Tor 0.2.1.7-alpha released

Tor 0.2.1.7-alpha fixes a major security problem in Debian and Ubuntu
packages (and maybe other packages) noticed by Theo de Raadt, fixes
a smaller security flaw that might allow an attacker to access local
services, adds better defense against DNS poisoning attacks on exit
relays, further improves hidden service performance, and fixes a variety
of other issues.

https://www.torproject.org/download

Changes in version 0.2.1.7-alpha - 2008-11-08

Security fixes:

• The "ClientDNSRejectInternalAddresses" config option wasn't being
  consistently obeyed: if an exit relay refuses a stream because its
  exit policy doesn't allow it, we would remember what IP address
  the relay said the destination address resolves to, even if it's
  an internal IP address. Bugfix on 0.2.0.7-alpha; patch by rovv.
• The "User" and "Group" config options did not clear the
  supplementary group entries for the Tor process. The "User" option
  is now more robust, and we now set the groups to the specified
  user's primary group. The "Group" option is now ignored. For more
  detailed logging on credential switching, set CREDENTIAL_LOG_LEVEL
  in common/compat.c to LOG_NOTICE or higher. Patch by Jacob Appelbaum
  and Steven Murdoch. Bugfix on 0.0.2pre14. Fixes bug 848.
• Do not use or believe expired v3 authority certificates. Patch
  from Karsten. Bugfix in 0.2.0.x. Fixes bug 851.

Minor features:

• Now NodeFamily and MyFamily config options allow spaces in
  identity fingerprints, so it's easier to paste them in.
  Suggested by Lucky Green.
• Implement the 0x20 hack to better resist DNS poisoning: set the
  case on outgoing DNS requests randomly, and reject responses that do
  not match the case correctly. This logic can be disabled with the
  ServerDNSRamdomizeCase setting, if you are using one of the 0.3%
  of servers that do not reliably preserve case in replies. See
  "Increased DNS Forgery Resistance through 0x20-Bit Encoding"
  for more info.
• Preserve case in replies to DNSPort requests in order to support
  the 0x20 hack for resisting DNS poisoning attacks.

Hidden service performance improvements:

• When the client launches an introduction circuit, retry with a
  new circuit after 30 seconds rather than 60 seconds.
• Launch a second client-side introduction circuit in parallel
  after a delay of 15 seconds (based on work by Christian Wilms).
• Hidden services start out building five intro circuits rather
  than three, and when the first three finish they publish a service
  descriptor using those. Now we publish our service descriptor much
  faster after restart.

Minor bugfixes:

• Minor fix in the warning messages when you're having problems
  bootstrapping; also, be more forgiving of bootstrap problems when
  we're still making incremental progress on a given bootstrap phase.
• When we're choosing an exit node for a circuit, and we have
  no pending streams, choose a good general exit rather than one that
  supports "all the pending streams". Bugfix on 0.1.1.x. Fix by rovv.
• Send a valid END cell back when a client tries to connect to a
  nonexistent hidden service port. Bugfix on 0.1.2.15. Fixes bug
  840. Patch from rovv.
• If a broken client asks a non-exit router to connect somewhere,
  do not even do the DNS lookup before rejecting the connection.
  Fixes another case of bug 619. Patch from rovv.
• Fix another case of assuming, when a specific exit is requested,
  that we know more than the user about what hosts it allows.
  Fixes another case of bug 752. Patch from rovv.
• Check which hops rendezvous stream cells are associated with to
  prevent possible guess-the-streamid injection attacks from
  intermediate hops. Fixes another case of bug 446. Based on patch
  from rovv.
• Avoid using a negative right-shift when comparing 32-bit
  addresses. Possible fix for bug 845 and bug 811.
• Make the assert_circuit_ok() function work correctly on circuits that
  have already been marked for close.
• Fix read-off-the-end-of-string error in unit tests when decoding
  introduction points.
• Fix uninitialized size field for memory area allocation: may improve
  memory performance during directory parsing.
• Treat duplicate certificate fetches as failures, so that we do
  not try to re-fetch an expired certificate over and over and over.
• Do not say we're fetching a certificate when we'll in fact skip it
  because of a pending download.

The original announcement can be found at http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Nov-2008/msg00229.html