This is an continuation of my last post, specifically a comment from @rufus@discuss.tchncs.de:

It will never get recommended. It’s bad for the network and bad for your privacy.

Excluding that doing so is bad for the network, why it is “private” using VPN but not Tor, inferring from common consensus. The main point in the blog post is a protocol level problem:

apparently in some cases uTorrent, BitSpirit, and libTorrent simply write your IP address directly into the information they send to the tracker and/or to other peers

Tor and VPN are both transports what wrap other traffic within. If that statement is true, no transport can save the information leaking nature of the BT protocol itself.

  • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
    English
    1·
    8 months ago

    Both work quite differently. TOR routes you over several layers, obscures your IP and changes the IPs around occasionally so you can’t be tracked.

    With Bittorrent you want lasting connections to other peers to be able to receive and send all the data. This doesn’t align with the ever changing IPs and stuff.

    A VPN gives you one IP that you can have for hours.

    A VPN supports UDP connections, TOR doesn’t.

    Connecting your Bittorrent client to the Socks-Proxy of a TOR client is a different setup than it just sending normal packets through a VPN tunnel.

    TOR is slow (by design), a VPN is fast.

    If your client or something leaks your IP it happens anyways, if you route it over one node or seven. All the extra energy is just wasted.

    And bittorrent puts even more strain on the TOR network the way it works. Making it slower for anybody else. And (ab)using the resources volunteers provide. (And which are meant for better use-cases.)

    • umami_wasabi@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      01·
      8 months ago

      If your client or something leaks your IP it happens anyways, if you route it over one node or seven. All the extra energy is just wasted.

      Yes. That’s how I see the problem.

      And bittorrent puts even more strain on the TOR network the way it works. Probably making it slower for anybody else.

      I understand and agree.

      In the context of this question, I don’t really cares if the IP changes or if UDP supported or the network degraded. I’m asking a more fundamental one: when the data in the BT protocol contains sensitive information, then why VPN/I2P is acceptable but Tor (or other transport) are not? That sensitive info is still being transmitted. If that Tor blog is true, then no matter what we use, it is still bad for privacy.