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

[The Doctor]

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On 11/19/2011 08:28 PM, James Vasile wrote:

> That's an interesting idea.  I haven't actually studied up on how
> Tor does hidden services yet.  How are Tor they found?  What if a
> box running such a service moves to a new IP?  How do you find a
> Tor hidden service if it's inside a firewall?

To access a hidden Tor service, you have to know the hostname of the
site (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.onion) beforehand.  Generally speaking, they
are passed around on directories usually found on the Tor darknet
itself (there are a few publically advertised wikis that act as link
directories) but they can also be passed around by word of mouth.  The
hostnames of hidden services are derived from a public key generated
by the Tor daemon on the server they run on.  It does not matter if
the server a hidden service is running on is reconfigured as long as
the contents of the servicename/hostname and servicename/private.key
are the same on the server.  As for accessing a Tor hidden service if
it is behind a firewall, so long as a port is forwarded on the
firewall local to the Tor node the hidden service is running on (and
one would have to be to allow for incoming connections) it can be
accessed.

By the bye, here is a presentation-type description of the Tor hidden
service protocol: https://www.torproject.org/docs/hidden-services.html.en

- -- 
The Doctor [412/724/301/703]

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"What do you think this is, real life?" --Ford Fairlane

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