Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: RedRocket on July 10, 2011, 02:09 pm
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is changing your entry and exit nodes in torrc file a wise thing to do?? i here that having two nodes in the same country is dodgy if it happens....but you can configure the nodes to be strictly the ones you want...e.g.i can chose my entry node to be in brazil and my exit could be japan....i usually distance my entry and exit nodes far apart from each other....and chose nodes where i think that particular country doesnt give a fuck what you do...or poor countries etc...or countries where communication will be quite difficult if the pigs where to get involved.....if im in europe, i want my entry and exit nodes to be outside of europe for safeties......before i knew how to change this, sometimes my exit node was in europe which is not a nice thought when you are in europe...
im just wanting to know if customizing where iam effects my anonymity?? or should i just let tor do its thing?
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The more you rotate your nodes the bigger chance that you'll hit one controlled by LE.
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is changing your entry and exit nodes in torrc file a wise thing to do??
Probably not, but perhaps in certain cases
i here that having two nodes in the same country is dodgy if it happens....
It can actually be of benefit. For example, many countries log a lot of traffic that enters or exits their borders but they don't log as much traffic that passes between ISPs inside of the country. So if every hop crosses a border you could actually increase the chance that there is a log at each hop. Such logs are likely only accessible by the countries SIGINT agencies though.
but you can configure the nodes to be strictly the ones you want...e.g.i can chose my entry node to be in brazil and my exit could be japan....
And I can buy 500 nodes in Brazil and 500 nodes in Japan. You are talking about avoiding a passive attacker (infrastructure versus node) at best, since anyone can buy nodes in any jurisdiction. There is actually so much traffic on the internet that logging all of it is difficult. I have heard that even the NSA only logs every 2000th packet at IX's in the USA.
i usually distance my entry and exit nodes far apart from each other
If you are not using entry guards but rather keep selecting your own entry nodes you are going to totally fuck your anonymity for multiple reasons, one being you stick out from other Tor users and two being with out entry guards your risk of an end to end confirmation attack linking your streams is tremendously higher. Also, distance means jack shit in todays world of global communications.
....and chose nodes where i think that particular country doesnt give a fuck what you do
Again, I can own a node anywhere in the world. You are purely worrying about passive attacks. And most countries will cooperate with LE from other countries. Going with countries that are known to not log passively might not be a bad idea, but in general most Tor experts say you should let Tor work its magic unless you really know what you are doing, and I think it is pretty obvious you don't fit that criteria if you need to ask these questions.
...or poor countries etc...or countries where communication will be quite difficult if the pigs where to get involved
Translators are no problem for any serious police agency to get.
.....if im in europe, i want my entry and exit nodes to be outside of europe for safeties......before i knew how to change this, sometimes my exit node was in europe which is not a nice thought when you are in europe...
It might actually be better if your entry is in Europe, its more likely traffic crossing national borders will be logged than traffic staying within national borders.
im just wanting to know if customizing where iam effects my anonymity?? or should i just let tor do its thing?
I think it is probably possible to customize Tor for better anonymity, but I think that you should 99.99% just let Tor do its thing. Tor already uses smart autonomous system selection to make sure entry and exit are not on the same network, and you might over ride this. All Tor experts I have talked with agree, that fucking with Tor instead of letting it do its own thing, is far more likely to fuck your anonymity than improve it.
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LOL, I wonder who this is.