- It doesn’t make you anonymous. Torrent protocol wasn’t designed with anonymity in mind and there are a million ways you’re going to leak your actual IP address.
- Tor is a TCP only network.
- While this doesn’t give you the anonymity you wanted, it will hurt the network for other users.
For bittorrent and p2p it is better to use i2p, tor only to surf the internet.
Mind giving a little info about i2p for the clueless?
I2P is a P2P darknet. on tor the network is run by volenteers (~6000 nodes) while on I2P everyone on the nerwork is a node, and their are no built in exit nodes (in i2p their called outproxies). the official I2P router has a built in torrent client as well. like torrents the more people on i2p the faster the network, while the opposite is true for tor.
It is a different anonymity network, which works differently in many aspects.
I2P and Tor comparison: https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/tor
I2P on Bittorrent (mostly a client dev guide, but has some interesting info): https://geti2p.net/en/docs/applications/bittorrentCurrently BiglyBt supports I2P and it has been that way for quite some time.
If you use qBittorrent, I2P support will come in version 4.6. you can try it out now with the published release candidate version. Probably other clients are working on it too as the support is coming from the libtorrent programming library, which is used by other clients too.Right now, I2P is quite slow in my experience, in terms of loading I2P websites. I hope that it’s just a misconfiguration on my part, or that these specific sites I tried are just overloaded.
…
Near as I can tell:
Tor is about privacy (and is prone to being compromised but…). So long as the exit nodes are in “friendly” countries and are run by trustworthy individuals (…), you are “safe”. And that is why it is popular among journalists. The downside being that a lot of heinous shit is done on Tor and those exit nodes are potentially liable for them.
I2P is about avoiding censorship. Everyone is an exit node and cops kicking down doors doesn’t significantly hurt the network.
But… I would very much NOT use that for torrenting. Because the endpoints can still be detected and recorded. And “I wasn’t downloading that Tay Swizzle concert, I was just letting potentially thousands of other people use my computer to download it… Why did you suddenly start laughing and talking about The Pirate Bay?”.
And that also ignores the “darker” parts of the dark web. Where, rather than getting a letter from the MPAA you get a visit from Chris Hansen.
I2P doesn’t really have exit nodes. You can only browse within the I2P network.
Out proxies are a thing
On i2p everyone is a node but not everyone is an outproxy to the clearnet, you have to enable it manually.
It is not true that every node is an exit node in I2P. The I2P protocol does not officially have exit nodes—all I2P communication terminates at some node within the I2P network, encrypted end-to-end. It is possible to run a local proxy server and make it accessible to other users as an I2P service, creating an “exit node” of sorts, but this is something that must be set up deliberately; it’s not the default or recommended configuration. Users would need to select a specific I2P proxy service (exit node) to forward non-I2P traffic through and configure their browser (or other network-based programs) to use it.
Maybe I am missing something but that just feels like you are arguing semantics.
Traffic exits the sub-WAN from basically any of the computers/nodes in it. So it might not be a Tor Exit Node ™ but it still has all the dangers of it.
No, that’s not how I2P works.
First, let’s start with the basics. An exit node is a node which interfaces between the encrypted network (I2P or Tor) and the regular Internet. A user attempting to access a regular Internet site over I2P or Tor would route their traffic through the encrypted network to an exit node, which then sends the request over the Internet without the I2P/Tor encryption. Responses follow the reverse path back to the user. Nodes which only establish encrypted connections to other I2P or Tor nodes, including ones used for internal (onion) routing, are not exit nodes.
Both I2P and Tor support the creation of services hosted directly through the encrypted network. In Tor these are referred to as onion services and are accessed through *.onion hostnames. In I2P these internal services (*.i2p or *.b32) are the only kind of service the protocol directly supports—though you can configure a specific I2P service linked to a HTTP/HTTPS proxy to handle non-I2P URLs in the client configuration. There are only a few such proxy services as this is not how I2P is primarily intended to be used.
Tor, by contrast, has built-in support for exit nodes. Routing traffic anonymously from Tor users to the Internet is the original model for the Tor network; onion services were added later. There is no need to choose an exit node in Tor—the system maintains a list and picks one automatically. Becoming a Tor exit node is a simple matter of enabling an option in the settings, whereas in I2P you would need to manually configure a proxy server, inform others about it, and have them adjust their proxy configuration to use it.
If you set up an I2P node and do not go out of your way to expose a HTTP/HTTPS proxy as an I2P service then no traffic from the I2P network can be routed to non-I2P destinations via your node. This is equivalent to running a Tor internal, non-exit node, possibly hosting one or more onion services.
Fair enough. Then you have the exact same risks as far as torrenting (the point of this thread) are confirmed. But still increased risks as far as csam.
I pay monthly for access to a SOCKS5 proxy service from a company called BTGuard, and tell my BT client to connect through that. It is not expensive and works great I’ve been using it for about 12 or 13 years, and found it after getting an email from my ISP saying they identified me downloading TV shows. In that time, I have only had issues a handful of times. More reliable than most other services I pay for and I’ve never seen another DMCA notice since.
BTGuard
Expensive VPN with less features. Probably made sense 12 or 13 years ago.
I do not use their VPN, just the socks5 proxy, so I can’t comment. It’s $6.95 USD monthly. Costs less than a meal out. Do you have an alternative that is less expensive with no catches or limits? I’m all ears. Serious. I’m always willing to try other stuff. Any socks5 proxy service that costs less.
I just don’t get calling it expensive. It’s not really.
Mullvad costs $5 and Im not aware of any catches Would be glad if others pointed out if there are any Actual VPN, socks5 proxy available
Mullvad doesn’t support port forwarding.
SOCKS5 proxies don’t.
Correct. I’m a leech. I use a private tracker and whenever I need ratio, I pay for a month of seedbox on feralhosting and grab popular torrents for a month. I have a ton of surplus ratio.
Most providers have long-term plans for less - like $3/month for 2-3 years. That’s still the cost of eating a few meals out. Some of them even have port forwarding. Why spend double the money for less features?
I didn’t think people torrented over TOR. Aside from the security issues (which I didn’t know about in the first place), I would think it’s gotta be insanely slow. Is it not?
I keeps getting brought up because TOR is the most popular anonymizing network. It’s not far-fetched to think “how can I make myself anonymous while torrenting?” search for “how to be anonymous online”, find TOR and put two and two together. It happens all the time, which is why the blog post by TOR was made about it.
Gotcha, yeah that checks out. I guess I never made that connection, even though I use TOR and torrent here and there. Probably also because I’m more concerned about download speeds over privacy when torrenting. And regular web traffic over TOR is often insanely slow compared to the clearnet.
Ever since getting a copyright strike several years ago, I’ve switched to using a commercial VPN while torrenting. I don’t know if that’s the all-in-one solution for hiding from my ISP, but it seems to work. But I also rarely torrent these days, too, so not as many opportunities for them to catch me, I suppose.
is it okay if I download a .torrent file from private trackers through TOR browser?
I wouldn’t bother tbh. As soon as you start using it in your torrent client other users can see your IP address anyway.
Seedboxes are a pretty good solution.
Unless you use a VPN or proxy.
Seedboxes are good but only seem worth the cost if you’re utilizing it a lot/frequently?
The cost is reasonable, you can get 1tb of storage for around £10 a month. Most Seedboxes will let you install VPN servers on them as well, I’m not sure what you pay for specific VPN software nowadays. So you could theoretically replace Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu etc and have a VPN.
They’re basically required for building ratio on private trackers nowadays.
Yes, but make sure to use a VPN or a Seedbox for the actual torrenting
Not always needed with private trackers.
I’d err on the side of caution. I always use a VPN for privacy reasons, my ISP doesn’t need to know what websites I’m visiting and which P2P protocols I use. Also, there’s no need to expose my approximate geographical location to every service I connect to.
Use a seedbox IMO although with private trackers you’re generally pretty safe.
Fine for Tor. But check the rules first so you don’t get banned for duplicate IP.
Torrent via I2P instead
What’s i2p? I downloaded i2p from fdroid and installed it. It showing peers and active peers but my IP is still the same. Can you please ELI5 ? Thanks
I2P is a truly anonymous darknet where every user is a node in the network, unlike TOR where everyone is leeching off of the 6000 nodes. I2P also works great for torrenting. I2P is only for accessing I2P sites and not for anonymous clearnet browsing.
I have never tried the mobile version, but here’s some info for desktop:
There is a java version simply called “I2P” and there is a C++ one called “I2Pd”. Start with the java one, it’s easier and has built-in torrent webclient.
Install I2P from geti2p.net and start it. You are now a node/router in the network. To access I2P darknet websites like http://planet.i2p you have to tell your browser to use I2P proxy. You should use a different browser profile for using I2P, on firefox you can create one at about:profiles .
Enable I2P on firefox: Settings -> General -> Network Settings. Set manual http and https proxy to 127.0.0.1 port 4444 . You should now be able to visit eepsites (sites ending with .i2p). Always put http:// manually at the beginning. If it tells you to use jump services because it can’t find the site, just click on one of the suggestions.
Torrents are on http://tracker2.postman.i2p . Find one, copy the magnet link and go to the torrent webclient: 127.0.0.1:7657/i2psnark . Add the torrent there. Done, you are now anonymously torrenting.
Isn’t it dangerous to have every client also be a node? Sure, my torrents would come out someone else’s node, but someone else’s torrent could easily come out mine.
I don’t think my ISP cares whether it was actually me who used my IP to get a piracy complaint?
Or maybe I just don’t understand how it works?
Unlike Tor, which is built around accessing the clearnet anonymously, I2P is primarily designed around keeping traffic in the darknet. When you join I2P, you route traffic for other nodes but only within the I2P network, it will never leave through your clearnet address.
The equivalent of Tor’s exit nodes are called “outproxies”, but they aren’t often used, there aren’t very many of them, and you have to specifically set them up manually as it isn’t the default behavior like it is for Tor.
Thanks!
Can you explain how the anonymity works?
On a high level, I2P is an overlay internet on top of the regular web. Everyone has a router address that acts like a regular IP address, except that this one is purely inside the I2P software. So unlike IP addresses that go over your ISP to connect to the internet, on the I2P network your router can connect to other routers directly without the concept of ISP.
Your traffic makes multiple unidirectional hops over nodes in the network before it accesses the site/peer you want to connect with. Connection from your peer back to you goes back over another set of unidirectional nodes (unlike TOR where contacting and receiving uses the same set of nodes). The connection between the nodes uses the latest encryption methods of course.
For more details you would have to ask someone else.
Thanks. I really appreciate it.
I2P doesn’t behave like Tor by default, it’s designed around connecting to internal peers within its network so your browser won’t treat it as a proxy but default and you have to specifically configure it to route traffic to the I2P network
Did I2P take off enough for one to use it?
Depends. It’s definitely smaller than TOR because people don’t know of it. It’s slower, but if you don’t need things on demand, have a seedbox or some way to torrent 24/7, things are quite acceptable.
It would be great if big trackers started encouraging use of I2P as an alternative.
I torrent without any protection or vpn, its legal here
That’s great for you and the community, as you aren’t torrenting over TOR 👍
Does TOR have some utility for the average tech people? Just curious I havent used it.
Damn, I feel like an idiot for not googling it now xD
That’s an old site though. So, you can find more information with another search.
Great for privacy. So great, that half the internet won’t let you browse, because they can’t sell you data for money.
Uh, “journalism”
If vpns are blocked on the network you are on, tor usually has a way to work.
Same here. Whilst torrent sites themselves are blocked, once you get the magnet link/torrent via a proxy/VPN, there is no issue. I do not think anyone has ever received a cease and desist letter from their ISPs here. But then, I think, this is the case for many countries outside of the developed world.
Where are you
Canada? Idk the actual legality but I’ve been torrenting bare for nearly two decades and have only received two meaningless warnings from my ISP in that time.
Tends to only work in small towns. I never recieved a letter or warning until I moved to Vancouver, and then got one within a month
I’m not in a small town but no where near Vancouver. VPN is probably still good practice.
And I’m so sorry
Don’t worry. They’ll reply with their location once the daily power outage is over.
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Tor is a TCP only network.
Can someone ELI5 this point for me? I know there is TCP and UDP, is UDP safer then ?TCP is a protocol where all the data is verified when sent. There is extra back and forth communication along with the payload to check that the payload arrived safely. Its great for downloading files when you want to make sure nothing is missing or damaged. UDP is more like a constant data stream where the sender doesn’t care if it all gets to you. The advantage is that you send less data overall, useful if you don’t care if one frame of a video stream looks weird.
One protocol isn’t safer than another, its all about how much bandwidth you have/need. Torrenting over TOR uses up way more bandwidth than needed. Depending on the implementation, TCP can use 50% more bandwidth.
and sometimes we do care about successful delivery but need to handle that ourselves so we use UDP to avoid layering delivery verification mechanisms.
and sometimes we do care about successful delivery but need to handle that ourselves
Am I right to assume this is generally carried out by the users’ torrent client which is why we prefer UDP for torrenting?
I’m definitely not an expert on Bittorrent, but I believe the person above was incorrect - I think there are some extensions to the protocol that enable UDP transport, but typically Bittorrent traffic occurs primarily via TCP.
What you said makes perfect sense in that hypothetical context, though!
Torrents are literally built around file hashes so yes
thank you sir!
Just different. Torrent protocol UTP is based on UDP, it has some advantages, you couldn’t get with Tor
Edit: I misread the statement. Thanks for pointing this out to all the repliers! My fault.
The first point of the answer is misleading. Tor is indeed designed with anonymity in mind. The leaks occur in different layers, like the for e.g. chosen BitTorrent client.
https://blog.torproject.org/bittorrent-over-tor-isnt-good-idea/
He said torrent, not tor.
The torrent protocol wasn’t designed with anonymity in mind, not Tor.
Torrenting over TOR doesn’t make you anonymous. How is that misleading?
That’s kind of what they said though?
Don’t worry, I misread it the exact same way
That’s what Tribler is for
Tribler is the only thing I found to bypass my network torrent block for free (no vpn).
Just found out about i2p, i2psnark worked with i2p torrent (I couldn’t make qbitorrent work). If I understood corectly, it should work with non i2p torrent if someone on the i2p network has it, but it’s still pretty niche so right now it doesn’t work mist of the time.
I haven’t used tribler in years, how does it compare to downloading regular public torrent sites? (like the defunct rargb)
Often it’s not that great, but I believe it just needs more users to solve this
Any plan on doing torrent over veilid?
How does veilid compare to I2P?
It seems like a mix between tor and i2p.
Since when was that possible?
