Using Tor with BitTorrent

Paul Gardner parg at users.sourceforge.net
Fri Dec 3 09:34:34 UTC 2004


I believe that the only mechanism for inward connecting to a listener with
Tor is not via an out-proxy but via a "hidden service" - i.e. there is no
way to establish a proxy listener at an out-proxy (but I'm sure someone will
correct me if I'm wrong here:)

Use of a "hidden service" requires the inward connecting clients to
explicitly connect through Tor, as outlined in the Azureus document, so
there's no way to get such inward connections from non-Tor aware clients.

cheers
Paul

PS I also get a load of the error logs similar to the ones you report on
Windows with the latest RC and logging switched off (well, not enabled).

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hugo Schmidt" <HugoSchmidt1 at gmx.de>
To: "Paul Gardner" <parg at users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: <or-talk at freehaven.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 11:06 PM
Subject: Re: Using Tor with BitTorrent


Hi Paul,

thanks for your quick answer, I couldn't answer so quick, had not much time
recently. I read some stuff about BitTorrent protocol and the Azureus
documentation now, and I guess a few things became clear now.
So you say, as I am only outward connected, nobody can connect to me, but I
can upload to clients I am connected with. So in my understanding I should
be completely anonym with these bi-directional down-/uploads, as long as I
restrict the program to only connect via Tor, right?

I re-installed Azureus now, and with help of the documentation I finally
made it work now. No outgoing connection anymore, all the traffic goes
through Tor and even the "...application is giving Tor only IP adress..."
failure is gone.
But I thought about the problem, that nobody can connect to me. What if I
would make a connection to a Tor outproxy and this outproxy would offer me a
listinig port to which clients can connect to me. Then all data could be
send over the already existing connection. Wouldn't that be a possible
solution. Or maybe there is some sort of an external service to which I
could connect via Tor and which then provides me that port. What do you
think?

Besides: The "[warn] conn_read(): Unhandled error on read for OR
connection (fd368); removing" problem is gone since I de-installed some
programs, but I still have that problem saying: "[warn] circuit_log_path():
circ (length 3, exit randomtrash):solid(open) cannabis(open)
randomtrash(open)" if anybody could help

thx
Hugo



> Hi Hugo,
>      I did some work on Azureus regarding use with Tor - what problem did
> you have? What was the outgoing connection you had problems with?
>
> As for uploading, BT connections are bi-directional, so if you connect to
> someone to download, they can download from you at the same time. However,
> if everyone only outward connected (as you are), nothing would work (as
> there would be nobody to connect to).
>
> You tend to get slower xfer speeds if only outward connection as well.
>
> Anyway, I'd like to understand your Azureus problem, so if you have time,
> please let me help :)
>
> cheers
> Paul
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Hugo Schmidt" <HugoSchmidt1 at gmx.de>
> To: <or-talk at freehaven.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 10:15 PM
> Subject: Using Tor with BitTorrent
>
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm not very experienced in using tor and I tried to get the Azureus
> client
> > working with Tor under WindowsXP as it is described on their Homepage.
> It
> > didn't work, my Firewall always blocked an outgoing connection which the
> > client wanted to make.
> > So I tried a different Client: "BitSpirit". It also has a proxy
> > configuration but not so many options concerning trackers and stuff.
> After
> > putting in Tor as a Socks 5 proxy it actually started downloading quite
> > well. As I could see in my Firewall there were no attempts for outgoing
> > connections, everything goes trough Tor.
> > Now some things I'm wondering about:
> >
> > I read the "Tor, Socks bind, and BitTorrent" mailing list thread from
> > October 04 and there it says, that only outbound traffic is possible,
> but
> my
> > upload works fine!?
> > It also says, that "listen for connections" will expose me. I don't
> really
> > know what this option means, but my upload isn't influenced at all by
> > checking or unchecking it and traffic still all goes trough Tor
> >
> > So could I expect to be anonym with this configuration or not?
> >
> > I also experienced some other problems:
> >
> > 1. I always get this "...application is giving Tor only IP adress..."
> warn
> > with different apps including Bitspirit, even if these apps provide a
> > "resolve names remotely" option. But most apps are working anyway (like
> > BitSpirit).
> >
> > 2. Regardless which program I use, even while browsing the internet, I
> get
> > this message: "[warn] circuit_log_path(): circ (length 3, exit
> randomtrash):
> > solid(open) cannabis(open) randomtrash(open)"
> >
> > 3. A new error appeared (maybe since I installed 0.0.9rc4, I don't
> really
> > know anymore): "[warn] conn_read(): Unhandled error on read for OR
> > connection (fd368); removing"
> >
> > I know, a lot of questions, but I would really be glad to get some
> answers.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Hugo
> >
> > -- 
> > NEU +++ DSL Komplett von GMX +++ http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
> > GMX DSL-Netzanschluss + Tarif zum supergünstigen Komplett-Preis!
> >
>

-- 
NEU +++ DSL Komplett von GMX +++ http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
GMX DSL-Netzanschluss + Tarif zum supergünstigen Komplett-Preis!



More information about the tor-talk mailing list