I'm a certified Network Engineer with a little over 10 years experience. Most recently I worked for a very large ISP in their core engineering department. I'm also kind of a nerd, so in my free time I like to investigate how things work, especially if they are network related.
I have experience with Tor and anonymous distributions like Tails. My primary interest at this point is to find out how secure TorCoin really is. If you are familiar with anonymity, then you should be aware that leaking network data on the clear net (the regular internet) is a big concern. Leaking any data related to you or the app you're trying to conceal will give you away.
To test, I configured a Windows 10 Virtual Machine and setup Wireshark. After installing and launching TorCoin, I performed a series of packet captures. For the sake of being brief, I discovered that most of the claims made by TorCoin are false. TorCoin does NOT integrate with The Tor Network. It does NOT keep your usage private.
Here are just a couple things that I found!
* Clear public NON-Tor DNS traffic asking for
http://seed.torcoincoin.com *
Clear public IRC traffic to irc.lfnet.org and irc.smutfairy.com * Does NOT connect to The Tor Network!
* Does NOT keep your use of the coin anonymous!
* Nodes do NOT help The Tor Network.
Here is a screenshot of the IRC traffic:
You can download the Wireshark packet captures here so that you can see for yourself:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/48nhs90ia6rosop/AACTChe_153XeFptUUGtSRsGa?dl=0 BitCoinTalk member TheTorCoin makes these
FALSE claims on his thread:
"Torcoin is a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin featuring numerous improvements and innovations, such as full integration with the TOR network, stealth sending technology, and complete anonymity."
"There is never any need to 'mix' or 'anonymize' your TorCoins - they are anonymous by default. TOR is fully integrated with TorCoin, which means that a snoop or attacker watching your internet connection will not know if you are using TorCoin - and other TorCoin users cannot determine the physical location of your Torcoin node."
"Completely Untraceable. No one will ever know you are running a TorCoin node - your real IP is never broadcast to the network because TorCoin runs over Tor."
TorCoin communicates with other nodes over the regular internet. Your IP address can be seen by everyone! I was able to do a reverse lookup on a node and found a user on Comcast. His claims are misleading at best. I personally feel the creator of this coin has done this intentionally. It is my educated opinion that you avoid this cryptocurrency.
I was informed that none of the TorCoin clients currently in use by people have any Tor integration. They do not contribute to the Tor network and they do not connect to Tor. The developers have informed me that I need to download and compile the source code from the "Tor" branch on github.
I am currently unable to compile the source code with the instructions found in the ReadMe file. I am using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. This is the output that I receive. So far what I have witnessed is NO Tor functionality on any client, and the Linux client does not work.In file included from src/bitcoinrpc.h:16:0,
from src/qt/statisticspage.cpp:8:
src/json/json_spirit_writer_template.h: In function ‘String_type json_spirit::non_printable_to_string(unsigned int)’:
src/json/json_spirit_writer_template.h:31:50: warning: typedef ‘Char_type’ locally defined but not used [-Wunused-local-typedefs]
typedef typename String_type::value_type Char_type;
^
src/qt/statisticspage.cpp: In member function ‘void StatisticsPage::updateStatistics()’:
src/qt/statisticspage.cpp:70:64: error: call of overloaded ‘toString(int64_t&)’ is ambiguous
QString qVolume = QLocale(QLocale::English).toString(volume);
^
In file included from /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtGui/qguiapplication.h:40:0,
from /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtWidgets/qapplication.h:45,
from /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtWidgets/QApplication:1,
from build/ui_statisticspage.h:14,
from src/qt/statisticspage.cpp:2:
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtCore/qlocale.h:889:13: note: candidate: QString QLocale::toString(qlonglong) const
QString toString(qlonglong i) const;
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtCore/qlocale.h:890:13: note: candidate: QString QLocale::toString(qulonglong) const
QString toString(qulonglong i) const;
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtCore/qlocale.h:987:16: note: candidate: QString QLocale::toString(short int) const
inline QString QLocale::toString(short i) const
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtCore/qlocale.h:989:16: note: candidate: QString QLocale::toString(ushort) const
inline QString QLocale::toString(ushort i) const
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtCore/qlocale.h:991:16: note: candidate: QString QLocale::toString(int) const
inline QString QLocale::toString(int i) const
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtCore/qlocale.h:993:16: note: candidate: QString QLocale::toString(uint) const
inline QString QLocale::toString(uint i) const
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtCore/qlocale.h:895:13: note: candidate: QString QLocale::toString(double, char, int) const
QString toString(double i, char f = 'g', int prec = 6) const;
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/QtCore/qlocale.h:995:16: note: candidate: QString QLocale::toString(float, char, int) const
inline QString QLocale::toString(float i, char f, int prec) const
^
Makefile:2407: recipe for target 'build/statisticspage.o' failed
make: *** [build/statisticspage.o] Error 1
sysfailure0x5a@sysfailure0x5a-virtual-machine:~/torcoin$