Author: Aymeric Vitte 2020-02-25 15:36:32
Published on: 2020-02-25T15:36:32+00:00
Node-Tor is a javascript implementation of the Tor protocol inside nodes and browsers. The project has been self-funded since 2012, and phase 4 (evented pipes) has been developed but not fully tested/released. The team was about to implement phase 5 (elliptic crypto, Tor v3 features and WebRTC) but is running out of funding. They are looking for funding to complete this work. The code is subtle and minimal, representing only 1MB browserified not minified, so 500kB minified, with zero external dependencies. Some examples of what node-Tor does include anonymizing any protocol and implementing direct P2P via the Tor protocol or via RendezVous (RDV) points using also Tor protocol hops to connect to them. Peers are implementing both direct P2P and RDV functions (both via Tor protocol hops), making it difficult to understand who is doing what and how many hops finally are used between the peers. It would look logical that this technology is integrated natively one day inside browsers. This is different from what the Tor Browser is doing and is not a replacement for it. The team is seeking funding to complete their work on phase 5, which includes elliptic crypto, Tor v3 features, and WebRTC. Restarting such a project in months or years would be difficult, despite the huge efforts for the refactoring/update/cleaning of the initial code and split into modules. It is probably still difficult to use/integrate/modify.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T21:48:08.959864+00:00