[tor-talk] Hi all!

[Martin Hubbard]

On 01/21/12 at 03:44 PM, Christopher J. Walters wrote:

 > 2. What is the best way to use a VPN with Tor to increase anonymity?

 You're not going to get better anonymity by using VPNs with Tor. Anonymity is what Tor does very well, far better than any commercial VPN arrangement. With VPNs, there are potentially always logs that lead back to you. You can make the trails hard to follow, by nesting VPNs from multiple providers and paying anonymously, but you can't eliminate them.

 You can use VPNs with Tor in two ways. You can route Tor through VPN services. That prevents your ISP etc from seeing that you're using Tor. Generally, VPNs are more popular than Tor, so you won't stand out as much. Once the VPN client has connected, the VPN tunnel will be the machine's default Internet connection, and the Tor Browser Bundle will route through it.

 You can also route VPN services through Tor. That hides and secures your Internet activity from Tor exit nodes. Although you are exposed to VPN exit nodes, you at least get to choose them. If you're using VPNs in this way, you'll want to pay for them anonymously (cash in the mail, Liberty Reserve, well-laundered Bitcoin, etc). However, you can't readily do this without using virtual machines. And you'll need to use TCP mode for the VPNs (to route through Tor). In our experience, establishing VPN connections through Tor is chancy, and requires much tweaking.