[privoxy-users] [ ijbswa-Support Requests-1663039 ] Privoxy Security BitTorrent Firewall (increased speed w/Tor)

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Support Requests item #1663039, was opened at 2007-02-18 22:30
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by fabiankeil
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Category: None
Group: None
Status: Closed
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Assigned to: Fabian Keil (fabiankeil)
Summary: Privoxy Security BitTorrent Firewall (increased speed w/Tor)

Initial Comment:
PRE-INFO:

Tor & Privoxy & Vidalia bundle 0.1.1.26
Windows XP Home
µTorrent
3com firewall

HAPPENINGS:

I am using Privoxy behind a 3com firewall, in connection with µTorrent. Before using privoxy I -naturally, having not opened any ports on the firewall- experienced low connection (up&down) rates in µTorrent. However, after installing the Tor bundle and configuring µTorrent for use with the Privoxy proxy server (as described at http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorifyHOWTO#head-0d047b05e9b93c23cec9198550816a114012bde0), I suddenly experienced connection speeds which would equal those, had I used a normal port forward on my firewall.

QUESTIONS:

Firstly, how does this work?

Secondly -on account of a port forward always being a security risk- Is this a similar security risk?

And lastly, if it is indeed a security risk (no matter how small), does this apply to other programs than BitTorrent clients, using the proxy server?

- Arand

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>Comment By: Fabian Keil (fabiankeil)
Date: 2007-02-21 14:31

Message:
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Originator: NO

Yes, 127.0.0.1:9050 is the default Tor OP listening address.

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Comment By: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Date: 2007-02-19 16:46

Message:
Logged In: NO 

Hmmm, I do not think my ISP could have anything to do with it, really.

Ok, so the setting for the "socks5 proxy server, ip 127.0.0.1, port 9050";
is only related to Tor?

- Arand

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Comment By: Fabian Keil (fabiankeil)
Date: 2007-02-19 13:17

Message:
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Are you sure that your provider doesn't throttle
BitTorrent traffic?

By using Tor you prevent your ISP from knowing
which services (other than Tor itself) you're
using and this could explain why using Tor speeds
up your BitTorrent traffic (it's no longer rate
limited by your ISP).

Privoxy itself is unlikely to have anything to do with it
and I don't think port forwarding has anything to do
with it either, but I'm not familiar with BitTorrent.

The short answer to your last questions is "No",
but as it has nothing to do with Privoxy you should
checkout the Tor documentation for details and ask
again on the or-talk mailing list if you have further
questions.


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Comment By: Arand (arand-2)
Date: 2007-02-19 07:19

Message:
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Originator: NO

Just registered - I am Arand - (arand-2).

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