Me <-> Tor <-> VPN <-> Internet?

[Christian Fromme]

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 5:19 AM, John Brooks <special at dereferenced.net> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 9:11 PM, Load Bear <loadbearrun at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am aware of that limitation. However, I am currently less concerned
>> about eavesdroppers between a given VPN and the destination than I am
>> about Tor exit-node eavesdroppers. Knowing the limitations involved, do
>> you know of some method to accomplish my expressed goal?
>
> Assuming it's not a free VPN, you also run the risk of being
> identified by your billing information. If it is free, I would say
> that there is just as much if not more risk of your traffic being used
> maliciously.

There are VPN providers that will let you pay anonymously.

However, if you're taking anonymity on the Internet seriously, using a
VPN as the last and only line of defense carries all kinds of risks:
Traffic analysis ("Let's look at all traffic going in and out of this
VPN server and match the traffic"), single point of failure in form of
the VPN provider (Do you trust him not to keep logs and sell them to
the next highest bidder?) and some more. From an academic point of
view, there isn't much anonymity to gain from a VPN.

You could run Tor on top of the VPN to gain anonymity. That sounds
technically possible even though I haven't tried it -- but I don't see
much benefit here unless you're living in a country that blocks the
public Tor nodes and most bridges.

Best,
/C
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