RetroShare over Tor

[waseihou]

If someone wanted to use tor, he could just as well make VPN over it and set IP address to that in Retroshare. But then why not just use ftp or anything? Someone could also use I2P for this purpose, as tor is for hiding what you are doing in internet, while I2P serves the purpose of anonymous p2p through mixnet. But it's not good idea, now I understand that retroshare has different purposes - it is to create a safe sharing environment between a group of people who can trust each other. There is a competiton - OneSwarm, it does exactly the same thing + it's bittorrent client: http://www.oneswarm.org/

On the other way retroshare tries to be a platform with API to build more applications over it, not sure about OneSwarm. Maybe Retroshare should be broken into several components that could serve as a middleware to make other projects use it and thus become more important, of course possibility to pack everything into one installator should remain for ease of use.

Then we have to ask a question - what does RetroShare have over I2P? You could probably create it over that using it's networking part while having the GUI. In I2P you can make direct connections to friends if you allow it, and you can create darknets too so no outsider would use your connectivity.

[cyberagorist]

I think the best way is not to make decisions for the users.

There may be people who prefer Tor, other prefer i2p, other do not care about their IP being known to their friends. To allow for all these possibilities will increase the number of possible users of RS.

By the way, from a technical point of view, I have found that there is already a Pidgin-Plugin for communication via Tor, as part of Torchat.
https://github.com/prof7bit/TorChat/downloads. Could this be helpful as a starting point for incrporating Tor into RS?

[Distro]

RS already implements its own secure network, there is no point adding TOR support to it (moreover TOR devs have always said it was not for file sharing.) It’s already complicated enough…

[waseihou]

What about an extension to allow two friends to connect using a tunnel created by external application on localhost? While for most friend it could use normal connection, there would be an option that to connect to certain friend, use a tunnel running on for example 127.0.0.1:50001. Then it would be up to user to setup it. Of course it would be nice to allow to somehow define external app (like pwnat) which would be executed automatically on a certain port when the connection would not be running. It could be used both for NAT traversal problems and/or for security reasons. Note that while retroshare works well when there is a common node with public ip, it might still be desirable to use direct connection to make file transfers faster and not to burden some friends being a relay. Just an idea for inspiration

[cyberagorist]

RS already implements its own secure network, there is no point adding TOR support to it (moreover TOR devs have always said it was not for file sharing.) It’s already complicated enough…

I have explained that there is a point - if I want to hide my IP from others in the network, I cannot participate in RS.

Its correct that Tor is not for file sharing. But is RS for filesharing only?

[Veizar]

You made good points, cyberagorist. Touche'

Unfortunately Tor is really underdeveloped. It could be better if it was worked on full time and with better resources.

If your going to connect through tor, you might as well connect through JonDo or i2p as well.

[Testprofil]

Back to original question:
What OS are you using?
On Linux - for instance - you can force all traffic (of a particular user) through TOR with iptables. No need for proxy settings.

[coyotama]

Yes Tor is not realy secure .

Its bether make own anon Network with RetroShare.

dafuq? Tor insecure? REALLY?

Explain, admin.

[coyotama]

I'm new to RetroShare, so my impression about it may be quite wrong ...

But it seems to me that in comparison with Tor RetroShare is unsafe. Not? AFAIU, here my IP will be known.

Then, SSL allows for MITM attacks. I would not name this really safe.

Compare with Torchat. I can use it from everywhere. All I have to tell other people is my Torchat id. Of course, not a nice string, not easy to remember. But once it has been transferred, everything else works automatically, without any MITM attack danger. Nobody knows my IP address, it can change, nobody will even note it.

And about security - sorry, but Tor has already survived very serious practical security tests. There are, in particular, illegal activities, punishable in the US with arbitrary high sentences (distribution of child porn), which have survived over many years despite being known to US LEA. There are also the attempts of the Iran to censor Tor, with the result that Iran is on the second place in the world among Tor users.

my gods, THANK YOU.

There are many activities being pursued within Tor that are illegal in many countries and punishable by extremely severe sentences, often including capital punishment.

(examples include activism and democracy, buying and selling controlled substances, distributing child pornography, buying and selling stolen credit card information and identities)

Very few of these communities are successfully attacked, so no, Tor is not insecure. RetroShare is insecure.

Nobody uses RetroShare because RetroShare in its current state forces users to reveal their true location and forces users to manually announce any change in this location, especially in the event of a hard drive or power failure.

Your identity online should have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with your network location. PERIOD.

You should also be capable of relaying your connections securely using standard onion routing.

When the site administrator of RetroShare says "Tor is insecure" I get the impression he does not believe that Tor bridge relays help Syrian activists penetrate government communications lockdown.

All of the thousands upon thousands of Tor eepsites must not exist, either. It's all rainbows and unicorns! It's a government conspiracy! "They" only want you to believe it! All my friends on TorChat don't actually exist, it's all a conspiracy!

[coyotama]

TOR has to hide direct IPs because you connect to everyone. RS connects only to friends you select.

Factually incorrect. Tor does NOT "connect to everyone" You, as a normal user in a relatively free country, connect to 8 or so "entry guards"

And only those 8.

This way, not everyone knows you are actually participating on the Tor network.

If you live in Syria or Iran, or any other country that engages in happy fun playtime with their beloved citizens, you can use Tor bridge relays, which are not publically listed in any way, especially if you use a private bridge relay with obfsproxy.

Please do your research before making any claims like this. Obfsproxy over private (unlisted) bridge relays provide the ability to connect even in the most oppressive regimes in the world.

RetroShare could learn a lot from this flexibility and usability!

RetroShare over Tor shows a lot of promise, but until then, RetroShare is an idle curiosity among a few friends, not really useful for anything whatsoever.