> > Maybe I'll try it myself if this project is useful, I'll read their > > webpage later. So far I run the distributed.net client on OpenBSD > > boxes, which works similar, though not because the distributed.net > > project is so useful in my opinion, but just to generate 100% CPU load > > (which prevents a possible attack on another software I run). Boinc > > could do the same for me. > > How does 100% load prevent an attack?
It's an attack on hidden services in the Tor network https://www.torproject.org - you need to stabilize the temperature of the server somehow to prevent the attack. >From http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/ccs06hotornot.pdf - Hot or Not: Revealing Hidden Services by their Clock Skew: "Location-hidden services, as oo,ered by anonymity systems such as Tor, allow servers to be operated under a pseudonym. As Tor is an overlay network, servers hosting hidden services are accessible both directly and over the anonymous channel. Trao,c patterns through one channel have observable eo,ects on the other, thus allowing a service's pseudonymous identity and IP address to be linked. One proposed solution to this vulnerability is for Tor nodes to provide o,xed quality of service to each connection, regardless of other trafo,c, thus reducing capacity but resisting such interference attacks. However, even if each connection does not ino,uence the others, total throughput would still ao,ect the load on the CPU, and thus its heat output. Unfortunately for anonymity, the result of temperature on clock skew can be remotely detected through observing timestamps. This attack works because existing abstract models of anonymity network nodes do not take into account the inevitable imperfections of the hardware they run on. Furthermore, we suggest the same technique could be exploited as a classical covert channel and can even provide geolocation." And back on topic: I just tried the [EMAIL PROTECTED] client version 5.04beta on -current, works fine here with redhat_base installed and started with the -openBSD option. Tas.
