[Freedombox-discuss] finding each other. was: Re: I'm new here

[Jason]

James,

On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 08:28:51PM -0500, James Vasile wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:21:37 -0500, Jason <freedombox at lakedaemon.net> wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 06:57:31PM -0500, James Vasile wrote:
> > > how FreedomBoxes find each other on the net across firewalls, NATs,
> > > meshes, dynamic addresses and the like.  And how can we make that
> > > anonymous when it needs to be?
> > 
> > I've been thinking about a small daemon listening on localhost.  A tor
> > hidden service would connect incoming requests to it.  It would then
> > do a Skype-like negotiation to create a point-to-point VPN outside of
> > the Tor cloud.  I'm thinking openvpn with UDP transport.  UDP is easier
> > to firewall-punch.

> How are Tor they found?

When the tor client daemon creates the hidden service key, it generates
a unique 'domain name' in the .onion tld.  When dns lookups are fed into
tor, it creates a pipe to a third party meeting point within the Tor
cloud.  Assuming you configure the service appropriately, anonymity is
preserved in both directions.

> What if a box running such a service moves to a new IP?

No problem.  Tor detects and handles this well.

> How do you find a Tor hidden service if it's inside a firewall?

FW and NATs are moot because the connection they see is an outbound TCP
connection to the Tor network.  They have no idea what's inside it.

Take a look here [1].

hth,

Jason.

[1] http://www.torproject.org/docs/hidden-services.html.en