[tor-talk] General questions about Tor proxy

[Akater]

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How to use Tor as proxy? How are average users supposed to find that out?

1. Suppose I want to use Tor with some third party application. Let's
pick a popular example for a target service, say, Dropbox. I search
for proxy settings in a Dropbox client, choose SOCKS5, port 127.0.0.1,
port 9050. That seems to be it. Now, what information could the exit
node extract from the data my local Dropbox app exchanges with Dropbox
servers? How do I find out the answer to that question myself? Can I
personally inspect the data transferred by local Dropbox (or other
target service) application?

2. Suppose I'm using OpenVPN. What happens when I connect with OpenVPN
*while* connected to Tor? Does Dropbox data get encrypted by openvpn
software, sent to vpn provider server, goes to Tor network then, in
effect making Tor network a link between my VPN provider and target
service, or does it get encrypted by openvpn software (hopefully), and
sent through Tor to VPN provider, so Tor becomes a link between me and
VPN provider? What could exit node make out of the data in this case?
How do I find that out not by asking other people but rather by
inspecting traffic on my own local computer which I have full access
to? :-) Isn't it ridiculous that that I have to do the former instead?

0. Where should an average user go to find these answers? Are people
supposed to post to mailing lists? Mailing lists look a bit odd
nowadays. Doesn't this alarm Tor community, or unix/GNU/whatever
email-based community in general?
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