local tor client policy remotely modified
As part of my torrc I have a MapAddress directive, which redirects all requests to a specific domain via a tor exit point (I still use ".exit"). That works satisfactory and served me well for a good while.
Today when I tried to access that domain, I received and error (domain inaccessible) and when I inspected the tor logs I found a sequence of these messages: "Requested exit point 'XXXX' is excluded or would refuse request. Closing."
This is obviously incorrect as I don't have such policy and have not restricted using that particular node (I did double-check my torrc file and since I also use default-torrc I checked that as well).
Using the atlas service I made sure that the node in question is up and running and that was indeed the case (the tor node has been running for more than 40 days - continuously).
Next, I stopped tor and restarted it (keeping the whole /var/lib/tor/* intact) and tried to access the same domain. I've got the same error message.
Finally, I stopped tor again, wiped out the entire /var/lib/tor/* directory to force my tor client to download fresh consensus and cold-boot everything. After doing that I tried to access the redirected domain again and this time I was SUCCESSFUL!
All of this leaves me to conclude that my tor client policy was remotely modified/altered, which if true, is a very serious issue, hence reporting it here.
Trac:
Username: mr-4