Bitcoin Forum

hi, I am interested how to make bitcoin cleint using Tor software/network?
I see option "connect through socks4proxy" but I don't know how to use it.

I tried even with freecap and proximotron and tor vidalia, but I didn't succeed, bitcoin shutdown itself. now second time it is not shutdown but how can I check if Bitcoin use Tor or not?
freecap default proxy is 127.0.0.1 and port 9050, socks version 4.
I run bitcoin from freecap.

screenshot: http://i43.tinypic.com/2882fdt.jpg

You can check to see if your proxy tunneling is successful by seeing if the Bitcoin client has made any connections to the network.  Your screenshot shows that you do indeed have connections to the outside world.  However, since you are running multiple proxies I'm not sure which one is actually being used.  You can look at your Vidalia network map and you should see some connections to port 8333.  If these connections do exist then congrats you are using TOR.

add "proxy=localhost:9050" (assuming tor is listening on 9050) to bitcoin.conf

If you want to be more paranoid, also add "nolisten=1"

I would not recommend trying to do this.

1.) It doesn't anonymize you any more than you already are (bitcoin is already anonymous and decentralized)

2.) Bitcoin client is essentially a torrent client. You are not supposed to run this on tor--it harms anonymity and puts undue stress on the network.

3.) Using tor browsing is safe enough--your goings on will not be tracked.  If you're worried about it, use something like instawallet.

1.) A connected node could potentially identify the ip address that broadcast the transaction.
2.) Much lower bandwidth than a torrent... really not that much traffic.
3.) Instawallet is a good suggestion.  If you want to run a native client on tor anyway, and you aren't on Windows, torify is your friend.  If you run Windows, ask someone else.

I don't know about that. Block chains are huge over time. Like, way more than tor can move unless you run a node.

I would download the chain the first time off TOR for sure, but regular traffic is pretty light.

That's how I did it.

An instawallet is a great site, but it is "Not a bank"


A client running behind tor with an encrypted wallet is much more like a bank.

Try using badvpn-tun2socks

http://code.google.com/p/badvpn/wiki/tun2socks

It makes a tor network adapter. I have an entire VM with no direct internet access and everything works through tor without any config.

That looks nice.  Not sure setting up an additional network adapter counts as no config, but still pretty simple.

+1, except don't ever store your bitcoins with anyone unless your situation absolutely requires it. The rise of bitcoin "banks" and similar such is not a good thing.

Also, I wouldn't worry about the bandwidth requirement for the blockchain unless you are on an analog phone line or a 3G wireless connection, nor the data volume with respect to Tor. I did find that going through Tor resulted in fewer bitcoin peer connections and seem to greatly increase the latency of transaction confirmations.

Anyway, bitcoin isn't anonymous. To the contrary, it appears to me that it could be a good platform to train people in the principles of detecting activities that may be money laundering or other no-nos. Nice to have that blockchain out there, one wouldn't even need to generate a student example database.

Well, I meant of any other applications. Everything just works, even things that I couldn't get to work with ProxyCap.

Commenting to keep a reference to this wonderful link.


As for the OP, I wouldn't recommend Instawallet, since you already have (and can use) the main client, and I get the impression you will be using Bitcoin regularly. Instawallet is decent for what it does, but shouldn't be trusted with more than you can afford to lose.

If you want to stick to web browsing, StrongCoin.com lets you send transactions from your browser, but your private keys (which let you access your money) are never transmitted openly, and they never see them. You can also record the keys and still access your money if the site were shut down. It seems secure enough, for now, for light to average usage.

(I hope another service like theirs comes onto the scene soon, I'm starting to feel like they owe me advertising fees as much as I've been promoting them over Instawallet.)

If  you're going to use an online wallet use one that doesn't have access to your priv keys and lets you use your own keys (so if the site disappears you still have your btc's).

nolisten is absolutely irrelevant, if you connect over a proxy/tor then you got the IP of the proxy, therefore others may try to connect to the proxy and not to you!

thank you all for answers, I will try tomorrow with proxy=localhost:9050 in bitcoin.config

It may be irrelevant to you, but the peers that try and connect to you and have to wait for timeouts won't see it as irrelevant.

Although it looks like there was a patch that makes nolisten turned on by default if bitcoin sees a proxy on tor's default port.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/441

I can't find bitcoin.config file in windows xp: C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Application Data\Bitcoin

I use 0.4.0 version because I don't like localization of 0.5 version. I am in DK and I don't speak DK.

by the way, after longer waiting, now I have one connection and 11000 blocks:) so, it works:) I suppose Tor works with port 9050, although when I installed vidalia bundle, there is written Control port 9051:
http://i42.tinypic.com/2s6jxqo.jpg

I don't know what is different between port and control port, but I think all works fine:)

I am pretty sure that you start out without a bitcoin.conf. Just make a text file and you are set.

The control port (9051) is different than the port tor listens on (9050).  It is for controlling tor (well named isn't it ;P).  It makes it possible to do things like tell tor to get a new identity from the command line.

Bitcoin transactions aren't really anonymous because your IP is broadcast with that transaction. Through your ISP you could then be identified. In my honest opinion I think the Bitcoin client should have something similar to TOR built into it and preconfigured. When that is done, Bitcoin will then be completely anonymous.

but how do other people know that the transaction originated from you? for all they know, you could be simply be relaying it. ::)

There is talk about IP tracking here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34383.20

there's many ways of getting around it
1) broadcast the transaction using an external service. perhaps a tor based website?
2) broadcast over a public connection
3) broadcast only to "trusted" nodes

I think that would be better stated as "there will be many ways of getting around it." I have heard talk of sites for transmitting offline transactions being developed, but are any public?

What do you mean by public connection? Like run the client at a library? That doesn't sound very feasible.

Only communicating with trusted nodes would work, but doesn't sound very feasible either. I know there are points in bitcoin where trust makes things easier, but I really believe that we should do our best to make trust unnecessary.  With tor, you don't have to trust the other peers and they can't tell your IP.

tor is designed for web browsing, not for peer to peer software making tons of connections.

By tons you mean 8?

still high considering http only uses 1, and the connections are always present, unlike http.

Um... http can use 1 but when browsing use usually use more. A quick glance at the source for this page has 2 stylesheets and a javascript file which means 4 requests plus one for all the images.

It is not irrelevant, if you don't add it, it will listen on your IP, without the proxy. See https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/659

The torproject guys themselves recommend us to put a particular HTTP proxy (Polipo) between our browser and Tor to deal with latency. I guess such proxy does so by opening multiple parallel connections to fetch the different resources it sees on an HTML before the browser even requests for them. That said, maybe multiple connections to the same IP reuse the same Tor circuit....

But anyway, you should protect your bitcoin traffic with Tor or something alike for the reason others have said in this thread.
Look at blockchain.info for example. It already tries to link transactions to IPs. If blockchain.info is one of your peers, every transaction you make will be publicly linked to your IP forever on their site. And it may even accidentally link you to transactions that you relay to them, if they are not connected to the original sender but you are. People may even conclude false things about you, if their accuracy rate ever gets high enough but you happen to be among those "error cases"...