Quoth Scott Bennett <[email protected]>, on 2009-07-10 01:44:22 -0500: > Next, privoxy sends an HTTP GET request, which contains no hostname, > domainname, Nickname.exit, nor IP address through the connection to > the web server at the other end.
Someone's either been living in HTTP/0.9 days or hasn't been reading the specs. HTTP/1.1 requires a Host field because multiple domains may be hosted at one TCP endpoint, and that's exactly the problem: the full URI is (albeit in pieces) passed through the whole way at the application layer, and the exit notation is included in the URI. A full example flow is: - Browser sends GET http://example.net.example.exit/ to an HTTP proxy that is not aware of exit notation. - The HTTP proxy connects to the Tor SOCKS proxy, requesting a connection to example.net.example.exit. - Tor builds its circuit and makes the connection. - The HTTP proxy passes through GET http://example.net.example.exit/ to the origin server. - The origin server looks up whether it knows of any site to serve under "example.net.example.exit", finds that it doesn't, and returns an error. Alternatively, it uses a default site, which may be the wrong one. Alternatively, it does whatever it usually does but now has mostly-definitive information that this user is using Tor and has requested a specific exit node. This is why Privoxy includes a filter to strip the exit notation from the Host header when passing the request through, and why this filter should be enabled when using Privoxy for Tor purposes. ---> Drake Wilson
