[tor-talk] Extend auto-IP-switching-time in TorBrowser (and depending from time of inactivity)

[Ben Stover]

Hello Paul (and others),

the problem is for example when I login into a remote mailbox through TorBrowser then the mail box provider
see my IP (=IP of ExitNode).

Since I often stay longer than 10 minutes in my remote mailbox an IP switch happens during my mailbox login session.
Unfortunately a lot of mailbox provider setup smart "security session procedures".
As soon as they detect an IP switch they force the user to re-login again (at minimum).

Even worse: Some mail providers consider an account and password break and force the user to "verify" that
they are really to owner of the account with a long-winded confirmation procedure.
This could happen when only changing the country as well.
Very annoying.

So the easiest way to prevent these situation would be to keep the current Tor circuit (or at least the ExitNode).

>From what I read so far a "keep-circuit-instruction" is currently not possible.

Why not offering the user such a (torrc) option? So its up to him if he wants an extended circuit-session-time or not.

Ben

>I'm confused. What is the situation you are concerned about?  A new
>stream would go over a new circuit whether the previous stream is kept
>alive or not. Is that not so? And I'm not sure what keeping the idle
>stream open has to do with this. I understand the UX issues of
>switching circuits, and I get the threat if not allowing a stream to
>close causes attaching indefinitely to new circuits.  But I don't
>understand why it is bad to have a new stream open on a new circuit
>after another stream closes that was artificially kept open for a
>while vs. having the new stream open after an initial stream closed
>normally.

>aloha,
>Paul