5 ms·

Isn't all this reserved to TCP, in other words in which way may it protect non-TCP activity?

by natmaka 1y ago

charcircuit 1y ago
Non-TCP activity wouldn't route and will fail to send.
- izhak 1y ago
  UDP wouldn't route?..
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Yes.
  - c0balt 1y ago
    The TOR protocol does not natively support UDP, though there are workarounds[0] [0]: https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Tunnel_UDP_over_Tor https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Tunnel_UDP_over_Tor
- natmaka 1y ago
  Thank you, therefore my first impression seems right: without any provision for UDP this isn't an easy-to-setup and transparent way for any user to preserve his/her privacy.
  - HappMacDonald 1y ago
    As always this will depend on your definition for "any user". Users who try to do a lot of UDP traffic will have to change their habits, yes. But a majority of users who don't know a lot about computers rarely do anything on a PC that isn't driven by the browser anyway. But at least the users who try to use UDP won't wind up specifically leaking info, just wind up slightly confused why certain things aren't working.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  Note that you can use the Tor daemon as a normal DNS via UDP server and it will resolve your DNS requests over the network for you. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems similar to I2P where if you want "UDP", you'd need bespoke plugins/transports/whatever for each application.
mmooss 1y ago
What do Tor Browser users do for YouTube or DNS? Also, what about HTTP/3?
- FrostKiwi 1y ago
  DNS is already done by Tor. In fact, if you feed it a raw IP, it will warn in tor's output that it received an IP, which may indicate that the user has accidentally setup browsing via Tor, but DNS resolution via a normal, unsecured way. YouTube mainly throttles TOR hard and it's a bit of a fight uphill against a never ending avalanche of Captchas or a straight up service refusal. Bridges solve this, by going through exit nodes that are not publicly listed to be TOR exist nodes. Even with bridges it's still a high chance to trip Google's bot detection. HTTP/3 is unsupported.
  - mmooss 1y ago
    Thanks. > YouTube mainly throttles TOR What I mean is, streaming media usually uses UDP (I don't know about YouTube, but I'd guess that's the case) and according to this thread, Tor routes only TCP and not UDP. So is YouTube and other streaming media being routed around Tor?
    - LegionMammal978 1y ago
      > (I don't know about YouTube, but I'd guess that's the case) YouTube delivers video in chunks over the standard HTTPS port 443, as does Twitch. YouTube supports HTTP/3, so it will use UDP via QUIC if your browser and network also support it, but otherwise it will simply go over TCP.
      - mmooss 1y ago
        Thanks!
yencabulator 1y ago
I don't know the details, but https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/onionmasq https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/onionmasq says > This project is an attempt to implement a simple user-space network stack that can handle TCP *and UDP* state such that it is possible to forward the traffic into the Tor network.

Isn't all this reserved to TCP, in other words in which way may it protect non-TCP activity?

charcircuit 1y ago

Non-TCP activity wouldn't route and will fail to send.

izhak 1y ago
UDP wouldn't route?..
- charcircuit 1y ago
  Yes.
- c0balt 1y ago
  The TOR protocol does not natively support UDP, though there are workarounds[0] [0]: https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Tunnel_UDP_over_Tor https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Tunnel_UDP_over_Tor
natmaka 1y ago
Thank you, therefore my first impression seems right: without any provision for UDP this isn't an easy-to-setup and transparent way for any user to preserve his/her privacy.
- HappMacDonald 1y ago
  As always this will depend on your definition for "any user". Users who try to do a lot of UDP traffic will have to change their habits, yes. But a majority of users who don't know a lot about computers rarely do anything on a PC that isn't driven by the browser anyway. But at least the users who try to use UDP won't wind up specifically leaking info, just wind up slightly confused why certain things aren't working.
heavyset_go 1y ago
Note that you can use the Tor daemon as a normal DNS via UDP server and it will resolve your DNS requests over the network for you. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems similar to I2P where if you want "UDP", you'd need bespoke plugins/transports/whatever for each application.

mmooss 1y ago

What do Tor Browser users do for YouTube or DNS? Also, what about HTTP/3?

FrostKiwi 1y ago
DNS is already done by Tor. In fact, if you feed it a raw IP, it will warn in tor's output that it received an IP, which may indicate that the user has accidentally setup browsing via Tor, but DNS resolution via a normal, unsecured way. YouTube mainly throttles TOR hard and it's a bit of a fight uphill against a never ending avalanche of Captchas or a straight up service refusal. Bridges solve this, by going through exit nodes that are not publicly listed to be TOR exist nodes. Even with bridges it's still a high chance to trip Google's bot detection. HTTP/3 is unsupported.
- mmooss 1y ago
  Thanks. > YouTube mainly throttles TOR What I mean is, streaming media usually uses UDP (I don't know about YouTube, but I'd guess that's the case) and according to this thread, Tor routes only TCP and not UDP. So is YouTube and other streaming media being routed around Tor?
  - LegionMammal978 1y ago
    > (I don't know about YouTube, but I'd guess that's the case) YouTube delivers video in chunks over the standard HTTPS port 443, as does Twitch. YouTube supports HTTP/3, so it will use UDP via QUIC if your browser and network also support it, but otherwise it will simply go over TCP.
    - mmooss 1y ago
      Thanks!

yencabulator 1y ago

I don't know the details, but https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/onionmasq https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/onionmasq says > This project is an attempt to implement a simple user-space network stack that can handle TCP *and UDP* state such that it is possible to forward the traffic into the Tor network.