attacking Torbutton with the goal of finding vulnerabilities in either it or the Mozilla components, interfaces and settings upon which it relies. </p><div class="sect2" title="7.1. Single state testing"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="SingleStateTesting"></a>7.1. Single state testing</h3></div></div></div><p> Torbutton is a complicated piece of software. During development, changes to one component can affect a whole slough of unrelated features. A number of aggregated test suites exist that can be used to test for regressions in Torbutton and to help aid in the development of Torbutton-like addons and other privacy modifications of other browsers. Some of these test suites exist as a single automated page, while others are a series of pages you must visit individually. They are provided here for reference and future regression testing, and also in the hope that some brave soul will one day decide to combine them into a comprehensive automated test suite. </p><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://decloak.net/" target="_top">Decloak.net</a><p> Decloak.net is the canonical source of plugin and external-application based proxy-bypass exploits. It is a fully automated test suite maintained by <a class="ulink" href="http://digitaloffense.net/" target="_top">HD Moore</a> as a service for people to use to test their anonymity systems. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://deanonymizer.com/" target="_top">Deanonymizer.com</a><p> Deanonymizer.com is another automated test suite that tests for proxy bypass and other information disclosure vulnerabilities. It is maintained by Kyle Williams, the author of <a class="ulink" href="http://www.janusvm.com/" target="_top">JanusVM</a> and <a class="ulink" href="http://www.januspa.com/" target="_top">JanusPA</a>. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://www.jondos.de/en/anontest" target="_top">JonDos AnonTest</a><p> The <a class="ulink" href="https://www.jondos.de" target="_top">JonDos people</a> also provide an anonymity tester. It is more focused on HTTP headers than plugin bypass, and points out a couple of headers Torbutton could do a better job with obfuscating. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://browserspy.dk" target="_top">Browserspy.dk</a><p> Browserspy.dk provides a tremendous collection of browser fingerprinting and general privacy tests. Unfortunately they are only available one page at a time, and there is not really solid feedback on good vs bad behavior in the test results. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://analyze.privacy.net/" target="_top">Privacy Analyzer</a><p> The Privacy Analyzer provides a dump of all sorts of browser attributes and settings that it detects, including some information on your origin IP address. Its page layout and lack of good vs bad test result feedback makes it not as useful as a user-facing testing tool, but it does provide some interesting checks in a single page. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="http://ha.ckers.org/mr-t/" target="_top">Mr. T</a><p> Mr. T is a collection of browser fingerprinting and deanonymization exploits discovered by the <a class="ulink" href="http://ha.ckers.org" target="_top">ha.ckers.org</a> crew and others. It is also not as user friendly as some of the above tests, but it is a useful collection. </p></li><li class="listitem">Gregory Fleischer's <a class="ulink" href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/content/tor/torbutton/" target="_top">Torbutton</a> and <a class="ulink" href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/content/defcon/dc-17-demos/d.html" target="_top">Defcon 17</a> Test Cases <p> Gregory Fleischer has been hacking and testing Firefox and Torbutton privacy issues for the past 2 years. He has an excellent collection of all his test cases that can be used for regression testing. In his Defcon work, he demonstrates ways to infer Firefox version based on arcane browser properties. We are still trying to determine the best way to address some of those test cases. </p></li><li class="listitem"><a class="ulink" href="https://torcheck.xenobite.eu/index.php" target="_top">Xenobite's TorCheck Page</a><p> This page checks to ensure you are using a valid Tor exit node and checks for some basic browser properties related to privacy. It is not very fine-grained or complete, but it is automated and could be turned into something useful with a bit of work. </p></li></ol></div><p> </p></div><div class="sect2" title="7.2. Multi-state testing"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="id2936532"></a>7.2. Multi-state testing</h3></div></div></div><p> The tests in this section are geared towards a page that would instruct the user to toggle their Tor state after the fetch and perform some operations: mouseovers, stray clicks, and potentially reloads. </p><div class="sect3" title="Cookies and Cache Correlation"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="id2936545"></a>Cookies and Cache Correlation</h4></div></div></div><p> The most obvious test is to set a cookie, ask the user to toggle tor, and then have them reload the page. The cookie should no longer be set if they are using the default Torbutton settings. In addition, it is possible to leverage the cache to <a class="ulink" href="http://crypto.stanford.edu/sameorigin/safecachetest.html" target="_top">store unique identifiers</a>. The default settings of Torbutton should also protect against these from persisting across Tor Toggle. </p></div><div class="sect3" title="Javascript timers and event handlers"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="id2936567"></a>Javascript timers and event handlers</h4></div></div></div><p> Javascript can set timers and register event handlers in the hopes of fetching URLs after the user has toggled Torbutton. </p></div><div class="sect3" title="CSS Popups and non-script Dynamic Content"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="id2936580"></a>CSS Popups and non-script Dynamic Content</h4></div></div></div><p> Even if Javascript is disabled, CSS is still able to <a class="ulink" href="http://www.tjkdesign.com/articles/css%20pop%20ups/" target="_top">create popup-like windows</a> via the 'onmouseover' CSS attribute, which can cause arbitrary browser activity as soon as the mouse enters into the content window. It is also possible for meta-refresh tags to set timers long enough to make it likely that the user has toggled Tor before fetching content. </p></div></div><div class="sect2" title="7.3. Active testing (aka How to Hack Torbutton)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="HackTorbutton"></a>7.3. Active testing (aka How to Hack Torbutton)</h3></div></div></div><p> The idea behind active testing is to discover vulnerabilities in Torbutton to bypass proxy settings, run script in an opposite Tor state, store unique identifiers, leak location information, or otherwise violate <a class="link" href="#requirements" title="1.2. Torbutton Requirements">its requirements</a>. Torbutton has ventured out into a strange and new security landscape. It depends on Firefox mechanisms that haven't necessarily been audited for security, certainly not for the threat model that Torbutton seeks to address. As such, it and the interfaces it depends upon still need a 'trial by fire' typical of new technologies. This section of the document was written with the intention of making that period as fast as possible. Please help us get through this period by considering these attacks, playing with them, and reporting what you find (and potentially submitting the test cases back to be run in the standard batch of Torbutton tests. </p><div class="sect3" title="Some suggested vectors to investigate"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="id2936635"></a>Some suggested vectors to investigate</h4></div></div></div><p> </p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem">Strange ways to register Javascript <a class="ulink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOM_Events" target="_top">events</a> and <a class="ulink" href="http://www.devshed.com/c/a/JavaScript/Using-Timers-in-JavaScript/" target="_top">timeouts</a> should be verified to actually be ineffective after Tor has been toggled.</li><li class="listitem">Other ways to cause Javascript to be executed after <span class="command"><strong>javascript.enabled</strong></span> has been toggled off.</li><li class="listitem">Odd ways to attempt to load plugins. Kyle Williams has had some success with direct loads/meta-refreshes of plugin-handled URLs.</li><li class="listitem">The Date and Timezone hooks should be verified to work with crazy combinations of iframes, nested iframes, iframes in frames, frames in iframes, and popups being loaded and reloaded in rapid succession, and/or from one another. Think race conditions and deep, parallel nesting, involving iframes from both <a class="ulink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same_origin_policy" target="_top">same-origin and non-same-origin</a> domains.</li><li class="listitem">In addition, there may be alternate ways and other methods to query the timezone, or otherwise use some of the Date object's methods in combination to deduce the timezone offset. Of course, the author tried his best to cover all the methods he could foresee, but it's always good to have another set of eyes try it out.</li><li class="listitem">Similarly, is there any way to confuse the <a class="link" href="#contentpolicy" title="@torproject.org/cssblocker;1 - components/cssblocker.js">content policy</a> mentioned above to cause it to allow certain types of page fetches? For example, it was recently discovered that favicons are not fetched by the content, but the chrome itself, hence the content policy did not look up the correct window to determine the current Tor tag for the favicon fetch. Are there other things that can do this? Popups? Bookmarklets? Active bookmarks? </li><li class="listitem">Alternate ways to store and fetch unique identifiers. For example, <a class="ulink" href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM:Storage" target="_top">DOM Storage</a> caught us off guard. It was also discovered by <a class="ulink" href="http://pseudo-flaw.net" target="_top">Gregory Fleischer</a> that <a class="ulink" href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/content/tor/torbutton/" target="_top">content window access to chrome</a> can be used to build <a class="link" href="#fingerprinting">unique identifiers</a>. Are there any other arcane or experimental ways that Firefox provides to create and store unique identifiers? Or perhaps unique identifiers can be queried or derived from properties of the machine/browser that Javascript has access to? How unique can these identifiers be? </li><li class="listitem">Is it possible to get the browser to write some history to disk (aside from swap) that can be retrieved later? By default, Torbutton should write no history, cookie, or other browsing activity information to the harddisk.</li><li class="listitem">Do popup windows make it easier to break any of the above behavior? Are javascript events still canceled in popups? What about recursive popups from Javascript, data, and other funky URL types? What about CSS popups? Are they still blocked after Tor is toggled?</li><li class="listitem">Chrome-escalation attacks. The interaction between the Torbutton chrome Javascript and the client content window javascript is pretty well-defined and carefully constructed, but perhaps there is a way to smuggle javascript back in a return value, or otherwise inject network-loaded javascript into the chrome (and thus gain complete control of the browser). </li></ul></div><p> </p></div></div></div></div></body></html>