Genuine onion: Simple, Fast, Flexible, and Cheap Website Authentication
This addresses website authentication for users seeking simple and cost-effective alternatives to traditional methods, but appears incremental as it repurposes an existing system.
The paper argues that Tor's .onion system can be used for basic website authentication, claiming it is easy, fast, cheap, flexible, and secure compared to TLS with certificates.
Tor is a communications infrastructure widely used for unfettered and anonymous access to Internet websites. Tor is also used to access sites on the .onion virtual domain. The focus of .onion use and discussion has traditionally been on the offering of hidden services, services that separate their reachability from the identification of their IP addresses. We argue that Tor's .onion system can be used to provide an entirely separate benefit: basic website authentication. We also argue that not only can onionsites provide website authentication, but doing so is easy, fast, cheap, flexible and secure when compared to alternatives such as the standard use of TLS with certificates.