Author: Gregory Maxwell 2014-07-28 03:44:35
Published on: 2014-07-28T03:44:35+00:00
The email thread discusses a Tor node that is believed to be an exit node for port 8333, which is used by Bitcoin nodes. The node's details are available on websites like torstatus.blutmagie.de and torstatus.rueckgr.at, but it does not have an exit flag, so it is unlikely to be selected as an exit node automatically. However, someone may have manually configured it to be an exit node. Blockchain.info has records of the IP address associated with the node going back to May 2014. Users on freenode noticed that the node was accepting inbound Bitcoin connections a few weeks ago but is no longer doing so. This behavior suggests that the node's operator may be attempting to deanonymize users by running a Bitcoin node that connects widely to others on IPv4. The node also appears to be running a Tor exit node and intercepting connections on port 8333. However, it is unclear if this is actually working, despite the node accepting large amounts of relay bandwidth. The author of the email is attempting to test if the node is intercepting connections manually but has been unsuccessful so far. Additionally, the node appears to be lying about the software it is running based on data from the hosts it connects to.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T19:12:08.450000+00:00