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Do you use an anonymous network for downloading? (programming.dev)

submitted 9 months ago by onlinepersona@programming.dev to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I2P support anonymous torrents

TOR is good for direct downloads (DDL)

Don't know if others exist...

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[-] not_a_bot_i_swear@lemmy.world 117 points 9 months ago

Controversial take: TOR shouldn't be used to download large amounts of pirates stuff. The network is already slow and congested and should be kept available for people that need it to fight censorship or other forms of oppression.

Why not get a VPN? Even a free one like Proton allows DDL and gives you protection. And it's also faster.

[-] mystik@lemmy.world 31 points 9 months ago

TOR needs to have a lot of 'background noise' legit use, otherwise the folks needing to hide in the weeds stick out like a sore thumb.

[-] brockpriv@sh.itjust.works 5 points 9 months ago

What kind of legit stuff can be done on tor?

[-] GrindingGears@lemmy.ca 24 points 9 months ago

I think they mean using it for other purposes like general use. Basically whatever else you would do on a browser, including pirating. Like just open it and use it for all the random stuff you do in your day to day, and if a lot of people do this, it can add additional coverage for people that need to use it for evading dictators and whatnot

[-] SitD@feddit.de 7 points 9 months ago

i use it for Facebook because i don't want the Facebook embeds in many websites to even pick up that i have the same ip as the dedicated Facebook browser

[-] kungen@feddit.nu 7 points 9 months ago

Controversial take: TOR shouldn't be used to download large amounts of pirates stuff.

Maybe only controversial amongst entitled filesharers (read: those who are simply too lazy or cheap to use something else). The Tor project has been recommending against this since even before 2010: https://blog.torproject.org/bittorrent-over-tor-isnt-good-idea/

[-] AbsolutelyNotCats@lemdro.id 38 points 9 months ago

I don't since I live in a third world country. Can seed at 1Gbps with no warnings whatsoever, 20€ monthly

[-] alvvayson@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

I that case, why not help spread a little freedom in the rest of the world by hosting an I2P node?

We should make torrenting over I2P the default.

Any dissidents in places like China who are caught using it could then plausibly claim they were just downloading a movie.

[-] AbsolutelyNotCats@lemdro.id 11 points 9 months ago

I seed around 5Tb monthly but that sounds interesting

[-] ollie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 9 months ago

I2P

isnt hosting a node a very easy way to get the police knocking on your door? i dont want csam flowing through my network

[-] pokkst@monero.town 7 points 9 months ago

All traffic over I2P is encrypted unless you use an outproxy (which isn't as common as a Tor exit node is), so no. Most, if not all I2P torrenting traffic never touches an outproxy, just like Tor hidden services (.onion sites and whatnot) never touch an exit node.

Hosting a Tor relay is fine even, as you are still just passing encrypted data around. It's running an exit node that can get you into some sketchy waters with your ISP/law enforcement.

[-] brockpriv@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 months ago

Who is running the exit nodes then? 3 letters agencies?

[-] pokkst@monero.town 4 points 9 months ago

Yeah in some cases, and in other cases it's still just volunteers with really good lawyers.

And even then, there's still no definitive link from the exit node back to the guard (entry) node/relay. And, if you're actually trying to be anonymous from 3 letter agencies, you wouldn't be messing with the clearnet (and therefore exit nodes) through Tor to begin with. You'd probably be sticking to Tor hidden services.

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[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 5 points 9 months ago

Any dissidents in places like China who are caught using it could then plausibly claim they were just downloading a movie.

You really think that would stick? Just a couple days ago there was a news article of a guy getting sued for using a VPN for remote work

[-] ancoraunamoka@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 months ago

I don’t since I live in a third world country. Can seed at 1Gbps with no warnings whatsoever, 20€ monthly

I read

I don't since I don't live in a third world country.

Give your country more credit if you have a 1Gbps connection and it doesn't enforce draconian idiotic laws. Just out of curiosity, can you name the country?

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[-] limewire@lemmy.mywire.xyz 20 points 9 months ago

I don't like DDL over Tor as it is not really designed for heavy bandwidth. I2P could be the future once more users start using it, right now BiglyBT can crossover on the clearnet and I2P.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 8 points 9 months ago

IIRC TOR is OK with a stream from one source (DDLs fit the bill), but isn't made for handling many streams at once. I2P is good for that --> torrenting over I2P doesn't stress the network as much.

I2P needs more nodes though. It's much slower than TOR

[-] limewire@lemmy.mywire.xyz 2 points 9 months ago

Thank you for the correction, it is true that a DDL is a single connection usually, where as torrenting is many connections and that is what's bad for Tor.

[-] MasterBlaster@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I toyed with i2p several years ago. Back then it was very frustrating - both slow as a snail and hard to find working, non-darknet resources.

I recently saw a c++ implementation, so I will toy with it again.

For now, a VPN is enough for me to be safe, and I can get speeds up to 15 MB on popular torrents.

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[-] UntouchedWagons@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago

Is TOR good for direct downloads? Isn't it pretty slow?

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 5 points 9 months ago

TOR now has quite some big nodes. If you're lucky and your path goes through them, you can hit speeds of around 1MB/s - I know I have.

Plus, with a small linux box that downloads the stuff for you overnight, it's not really an issue. You can use JDownloader with TOR as a proxy. Add links to it to download, go to bed and wake up with everything downloaded 🫰

[-] Petter1@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I could not live with just 1MB/s down…

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[-] curut@unilem.org 6 points 9 months ago

no, 97% via streaming http and the rest is via streaming torrent directly

[-] omgitsaheadcrab@sh.itjust.works 5 points 9 months ago

Just use Usenet

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 9 months ago

Isn't that pay to use? And is it anonymous?

[-] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 months ago

Just as anonymous as a vpn (usenet instead of a vpn). Plus it's the host taking the risk, not the customers; cops/copyright holders are interested in the distribution not the consumption. With torrents, you are the host and a consumer; usenet your just a consumer.

I pay 8$/mo for the usenet provider and indexer together and get a constant 45-50mbps download speed out of it (mostly limited by disk speed really). I've also found far more content available via usenet and one indexer vs the 18+ torrent indexers I used to use.

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[-] crossover@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Me and a few friends pitch in together and pay for a seedbox. Much more convenient since I don’t need to keep my computer running to download/seed. And you connect to it via encrypted FTP.

[-] ace@lemmy.ananace.dev 4 points 9 months ago

Been doing some DC++ over Yggdrasil with good success

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 4 points 9 months ago

Yggdrasil

Doesn't seem to be anonymous (emphasis mine)

Is Yggdrasil anonymous?

No, it is not a goal of the Yggdrasil project to provide anonymity. Direct peers over the Internet will be able to see your IP address and may be able to use this information to determine your location or identity. Multicast-discovered peerings on the same network will typically expose your device MAC address. Other nodes on the network may be able to discern some information about which nodes you are peered with.

I hope you aren't relying on it for anonymity.

[-] ace@lemmy.ananace.dev 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I should note that I'm not relying on Yggdrasil for anonymity inside the network, rather more for anonymity towards observations from outside the network. And also mostly anonymity towards what I'm communicating when observed from outside the network.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 9 months ago

Understood. So, like torrents, anybody within the "swarm" would know what you're accessing?

[-] ace@lemmy.ananace.dev 4 points 9 months ago

If you're taking part in transmitting a torrent over Yggdrasil, then people you've peered with in the swarm will definitely see your Yggdrasil IP - which is based off of the encryption key you generate (and you can change whenever you wish) for the connection to the mesh.
Regarding obfuscation of what you're accessing inside something like the bittorrent DHT, that could likely be done with multiple Yggdrasil connections and torrent clients - so each address only associates with one torrent, it's just not a core feature of the network itself.

The Yggdrasil network really isn't meant to provide perfect internal anonymity between two directly communicating peers, it's instead built to be an easy-to-use, end-to-end encrypted, mesh network - with great performance.
It's there to protect the content and target of your communications from anyone beside you and said target, without adversely affecting the delivery of said content. Not to protect you from your communication target, though it can do a passable job at that too.

My main use of Yggdrasil has actually been as an easily setup alternative route into NATed systems, seeing as I can easily hit 600Mbit and get below 15ms of latency over it, which I quite often use to run VNC or SSH (and SCP/rsync) over. And since the mesh can be established as long as you can reach a node, it becomes ridiculously easy to get a functional link over it.
Transmitting DC++ traffic without my ISP being able to detect any of that is just a bonus.

[-] marius851000@lemmy.mariusdavid.fr 2 points 9 months ago

I often use Tribler for torrents. It’s a TOR-like system specialized into torrent, and does work well with any torrents. (I’ll put a warning that the system might not be totally safe against targetted attack, but it should be against standard complaint to ISP)

[-] seitanic 2 points 9 months ago

Define "anonymous". I use Soulseek, but you need an account for that.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 5 points 9 months ago

Anonymous as the source doesn't know your real IP and intermediate nodes don't know what you're saying (encryption).

With I2P and TOR, only the entry nodes know your real IP, but they don't know what you're saying (thus don't know what you're accessing), and the target node or exit node doesn't know who requested the data.

[-] thorbot@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

No. I’m in US and just use one tracker, torrent leech. It’s never caused my ISP to flag me and I’ve used it over 10 years now. If you have a good source for torrents you don’t need a VPN

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