Hidden Service down/unreachable

[willcl-ark]

As reported by @TNTBOMBOM in bitcoin/bitcoin#28054 the bitcoincore.org hidden service http://6hasakffvppilxgehrswmffqurlcjjjhd76jgvaqmsg6ul25s7t3rzyd.onion/ is currently unreachable using Tor Browser.

I have verified that it is unreachable, and many other Tor websites remain accessible, indicating that it is not a problem with the Tor network itself.

[katesalazar]

repro

[fanquake]

@willcl-ark Is this still the case?

[willcl-ark]

@fanquake it is still the case for me.

You get the nice "onion available" button if you visit the http site using Tor browser, but it never loads that way either (of course, it's the same address)

The operation timed out when attempting to contact 6hasakffvppilxgehrswmffqurlcjjjhd76jgvaqmsg6ul25s7t3rzyd.onion.

[willcl-ark]

Hidden service still appears to be down for me :(

[katesalazar]

still repro I can reach ddg hidden service example, but not bitcoincores one

…

On Mon, Nov 27, 2023 at 3:14 PM Will Clark ***@***.***> wrote: Hidden service still appears to be down for me :( — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#985 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AMRS4W6ATTDU5ALEZ6VSM5LYGSU4BAVCNFSM6AAAAAA2F73GCSVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMYTQMRYGAZDSNBXGA> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[BenWestgate]

Still down.

[Nurmagoz]

Meow?!

[f321x]

still down here :(

[Sjors]

It's still down. If it can't be fixed, then we should remove the suggested Tor browser redirect:

bitcoincore.org/_includes/head.html

Line 14 in f1d9b75

<meta http-equiv="onion-location" content="http://6hasakffvppilxgehrswmffqurlcjjjhd76jgvaqmsg6ul25s7t3rzyd.onion{{ page.url }}" />

[willcl-ark]

Yeah, it seems a (slight) shame that it seems to be difficult to fix, but broken is worse than nothing?

It is also possible to access the clearnet site via an exit node. Although this feels worse, in reality users should be verifying their downloads using GPG not trusting any particular web addresses. If they are doing gpg verification then the impact of dropping the hidden service is pretty minimal, minus:

• exit node risks
  • MITM attacks (in theory mitigated by GPG)
  • other exit node attacks
• longer round-trip circuits

I did make an attempt a few weeks ago at a "simple Tor proxy" which could be deployed to a droplet. I'm assuming the current Tor site is hosted stacked with the clearnet site making maintenance difficult, and my standalone proxy therefore aims to make management/deployment (possibly) easier. A running example of that is at the bottom of README.md. NB that this is a demo site, not in any way official, and likely contains all manner of critical hidden service misconfigurations etc.