libp2p / libp2p/specs

Autonat confidence via diverse network segments?

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Description

I talked with @jacobheun a while ago about autonat and he mentioned that when considering autonat responses we should ensure that we don't accept multiple responses from different peers in the same network segment. This is to prevent an attack whereby an attacker could trivially spin up multiple nodes on the same host or service provider, trick you into trying to use them for autonat which may then give them control over what you think is your external address.

This isn't in the spec, which does mention some specific mitigations for other attacks.

Should it be added? If so, what is the behaviour of existing implementations around this?

Would something like the first octet of their IP being different be sufficient?

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
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Research direction

Start by reviewing the autonat portion of the specification and the described mitigations for related attacks. Compare the behavior of existing implementations, then determine whether network-segment diversity should be added and how it should be defined. Done means reaching a decision that can be documented in the specification.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
networking, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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