[tor-talk] Thoughts on Tor router hardware

[Nathan Freitas]

On Wed, Feb 24, 2016, at 03:04 PM, some_guy123 at Safe-mail.net wrote:
> > My conclusions are that running Tor on the router can enhance both
> > security and usability.
> 
> You are dead wrong on that. (Semi-) transparent proxying is bad for quite
> a few reasons.
<snip>
> Unless you know what you are doing, a lot of your traffic will run over
> the same circuit (something that TBB tries to avoid) and can potentially
> be correlated. Some of your traffic will likely contain unique
> identifiers that can be tied back to you.

He specifically points out that very issue with transparent proxying in
the post, and actually recommends the TorSocks mode, which blocks all
traffic that isn't specifically using the Tor SOCKS port.

His premise is sound that by physically isolating the Tor runtime
process away from the average person's insecure laptop, smartphone or
tablet, you are decreasing the likelihood that Tor can be tampered with.

I think we all need to stop thinking that "Tor on a hardware device"
automatically means Transparent Proxying of all traffic.

+n