-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 On 26/09/12 10:06, Nathan Freitas wrote:
>> After implementing the torchat protocol and seeing how bad it >> is, but how nice the idea is, I started thinking it would be cool >> to have a more general protocol for P2P use through hidden >> services. > > This is something we have definitely been considering as a feature > or add-on to Orbot - essentially mobile-to-mobile file sharing, > messaging/voice messaging via hidden services. > > While we don't need a very complex p2p design (in short, we are > mostly just talking about simple HTTP servers running on each > device, behind a hidden service .onion), I am concerned in the long > run about scalability and reliability of this. It is not unheard of > for apps that work well and do something cool to suddently have 1M+ > users, and already are nearing half that with Orbot. I've had an idea for a while for a killer service for Orbot, but haven't begun to start implementing it yet. I use an application called TextSecure to send encrypted SMS. It hides the message that I'm sending, but it doesn't hide who I'm talking to and when, which is just as important. If Orbot on my phone and my friends phone were both running hidden services. Then they could both make a "direct" connection to each other, and transmit SMS/BBM/Kik/WhatsApp style messages directly over the Tor network between phones. The messages would automatically be encrypted and the fact that either of us are even sending or receiving messages, let alone who with, would be hidden. This is not the same as using XMPP over Tor. XMPP requires a trusted third party server to handle the relaying. This is P2P direct communication using hidden services. It's not real-time IM chat. It's SMS style chat (with acceptable delays), and the simplicity of the user interface should reflect this. It would look very similar to the native SMS app. When one phone connects to another, it "knows" that the device it's connecting to is running the hidden service that it is trying to send a message to. However, the other phone, (the one running the hidden service), has no idea who is connecting to it. So I think it would be a good idea when sending a message that the phone connects to a hidden service and says, "Hi. There's a message waiting for you at xxxxx.onion. You can retrieve it using this long unique random code: yyy". And then the recipient phone connects back to that onion address to retrieve the message, supplying the unique code. That way, both phones know the onion address of the person they're talking to. Alternatively (this would be faster), in the original connection, it could send the actual SMS content along with the "confirmation code", and the message could appear to the recipient as "Unconfirmed Sender" until the recipient phone successfully connects back to the sender onion address to confirm that it sent it. It could even allow multiple identities, with a different onion address for each one. Basically, it would provide encrypted, hidden, "SMS". In many countries, the police can obtain information about who is SMS'ing who without a warrant, they just need a warrant to view the content of those messages. This would solve that problem. Ideally, it would also use encryption to store the messages on the phone side in case the phone is compromised. TextSecure uses EC public key crypto for this. It takes incoming messages that aren't encrypted, and encrypts them with the public key. You then use your private key to decrypt them later. I believe the Guardian Project created a library for encrypted sqlite databases which could come in handy there though. - -- Mike Cardwell https://grepular.com/ http://cardwellit.com/ OpenPGP Key 35BC AF1D 3AA2 1F84 3DC3 B0CF 70A5 F512 0018 461F XMPP OTR Key 8924 B06A 7917 AAF3 DBB1 BF1B 295C 3C78 3EF1 46B4 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQGGBAEBCgBwBQJQYtwbMBSAAAAAACAAB3ByZWZlcnJlZC1lbWFpbC1lbmNvZGlu Z0BwZ3AuY29tcGdwbWltZTgUgAAAAAAVABpwa2EtYWRkcmVzc0BnbnVwZy5vcmdt aWtlLmNhcmR3ZWxsQGdyZXB1bGFyLmNvbQAKCRCdJiMBwdHnBGrEB/wM8ne9Cwl0 PRLIDLbAa63R7shSRs1xgEoQpfAUGBoIsxTlpN85Gp6hv0RTPLO+pz5DoPn+4NVw 12s8KhtSpz/BBlH29hf24q5TCp72Y7SrzuZXpn3NXy/vxaqHP0VKgkcY2gemjE+Z Snot1AlyF9fblMIHBxmPmDktd0DyP5Rjnsj8gAlXTahxUuizwV7LK72J4nmA/dSc RQDGZXR+ElF7KxBOGj2s5WEh/BEu+kYSaeesS0QJCxkCGkuawU33m1SJc97onVtu 1cOMtRrzDmohyiFec7QVAk0h4tv4IToM0RZeR8Cn763SScwtz3E+3TTYFVMDKObG j9oScSx/KjdW =Z4xr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list tor-talk@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
