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Discussion => Security => Topic started by: yjQ0ESOiM on October 25, 2011, 12:47 am

Title: Tor on Campus?
Post by: yjQ0ESOiM on October 25, 2011, 12:47 am
I'll be going back to college in the Fall and will live in the dorms. I'll have to use the campus wireless network.

Could there be any technical problems with using Tor on a campus network? If so, how would I solve them?

Do you use Tor on a campus? How is it? Do you have any issues with it?
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: psychedelicbees1 on October 25, 2011, 03:51 am
I've done it once, but stayed away from SR.  It worked no problems but I'm not entirely too sure I'd do it again.  Though at the same time it might be safer because there is a higher chance of more people using it in the same area.  if I understand things correct, that makes it even harder to track you're activity.  Hopefully someone more knowledgeable on the subject will answer because I'm also interested in finding out.
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: CrunchyFrog on October 25, 2011, 04:02 am
...Could there be any technical problems with using Tor on a campus network?...
While not a technical problem per se you might get grief from the university's I.T. department, especially if you consume a lot of bandwidth.  It's pretty unlikely in any event but be sure to check the school's acceptable use policy for clues as to whether they might object.

If they do, you might want to check into using bridge nodes [ torproject.org/docs/bridges ] but *please* do so only if necessary since people in repressive countries depend on these for uncensored internet access.
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: vanilla on October 25, 2011, 05:10 am
I work IT at a college campus and as long as you use public wifi, there should be no trouble. Tor uses ssl so it's really difficult to even detect that it is is use on a public network. Make sure you don't use any network that requires registration of your mac address to access SR.
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: yjQ0ESOiM on October 25, 2011, 06:09 am
I work IT at a college campus and as long as you use public wifi, there should be no trouble. Tor uses ssl so it's really difficult to even detect that it is is use on a public network. Make sure you don't use any network that requires registration of your mac address to access SR.

Well, I'd have to login to the network using my student id number. OTOH, I could access Freenet just fine.
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: Electrogasm666 on October 26, 2011, 08:03 am
I use TOR on campus all the time; no issues. I change my wireless MAC address just to be safe, but the IT department over here is entirely incompetent so it's really unnecessary -- I doubt they even log times by MAC address let alone the IP's of the networks I'm connecting to.

The fact that you have to enter an ID number is a little iffy, though. If you were ever successfully traced it would be easier for them to say it was definitively you (if they keep records by log-in) because it would have your student ID attached to it... that would still be a pretty far stretch, though. Do you have to enter a password as well?

Bottom line you can feel pretty safe doing it. The school itself isn't going to care at all that you're using TOR, if they can even figure that out in the first place, and if you were somehow traced through TOR by a third party you'd be pretty much fucked regardless unless you've been doing everything at Starbucks.
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: yjQ0ESOiM on October 27, 2011, 05:12 pm
I have to enter a password. I remember I had to disable the connection on my virtual machine because of something to do with my IP but I had no problems accessing Freenet.
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: security on November 12, 2011, 12:40 pm
I have to enter a password. I remember I had to disable the connection on my virtual machine because of something to do with my IP but I had no problems accessing Freenet.

You can configure Tor to use a proxy server (enter the username and password you authenticate to the network with), that may or may not work. Another option is to authenticate first and then connect to the Tor network. The system administrators will only see that you're using Tor, they won't be able to see what you're doing.
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: caffeine_me on November 12, 2011, 05:37 pm
what is the best way to change your MAC address?
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: security on November 12, 2011, 08:38 pm
what is the best way to change your MAC address?

Linux, Mac OS X or Windows?
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: caffeine_me on November 13, 2011, 08:47 am
windows 7 running off USB
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: DrBenway on November 13, 2011, 10:40 am
Uh, guys? You do realize Tor was designed to able to be used in countries like China, Iran, and Syria, right? If your university pays close enough attention, they may be able to detect that you are using Tor, but they will not be able to detect what you are using it for. Some universities may have firewall policies that prevent you from being able to relay other nodes' traffic, but that just means you will use less bandwidth, making them less interested in you. In the extremely unlikely event that they notice you are using Tor and for some reason ask you about it, Tor has plenty of legitimate uses giving you plenty of deniability. You are just about as safe on a university network as you are using Tor with a conventional ISP. If you live in university housing, the one thing to be mindful of is that the university generally doesn't need a warrant to search your room, but it is EXTREMELY unlikely that your use of Tor would prompt such a search, and if you are intelligent about encrypting any sensitive information relating to SR, they won't find anything on your computer.
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: lazypeepsarebusted on November 13, 2011, 01:46 pm
If you don't use a bridge it will be trivial for them to detect and block Tor traffic. The list of Tor relays is public after all, they can simply filter all connections to these IP addresses. Actually they can just block access to the directory authorities to largely prevent Tor usage, since you can no longer bootstrap the list of Tor relays. If you use a bridge it will require them to do closer monitoring to detect that you are using Tor. It will also make it much harder for them to block your use of Tor by blocking known Tor relay addresses, because it is not trivial to get a complete list of bridge nodes and bridge IP addresses tend to change fairly quickly. You should only use bridges on port 443 for further protection from having your Tor usage noticed, Tor traffic blends in with normal TLS traffic at first glance. Also if you use a bridge you bootstrap at it instead of the directory authority nodes, so they can't censor your access in this way. Bridges are good enough for people in censored countries like China to have a decent chance of connecting to the network, although China does block a substantial number of bridge node IP addresses even they don't block all of them. I suggest not using more than three bridge nodes at a time tough. Also a college is far less likely to monitor traffic to the extent that the Chinese government does. It is not trivial to prevent access to the Tor network with blacklisting or many commonly used traffic fingerprinting techniques, but whitelists are a completely different story. Actually it is easier for them to do more sophisticated traffic fingerprinting attacks on a college network than on the entire internet, but I highly doubt any college actually monitors their students internet usage to such an extent.
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: lazypeepsarebusted on November 13, 2011, 03:16 pm
I work IT at a college campus and as long as you use public wifi, there should be no trouble. Tor uses ssl so it's really difficult to even detect that it is is use on a public network. Make sure you don't use any network that requires registration of your mac address to access SR.

Tor uses SSL but it uses padding and only sends 512 byte packets. Normally SSL does not only transfer 512 byte packets, so it is actually really easy to detect Tor traffic. Nobody does this attack yet though, including governments like China etc. It would be much easier to do on a small network than for all traffic from everyone in an entire country though.
Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: mito on November 14, 2011, 02:58 pm
While not a technical problem per se you might get grief from the university's I.T. department, especially if you consume a lot of bandwidth. 

I'm afraid I didn't understand your statement.    Does Tor consume a lot of bandwidth?

Title: Re: Tor on Campus?
Post by: CrunchyFrog on November 15, 2011, 01:59 am
Tor itself requires very little bandwidth over and above what the normal clearnet uses.  How much you're doing -- rather than how you're doing it -- would likely be of concern to the campus I.T. folks.

For example, downloading (or uploading) a lot of movies -- with or without Tor  -- could be a problem past a certain point.  Hosting a site (hidden or not) might use a surprising amount of bandwidth, as could running a relay without appropriate limits set.