- 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.
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/
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
