answer network time requests

It would be useful if the Tor client could be used to ask the Tor network for the current time.

To demonstrate, here is an example:

tor time --direct <router name>

tor time --direct <router ip port>

tor time --direct <bridge ip port>

tor time --direct <authority (mirror)>

tor time --torified <router name>

tor time --torified <route ip port>

tor time --torified <bridge ip port>

tor time --torified <authority (mirror)>

Example answer:

Wed Sep 19 02:02:22 UTC 2012

The Tor control protocol could be used to provide this feature.

,, --direct = A direct encrypted/authenticated connection from the Tor client to a relay, bridge or authority.

--torified = A regular encrypted/authenticated three hop circuit using the normal routing algorithm to connect to exit nodes.

Also something like an "clock source=atomic" flag for the relays would be useful. The "clock source" flag would let a relay advertise "we are using an atomic clock as time source".

Having this feature would allow writing a secure distributed trust time synchronization client, which works through NAT, over Tor and which is independent from SSL certificate authorities.

,, sources:

• NTP will probable never provide authentication for the masses.
• authenticate time servers
• Time syncing