With the recent crackdowns on torrent trackers and file sharing websites such as the infamous megaupload. File sharing websites have become worried that they may be next. Private torrent trackers provide some cover for the end user but there have been recent events of larger private torrent websites being breached by the anti-piracy groups, particular threatened include IPTorrents and TorrentLeech (one of the larger private trackers). Some torrent file downloaders have switched to seedboxes (which costs per month) while other have ran off to other networks such as Usenet (which also costs monthly).
There have been talks about making i2p and tor more popular within the torrent community. These networks allow for the end user to be anonymous, because they work on onion (tor network) and garlic (i2p network) routing. Onion routing works by sending packets (messages) repeatedly, which are encrypted and then sent through several other network nodes called onion routers. When someone tried to find out where it came from, it is like someone unpeeling an onion. Each onion router removes the layers of encryptions, uncovering routing instructions, and sending packets (messages) to the next router, repeating the exact process all over again. This prevents these nodes from knowing the origin, destination, and contents of the message. Garlic routing works similar to onion routing, yet some say it is an extension, in which multiple messages are bundled together. All the packets (messages) with its own delivery instructions, are exposed at the endpoint.
The benefits of i2p are that it is a much faster than tor, more peer-to-peer friendly, and fully distributed and self organizing. Yet, the tor network is vastly larger, is much better funded and much older. Yet, with torrents (or any other peer-to-peer), it is quiet slow. The i2p beats tor in terms of speed, but will the average torrent user sacrifice speed for security? At this day and age, it might happen in countries such as the USA, or France (where the three strike run is in place). As more and more governments implement hefty rules and lawsuits on citizens. We might see an increase in anonymous file sharing.
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Just the opposite. Using bit-torrent over Tor is a bad plan. Using tor to download torrents is a worse idea than using nothing at all. On the other hand, I2P was built to fully support bit-torrent. You will be much much more secure using I2P for torrents. Between I2P and tor for torrenting, there is only 1 choice….I2P.
http://www.i2p2.de/how_networkcomparisons
First of all, comparing I2P to Tor is apples and oranges. Tor was designed for the military by a third party developer to deal with the problem of allowing agents to communicate back to headquarters without revealing their location. They typically use PGP encryption intended for 1 party as a way to maintain privacy on the outproxy. Most users do not use PGP for private messages (or saphire, or special software the military uses), and because their web traffic is unencrypted they are allowing the out-proxy in tor to snoop on their traffic. SSL is a (weak) way of encrypting traffic, but SSL can depend on credentials that can identify you or your hardware. You can spoof your credentials and headers, but do you typically do this? Even without using SSL to encrypt the content further, a bittorrent application might leak details about your router and client for other users to find you….which means that they not only will still know the IP and mac address of who is seeding the torrents, but so will the tor outproxy.
Many outproxies for the tor network are feds. Tor was made for the military, and while there are good radical awesome people working to make tor good for activists, you are still left with the problem of using a protocol that is shared with high level military and CIA and NSA and the like. Not the most savory types. They are running the outproxy. The outproxy can sniff your traffic as it leaves unencrypted. This is NOT better than letting your ISP see your traffic, it is many times worse…unless you get lucky and find a cool pot smoking file sharing hipster or anarchist running the outproxy….in which case you only have to worry about the feds raiding them and taking their server for them to find your traffic on their hard drive.
Alternately, I2P is not a true alternative to Tor. I2P is something else entirely. Where tor is designed to be a way for somebody to leak information to a trusted source without revealing their IP or location, I2P on the other hand is an anonymous NETWORK. That is different. Tor has union sites and IRC chat that you can only get to through an onion server, but I2P is like its own darknet isolated from the outside world. In this way it is probably better to compare I2P to Freenet rather than Tor, though I2P is more social while Freenet can get a little isolated if you have no contacts. I2P can do some of what Tor does if somebody happens to be running an HTTPS outproxy, but it is less effective for what the military uses Tor for. I2P is a smaller network, and I2P does not hide that somebody* is using an I2P router on their PC…..However, I2P has much much better anonymity within their darknet compared to what Tor can offer for onion sites. There is no comparison really. If you want to browse the internet without logging in to any accounts, use tor (or nothing). If you want to experience an alternate internet outside of the control of the state and corporations created entirely by the users themselves on ‘eepsites’ and IRC channels….I2P is the logical choice.
So really, Tor is out of the question for torrenting. The real question you should be asking is whether I2P or Freenet is better for torrents. Freenet is primarily oriented around distributed sharing of files, first and foremost. This is good for torrenting, but its darknet is otherwise a little sparse and poorly navigated….which is good for people who want and even deeper layer of privacy, but poor if you actually want to meet people. Freenet in recent years started to allow an opennet mode when they realized it was not sustainable. However, that mode is not as effective for protecting your privacy. I2P has a little bit of a steeper learning curve, but it is not too bad at all. Once you get your router started and get your IRC client to access the I2P channels, help will be there immediately. Freenet on the other hand did not direct me to any particular chat group that was nearly as helpful as the people over on I2P. I will say that downloading was easier in Freenet, since you have to learn a few additional bits of software in I2P beyond just getting it installed….You have to learn how to set up your .i2p router to access darknet sites, and you have to learn how to use their special i2p network torrent client. There is always help and documentation though. You do not have to get it all in one day.
Tor is a ‘network’, but generally you use it to surf the web and avoid censorship. If you are an idiot, you use it to log into facebook and email instead of using encrypted pop3. Tor is about the web browsing experience, only its the tor outproxy who snoops rather than your ISP. I2P is a social darknet, and the point is not hiding the geographic location of a whistle blower or government stooge/spook, but to create an environment where they know that a body of users are using the service but have no idea who on the service is doing what.
The garlic routing in I2P allows multiple messages to be sent layered through one tunnel, where a Tor circuit does not layer traffic. In I2P you have one way tunnels, and that means that the way you are connected is a lot more configurable and random. Instead of a line of 3 routers to your target, you can have 1 to 6 routers to your target and then a different number of randomized routers pointing back to you….So maybe 5 out and 3 back in, +-1 if you want some extra latency randomizing. Tor also keeps its static chain of routers until somebody goes offline or requests a fresh connection. I2P constantly breaks your connection and reroutes it, which means anyone trying to eavesdrop gets nothing but garble if they cannot snoop for extended periods of time on the same traffic. The layered traffic also makes it harder to read, and the one way tunnels are harder to trace back to the source.
If you get good at the advanced features of I2P, there are possibilities that make advanced configurations nearly impossible to trace. The I2P network is still vulnerable to a few types of attack, but even though it is possible to narrow down possibilities in I2P it is still difficult and expensive to do…..Which is good enough for low priority file sharers, since nobody is going to send the A team to catch you downloading a movie. You will be safe.
I prefer I2P as a network, and because I am already on the network I find it good for file sharing. Freenet is another good alternative worth mentioning, but is not as immediately fun and interactive as I2P. The look and feel of the Freenet router-interface is also a little bland compared to the cyberpunk looking I2P interface. In some ways Freenet is ahead of I2P in distributed file sharing, and the learning curve is not as steep…but I found that I enjoyed my time on I2P better and and the file sharing community is a little more open and social. The IRC channel is a good place to start.
Tor is not even a contender for file sharing. The choice is I2P vs Freenet.