[tor-bugs] #5699 [Analysis]: Make Tor able to handle VoIP applications people already want to use

Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki blackhole at torproject.org
Wed Jan 1 20:54:02 UTC 2014


#5699: Make Tor able to handle VoIP applications people already want to use
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     Reporter:  karsten   |      Owner:  mttp
         Type:  project   |     Status:  assigned
     Priority:  normal    |  Milestone:
    Component:  Analysis  |    Version:
   Resolution:            |   Keywords:  SponsorZ, SponsorF
Actual Points:            |  Parent ID:
       Points:            |
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Comment (by mttp):

 Replying to [comment:8 mttp]:
 > Phoul and I have written a guide on using Mumble with Tor. See:
 https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorifyHOWTO/Mumble


 Mumble can send voice and chat data over Tor via an AES-256 encrypted TCP
 stream. This works well when Mumble is used with Torsocks.

 One issue we encountered was that when Mumble uses the native proxy
 settings to connect to Tor, the hostnames of the listed Mumble servers get
 resolved by the local DNS servers. Mumble uses a Bonjour-style multicast
 system to resolve the hostnames of possibly hundreds of Mumble servers
 around the world very quickly right when the program launches. When
 Torsocks is used, all of this traffic just gets dropped because it's UDP.
 If you were planning on browsing through a bunch of game servers and
 deciding if you want to join them, this might be a problem for you. If you
 already know of a mumble server you wanted to use (either an IP address or
 a hostname) then you don't lose anything by using Torsocks instead of the
 local proxy settings.

 If you use Windows, torsocks is not available to you. Using the local
 proxy settings still might not be a problem if you know the IP address of
 the Mumble server you want to connect to because no DNS resolution is done
 for that IP. An observer could see you were using Mumble but not who you
 were talking to. If you use Windows and you have the hostname of the
 Mumble server you want to use, use tor-resolve to get an IP address before
 you give it to Mumble. If the hostname is an onion address, the onion
 address will get resolved by your local ISP, which is pretty bad for you.

 I tested Mumble with Torcap and Tortilla on Windows. The Mumble DNS
 multicast bypassed Torcap's proxy settings, basically leaving the same
 problem as using the native proxy settings. Tortilla requires using a
 Virtual Machine. For me, using Tortilla introduced intolerable amounts of
 latency into the connection. Maybe someone with a whole lot of RAM can get
 better results using Mumble with Tortilla, I don't know. For me neither of
 these tools provided a solution.

 Right now using Mumble safely with Tor requires torsocks.

 Closing this ticket unless anyone objects.

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/5699#comment:14>
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