PSA: Don't torrent over TOR
PSA: Don't torrent over TOR
This blog post from a few years ago suggests that using BitTorrent services over Tor is a bad idea for multiple reasons. However, it also suggests some fixes to get over these problems. Is using a
- It doesn't make you anonymous. Torrent protocol wasn't designed with anonymity in mind and there are a million ways you're going to leak your actual IP address.
- Tor is a TCP only network.
- While this doesn't give you the anonymity you wanted, it will hurt the network for other users.
For bittorrent and p2p it is better to use i2p, tor only to surf the internet.
Mind giving a little info about i2p for the clueless?
I2P is a P2P darknet. on tor the network is run by volenteers (~6000 nodes) while on I2P everyone on the nerwork is a node, and their are no built in exit nodes (in i2p their called outproxies). the official I2P router has a built in torrent client as well. like torrents the more people on i2p the faster the network, while the opposite is true for tor.
It is a different anonymity network, which works differently in many aspects.
I2P and Tor comparison: https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/tor
I2P on Bittorrent (mostly a client dev guide, but has some interesting info): https://geti2p.net/en/docs/applications/bittorrentCurrently BiglyBt supports I2P and it has been that way for quite some time.
If you use qBittorrent, I2P support will come in version 4.6. you can try it out now with the published release candidate version. Probably other clients are working on it too as the support is coming from the libtorrent programming library, which is used by other clients too.Right now, I2P is quite slow in my experience, in terms of loading I2P websites. I hope that it's just a misconfiguration on my part, or that these specific sites I tried are just overloaded.
There's an i2p community here on lemmy. Click my username for a link.
Indeed.
Torrenting over I2P is the future. No need for VPN and no dependency on donated bandwidth like with Tor.
The technology needs a bit of refinement and it seems they are struggling to attract and maintain good developers.
In my opinion, the fundamental protocols of I2P need a revamp to make torrenting faster and more efficient.
It will take a few years before we solve these problems.
I pay monthly for access to a SOCKS5 proxy service from a company called BTGuard, and tell my BT client to connect through that. It is not expensive and works great I've been using it for about 12 or 13 years, and found it after getting an email from my ISP saying they identified me downloading TV shows. In that time, I have only had issues a handful of times. More reliable than most other services I pay for and I've never seen another DMCA notice since.
BTGuard
Expensive VPN with less features. Probably made sense 12 or 13 years ago.
I do not use their VPN, just the socks5 proxy, so I can't comment. It's $6.95 USD monthly. Costs less than a meal out. Do you have an alternative that is less expensive with no catches or limits? I'm all ears. Serious. I'm always willing to try other stuff. Any socks5 proxy service that costs less.
I just don't get calling it expensive. It's not really.
Edit: I misread the statement. Thanks for pointing this out to all the repliers! My fault.
The first point of the answer is misleading. Tor is indeed designed with anonymity in mind. The leaks occur in different layers, like the for e.g. chosen BitTorrent client.
https://blog.torproject.org/bittorrent-over-tor-isnt-good-idea/
He said torrent, not tor.
Torrenting over TOR doesn't make you anonymous. How is that misleading?
That's kind of what they said though?
Don't worry, I misread it the exact same way
The torrent protocol wasn't designed with anonymity in mind, not Tor.
I didn't think people torrented over TOR. Aside from the security issues (which I didn't know about in the first place), I would think it's gotta be insanely slow. Is it not?
I keeps getting brought up because TOR is the most popular anonymizing network. It's not far-fetched to think "how can I make myself anonymous while torrenting?" search for "how to be anonymous online", find TOR and put two and two together. It happens all the time, which is why the blog post by TOR was made about it.
Gotcha, yeah that checks out. I guess I never made that connection, even though I use TOR and torrent here and there. Probably also because I'm more concerned about download speeds over privacy when torrenting. And regular web traffic over TOR is often insanely slow compared to the clearnet.
Ever since getting a copyright strike several years ago, I've switched to using a commercial VPN while torrenting. I don't know if that's the all-in-one solution for hiding from my ISP, but it seems to work. But I also rarely torrent these days, too, so not as many opportunities for them to catch me, I suppose.
is it okay if I download a .torrent file from private trackers through TOR browser?
Use a seedbox IMO although with private trackers you're generally pretty safe.
Fine for Tor. But check the rules first so you don't get banned for duplicate IP.
Did I2P take off enough for one to use it?
Depends. It's definitely smaller than TOR because people don't know of it. It's slower, but if you don't need things on demand, have a seedbox or some way to torrent 24/7, things are quite acceptable.
It would be great if big trackers started encouraging use of I2P as an alternative.
Torrent via I2P instead
What's i2p? I downloaded i2p from fdroid and installed it. It showing peers and active peers but my IP is still the same. Can you please ELI5 ? Thanks
I2P is a truly anonymous darknet where every user is a node in the network, unlike TOR where everyone is leeching off of the 6000 nodes. I2P also works great for torrenting. I2P is only for accessing I2P sites and not for anonymous clearnet browsing.
I have never tried the mobile version, but here's some info for desktop:
There is a java version simply called "I2P" and there is a C++ one called "I2Pd". Start with the java one, it's easier and has built-in torrent webclient.
Install I2P from geti2p.net and start it. You are now a node/router in the network. To access I2P darknet websites like http://planet.i2p you have to tell your browser to use I2P proxy. You should use a different browser profile for using I2P, on firefox you can create one at about:profiles .
Enable I2P on firefox: Settings -> General -> Network Settings. Set manual http and https proxy to 127.0.0.1 port 4444 . You should now be able to visit eepsites (sites ending with .i2p). Always put http:// manually at the beginning. If it tells you to use jump services because it can't find the site, just click on one of the suggestions.
Torrents are on http://tracker2.postman.i2p . Find one, copy the magnet link and go to the torrent webclient: 127.0.0.1:7657/i2psnark . Add the torrent there. Done, you are now anonymously torrenting.
I2P doesn't behave like Tor by default, it's designed around connecting to internal peers within its network so your browser won't treat it as a proxy but default and you have to specifically configure it to route traffic to the I2P network
Tor is a TCP only network.
Can someone ELI5 this point for me? I know there is TCP and UDP, is UDP safer then ?TCP is a protocol where all the data is verified when sent. There is extra back and forth communication along with the payload to check that the payload arrived safely. Its great for downloading files when you want to make sure nothing is missing or damaged. UDP is more like a constant data stream where the sender doesn't care if it all gets to you. The advantage is that you send less data overall, useful if you don't care if one frame of a video stream looks weird.
One protocol isn't safer than another, its all about how much bandwidth you have/need. Torrenting over TOR uses up way more bandwidth than needed. Depending on the implementation, TCP can use 50% more bandwidth.
and sometimes we do care about successful delivery but need to handle that ourselves so we use UDP to avoid layering delivery verification mechanisms.
thank you sir!
Just different. Torrent protocol UTP is based on UDP, it has some advantages, you couldn't get with Tor
That's what Tribler is for
Tribler is the only thing I found to bypass my network torrent block for free (no vpn).
Just found out about i2p, i2psnark worked with i2p torrent (I couldn't make qbitorrent work). If I understood corectly, it should work with non i2p torrent if someone on the i2p network has it, but it's still pretty niche so right now it doesn't work mist of the time.
I haven't used tribler in years, how does it compare to downloading regular public torrent sites? (like the defunct rargb)
Often it's not that great, but I believe it just needs more users to solve this
Any plan on doing torrent over veilid?
How does veilid compare to I2P?
It seems like a mix between tor and i2p.
Tor was also built by the Navy right? I'm pretty sure they wouldn't make it easy to get away with breaking the law over that
You misunderstand, this is not the issue here. It is just not made for torrents and they hurt/break the network.
Specifically, it overloads the network. A single VPN server used for torrenting (proton, air, nord, etc) deals more traffic than the whole Tor network.
I torrent without any protection or vpn, its legal here
Since when was that possible?