Re: [Tails-dev] Tails' htpdate [Was: secure and simple netwo…

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Author: intrigeri
Date:  
To: The Tails public development discussion list
CC: tor-talk
Old-Topics: Re: [Tails-dev] [tor-talk] secure and simple network time (hack)
Subject: Re: [Tails-dev] Tails' htpdate [Was: secure and simple network time (hack)]
Hi,

adrelanos wrote (21 Jul 2012 04:30:31 GMT) :
> If I understand correctly, you pick three random servers. One from
> each pool. And then build the mediate of the three.


This is correct.

> What's the point of asking the foe pool? (Servers which generally do
> not care about privacy.)


This means we implicitly decided it was more important to ask parties
that are unlikely to cooperate to send fake time information to Tails
users, than it would be to entirely avoid asking servers who generally
don't care about privacy. In general, for such matters, I'd rather
rely on diversity, rather than on a set of "trusted" peers.

> Why doesn't tails_htp ask more than three servers for the time and
> build the mediate? Like 6, 9 or 12.


IIRC: speed, and simplicity ("good enough" is good enough).
If that's not good enough, I'm happy to take a patch :)
... but we need to make up our mind wrt. tlsdate first, I think.

Cheers,
--
intrigeri
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