real-world-onion-sites/02-footnotes.md

Footnotes

• If both v2 and v3 addresses are provided for a service, the v3 address will be preferred / cited
• The master list of Onion SSL EV Certificates may be viewed at https://crt.sh/?q=%25.onion
• This file (README.md) is auto-generated; do not submit changes nor pull-requests for it
  • Please submit an Issue for consideration / change requests

RWOS Status Detector

• ✅ site up
• ✳️ site up, and redirected to another page
• 🚫 site up, but could not access the page
• 🛑 site up, but reported a system error
• 🆘 site returned no data, or is down, or curl experienced a transient network error
• 🆕 site is newly added, no data yet

You can also see the history of updates.

Codes & Exit Statuses

Mouse-over the icons for details of HTTP codes, curl exit statuses, and the number of attempts made on each site.

• codes are from HTTP and are documented elsewhere; RWOS-internal ones include:
  • 901, 902, 903 - malformed HTTP response
  • 904 - HTTP status code parse error
  • 910 - connection timeout
• exits are from Curl and are documented elsewhere; common ones include:
  • 7 - "curl couldn't connect"
  • 52 - "curl got nothing", received no data from upstream

TLS Security

Due to the fundamental protocol differences between HTTP and HTTPS, it is not wise to consider HTTP-over-Onion to be "as secure as HTTPS"; web browsers do and must treat HTTPS requests in ways that are fundamentally different to HTTP, e.g.:

• with respect to cookie handling, or
• where the trusted connection terminates, or
• how to deal with loading embedded insecure content, or
• whether to permit access to camera and microphone devices (WebRTC)

...and the necessity of broad adherence to web standards would make it harmful to attempt to optimise just one browser (e.g. Tor Browser) to elevate HTTP-over-Onion to the same levels of trust as HTTPS-over-TCP, let alone HTTPS-over-Onion. Doubtless some browsers will attempt to implement "better-than-default trust and security via HTTP over onions", but this behaviour will not be standard, cannot be relied upon by clients/users, and will therefore be risky.

tl;dr - HTTP-over-Onion should not be considered as secure as HTTPS-over-Onion, and attempting to force it thusly will create a future compatibility mess for the ecosystem of onion-capable browsers.

• 🔧 semi-secure HTTP Onion site, protected by Onion circuits at best; will not respect browser secure/HTTPS behaviour
• 🔐 secure HTTPS Onion site, protected by both Onion circuits and TLS, will respect browser secure/HTTPS behaviour

Feedback

The issues page is the fastest and most effective way to submit a suggestion; if you lack a Github account, try messaging @alecmuffett on Twitter.