Topic: Use of TOR Browser for Bitcointalk - page 2. (Read 782 times)

What is your goal to use TOR Browser?
Bitcointalk can be accessed very easily without having to use the TOR Browser.
The TOR browser has negative and positive sides depending on how you use it.

Positive Side of TOR Browser: Tor Browser is able to access services that are blocked by several internet providers without the need for additional plugins or third-party applications. TOR also provides anonymity for people who browse the web without being tracked by the internet service providers they use and other parties.

Negative Side of TOR Browser: TOR Browser does have a dark side, but the dark side of the browser TOR does not originate from the TOR Browser itself, but it comes from other places that are explored using the TOR Browser. The Dark Web or the Deep Web is a dark spot on the part of the internet that is used to carry out illegal activities such as drug transactions, human trafficking, prostitution and other illegal activities that are against the law.

Well, Is TOR Safe to be used by ordinary people?
The easiest and simplest answer is Can be safe or not

The TOR Browser software itself is safe to use and has a basic anonymity function that is able to hide your online identity. But if the TOR Browser is used to open the Dark Web or Deep Web then this will threaten your security, because there are many dangers of Malware, viruses and phishing lurking.

Conclusion:
TOR Broweser is the most extreme method used to hide online identity. TOR Browser is only used by people who really need it, not for ordinary people who use an ordinary brochure. Tor may not be an option for laypeople to use, because it is associated with a risk that threatens the Dark Web or the Deep Web.

That's not an assumption I'd necessarily make. With Tor, you're getting a "random" Tor node, weighted to favor high-bandwidth nodes and by other factors.  If you choose a VPN in a trustworthy country, with a trustworthy record, then that's potentially safer. Attacks to covertly fill Tor with attacker nodes have been done in the past (see section 5.1 for the most interesting info). Attackers don't need to get anywhere near filling Tor 50% with their nodes, since you pick random nodes all the time: just 2 attacker nodes can be enough, though with low probability.

Also, Tor is fundamentally a centralized network: you can't be a Tor node on the mainnet Tor network without the approval of the Tor directory authorities. The authorities are run by people associated with, and using rules largely set by, the Tor Project. I don't know if I really believe this, but considering how weak Tor is compared to the state-of-the-art research and how poorly-thought-out the Tor Project's overall strategy has tended to be, I've thought that Tor could be an incredibly subtle "controlled opposition" operation. It wouldn't be necessary to control every single person in the Project, just influence things enough to make progress in less important rather than more important directions, slightly bias directory authorities in sane-looking ways which actually help attackers, etc. (I admit that this is quite the conspiracy theory.)

Much like bitcoin security practices, when it comes to any privacy set up (Tor, VPN, both, or something else entirely), it is usually user error which results in failure. Tor is obviously meaningless if you use the same email for both activities frowned upon by your government as well as your real information, as in your example. Another example which I've seen a couple of times is people forgetting to use Tor all the time. You only have to log in to an account, website, service, etc. once without Tor for them to be able to link all the activity on that account to your real IP.

If you are worried about a three letter agency having the resources to be able to set up and maintain enough Tor entry guards that you are likely to use one (and enough Tor exit nodes to be able to deanonymize your traffic), then said agency is not going to be stopped by a $5 a month VPN provider.

You -> VPN -> Dest is often better than nothing, but definitely can't be relied upon if you need actual anonymity. The VPN can see everything you do, the destinations can see that you always come from the same VPN, and you're probably leaving tons of other traces because you're not using Tor Browser. Note that this might in some cases be worse than nothing if you trust your VPN less than your ISP; for example, IMO Cloudflare's VPN is more likely to have its traffic analyzed en masse by the NSA than your native ISP's traffic.

You -> Tor -> Dest is better than just a VPN, but there are many known attacks which can be used against Tor, plus possible 0-days against the browser, so you can never feel 100% anonymous. Also, even if you treat Tor as perfect, it's really difficult to remain consistently anonymous; for example, you might via Tor use the same email address to order something shipped to you as you use to speak out against your oppressive government, and that's a link that can be exploited. Even though Tor is pretty flawed, being far behind state-of-the-art research, it's these non-Tor anonymity failures which almost always get people. This was the case for Ross Ulbricht, for example. As I always say: if you think that you're perfectly anonymous, then you're wrong. Think of even the best anonymity tech as a light bulletproof vest which will increase your survivability a bit, not as an impenetrable wall.

You -> VPN -> Tor -> Dest protects against certain attacks where Tor nodes are considered evil, but can totally screw you if your VPN is evil. It might make sense if you trust your VPN more than a random Tor node. The VPN acts similar to a Tor guard node in this case. In fact, it'd be most efficient if the VPN actually allowed you to use it as a fixed Tor guard node so that you don't have a useless extra node in the Tor circuit, but nobody does this.

You -> Tor -> VPN -> Dest is much worse than Tor alone because the VPN can link all of your traffic together, whereas with Tor you change your exit node constantly. (It's also difficult to actually accomplish because VPN software isn't usually set up to support this, and VPNs are often- & best-done over UDP, which Tor doesn't support.) What would be useful would be if you could pay via blinded bearer certificates for access to a whole constellation of exclusive paying-only Tor exit nodes, but nobody does this, either... Anonymity research is pretty immature, but actually-implemented anonymity tech is far behind even what is known to be possible.

Depends who you are looking to protect your privacy against. VPNs encrypt all traffic between your computer and the VPN server. If you are looking to protect yourself while on a public WiFi for example, or hide your internet activities from your ISP, or any traffic outside a browser (torrenting, communication apps, phone calls, etc.), then they are a good choice. They also hide your true IP from the website or service you are connecting to. However, you have to place full trust in your VPN provider to not be spying on your traffic or keeping logs, and as I mentioned above, most people pay for their VPNs using fiat or non-anonymized crypto, meaning the VPN provider knows your real identity and can therefore link you to all your traffic. I pretty much always use a VPN for a variety of reasons, but they do not guarantee anonymity by any means.

If you want true privacy, then yes, you should be using Tor. If you connect to your VPN first and then to Tor, there is little difference in privacy over using Tor alone. If Tor is blocked in your country, or you wish to hide the fact you are using Tor from your ISP, then sure you can achieve this using a VPN, but you can also achieve this using Tor bridges +/- pluggable transports. If you connect to Tor first, and then to your VPN, then you have negated the entire point of using Tor in the first place since all your traffic will exit from the same node (your VPN provider), who will be able to see all your traffic.

Well if you only visit websites as what you regularly visit on normal browsers and you just use TOR for privacy you won't have to worry about anything about others infiltrating your device. TOR is just a browser that is capable of accessing websites in the dark web and it's not capable of giving you malware directly. Still you need to learn the best way to protect your information and money is by not visiting unsafe websites, clicking suspicious links, and downloading suspicious files, it doesn't matter what browser you choose since this is what you need to do to prevent breaches from happening.

Depends. The Tor network uses relays which changes every so often so that you aren't going to the same end node. However, using a VPN would mean you would always be sending your data to the same end point which would be your VPN provider which likely has your payment details unless you have paid with Bitcoin. Paying with Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency which isn't associated with your personal information would be a good approach to privacy. However, many users don't do this, because Bitcoin isn't that well suited for small fee transactions.

With Tor, and VPN's it normally comes down to how you use them when concerning privacy. They can be used together, and its certainly a better solution to just using a normal IP address, but you have to be careful how you use it.

Lots of informative and confusing information in this thread but for now clear my two questions please.

1- Does this means that using only TOR is the best way to protect the privacy ?

2-Does this also means that those companies asking for dollars to provide premium vpn services can be replaced by just using the free TOR browser ?

This is a little misinformation too. Sometimes I can log in with Tor browser within several seconds, with my first attempt. In contrast, sometimes I have to spend around several minutes (maybe longer than 10 minutes, up to 30 minutes - in such cases I get mad with failed attempts) after so many failed attempts - that what you mentioned correctly.

For capcha code, I have my videos for newbies here: CapchaBypass for accounts on Bitcointalk.org
Some of my notes:

tranthidung's Youtube videos for bitcointalkers. Welcome newbies!. I have plans to make more videos after managing skills to make better videos.

I agree, that is why I have also pointed out the possibility of using the Tor Browser itself if OP wants to have more privacy as stated in my previous post.

Lots of misinformation in this thread.

Using Tor will allow you to access .onion sites which are on the dark web, but it also allows you to browser any other "normal" website too. Usual security practices apply, and simply using Tor browser doesn't put you at any higher risk of being hacked than using any other browser, unless you go around downloading random software from unknown sites. Tor is much safer than any other browser "out of the box", since it has HTTPS Everywhere and NoScript installed as default, but obviously these can be installed on any other good browser too.

Lots of good and bad people use every browser.

VPNs only obscure your IP address from the site you are connecting to. They are generally poor for privacy since your VPN provider can see both your real IP and your traffic, so you are trusting them to not do anything malicious with that data. Many people also pay for VPNs using fiat which is entirely traceable to your real name and address. Using a VPN and Tor together can often make your privacy worse, not better.

Brave browser, with or without Tor, is a very poor choice if you are worried about privacy.

If you are going to be using Tor, then it might be worthwhile bookmarking your captcha bypass login link that you can access here (https://bitcointalk.org/captcha_code.php), as otherwise you'll be filling in captchas for 10 minutes every time you want to log in.

Using TOR browser to browse bitcointalk won't affect you at any stage, you might have issues if you try to sign up with TOR browser due to evil points.

TOR is not darkweb, it's just a browser which keeps changing its IP location but if you want to enter into darkweb you need to have onion URLs for the site you wanted to visit.

If you really want to use TOR, then maybe you can initially opt to install Brave Browser and chose Private Window with Tor. But if you want full pledge security, then you can try the Tor Browser instead but it will have differences with browser capability as compared with Brave Browser which has more features bundled within.

For more information, kindly visit this link: https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018121491-What-is-a-Private-Window-with-Tor-

First place to start with Tor browser is reading its guide, in particular the General FAQ
Second place to learn more: Overview on browsers. Which one should we use? Support free web while browsing.

Tor works by anonymizing your connection through the use of nodes which bounces your traffic within the nodes before having the traffic exit through a node called exit node. Your traffic is encrypted while it is transferred within the tor network and when it exits through the exit node, the only encryption of your traffic is by the SSL that Bitcointalk uses.

This means that the final exit node can see the traffic in plaintext if your traffic isn't encryption. Since Bitcointalk implements HSTS and that Tor has HTTPS Always built in, it isn't that big of a problem. Your privacy is definitely guaranteed by the proper use of Tor and that should be your only aim if you're using Tor.

Why do you want to use TOR while you obviously know nothing about it?

As mentioned using a VPN is an alternative although for added privacy
using tor through a VPN gives extra privacy.

Firefox has good privacy features and I currently use this through PROTONVPN

If the Firefox you are using now is reliable and you feel safe and comfortable, why have you tried other like TOR browser ?
I think you just want to prove that what you heard about the TOR browser is wrong, if it's true then follow this advice.

I don't know what 'dark web browser' is... but yes you can use Tor browser for Bitcoitnalk if you care about privacy.

If you are currently using firefox except you have or are encountering challenges using it. You don't have to switch to a browser you have heard things that is a threat to you account even if they might not be all correct still you shouldn't take the gamble