Emit a warning message about side channel leaks when using relays as clients
Analysis presented in bug #16585 (moved) demonstrates client circuit formation processing perturbs relay cell forwarding in a manner that may be susceptible to traffic confirmation analysis.
With the present code structure it is recommended that simultaneous client and relay operation be aggressively discouraged with a new torrc
configuration parameter to inhibit it--default value set to prevent. In addition log warnings should be generated when both client and relay functions are allowed to operate concurrently.
Correct support of simultaneous client and relay function requires segregation of the client function to a separate thread running on a different processor core than the relay function.
Correcting the current client implementation's deficit of transaction granularity is unlikely to eliminate the potential for a sophisticated advisory to detect perturbation of cell forwarding by client circuit creation activity.