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Support => Technical support => Topic started by: yjQ0ESOiM on November 01, 2011, 12:25 am

Title: Torrify Bitcoin & Avoid Error Message?
Post by: yjQ0ESOiM on November 01, 2011, 12:25 am
Hello, when I torrify my bitcoin client, I see the following error message:

"[Warning] Your application (using socks4 to port 8333) is giving Tor only an IP address. Applications that do DNS resolves themselves may leak information. Consider using Socks4A (e.g. via privoxy or socat) instead. For more information, please see https://wiki.torproject.org/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#SOCKSAndDNS."

How can I avoid this? Should I be worried?

I don't what these technical terms mean.
Title: Re: Torrify Bitcoin & Avoid Error Message?
Post by: CrunchyFrog on November 01, 2011, 03:57 am
That warning message is normal when running Bitcoin -- but *not* most other applications -- through Tor.

Bitcoin identifies clients by IP address and, as such, has only an IP address (123.45.6.78) to supply to Tor.  Tor expects to be given a URL (www.google.com) rather than an IP address.  Tor is simply warning you that, under *normal* (non-Bitcoin) circumstances, you may be leaking information to a local DNS server.
Title: Re: Torrify Bitcoin & Avoid Error Message?
Post by: yjQ0ESOiM on November 02, 2011, 01:43 am
So bitcoin wouldn't reveal where I was going or what I was doing on Tor?

Is there a way make the message disappear?
Title: Re: Torrify Bitcoin & Avoid Error Message?
Post by: CrunchyFrog on November 02, 2011, 04:00 am
Quote from: yjQ0ESOiM
So bitcoin wouldn't reveal where I was going or what I was doing on Tor?
Correct.

Quote from: yjQ0ESOiM
Is there a way make the message disappear?
Well, yes, but it's a ***Very Bad Idea*** to do so.

In Vidalia go to Message Log / Settings / Message Filter, un-check Warning, and select Save Settings.

Be aware, though, that you'll no longer see *ANY* Warning messages -- even ones that you would want to know about.
Title: Re: Torrify Bitcoin & Avoid Error Message?
Post by: yjQ0ESOiM on November 02, 2011, 08:30 pm
Then I'll just have to deal with the error messages.
Title: Re: Torrify Bitcoin & Avoid Error Message?
Post by: CrunchyFrog on November 06, 2011, 12:17 am
While RTFM, I came across another way which will turn off *only* warnings about IP addresses passed directly to Tor.  It's still not a great idea since you'd probably want to know about those from some other application (or malware) in the future.
Quote from: https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html
WarnUnsafeSocks 0|1
When this option is enabled, Tor will warn whenever a request is received that only contains an IP address instead of a hostname. Allowing applications to do DNS resolves themselves is usually a bad idea and can leak your location to attackers. (Default: 1)
So adding the line
WarnUnsafeSocks 0
to your torrc file would accomplish that.