Spoofing location - possible?

[Scott Bennett]

     On Tue, 06 May 2008 14:08:48 -0400 buralex at gmail.com wrote:
>@Scott:
>>  Yes.  Pick some U.S.-based exit nodes, and use the .exit notation you
>> referred to above.  It means choosing your exits by hand, rather than
>> letting tor do that, but it will get you to the exit you want, provided
>> that exit is running and reachable from your location.
>I downloaded 
>http://torstatus.kgprog.com/ip_list_all.php/Tor_ip_list_ALL.csv hacked 
>about with Excel and found 62 "nicknames" in US, bandwidth >= 100 KBS 
>and uptime-days >= 10 and then added these two lines to torrc:
>> ExitNodes sneaker,croeso,bettyboop,..., 59 more
>> StrictExitNodes 1
>guess what - it works! I've been happily listening to "stations" I set 
>up on Pandora 16 months ago before they blacked out everything outside 
>the US for the last 4 hours and even watched two clips from Saturday 
>Night Live. Life is GOOD :-)
>
>Is this usage "OK" or am I abusing the spirit of TOR?

     It doesn't bother me, but I certainly cannot speak for others.  The
main trouble is getting a long-lived circuit that is fast enough.  I have
had poor luck with streaming video/audio, particularly for speed, but then
I didn't limit the exit nodes.  Of course, restricting the list of exit
nodes doesn't prevent getting slow links/nodes earlier in the circuit.  I
don't know of an easy way to do that except for the exit nodes.  Trying to
get a long-lived circuit is aided, though not at all guaranteed, by adding
whatever port(s) you wish to use to the LongLivedPorts list.
>
>One new question: I found a number of "what is my ip" sites and all of 
>them agree that my URL originates in the US except for: 
>http://www.ip2location.com/ which reports my true location in CANADA, 
>ONTARIO, AURORA. I really don't mind but wonder if they've done 
>something "special" the others haven't? If I cared enough, would this be 

     I have no idea what happened there.  After seeing your note, I tried
that site, too, and it told me I was connecting from MIT.  (I'm in
Illinois.:-)

>where I start using Privoxy and/or other techniques described in the 
>TOR-FAQ?
>
     privoxy is only useful for HTTP and HTTPS connections.  tor itself
accepts and deals with the .exit notation.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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