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First of all, I am not asking if it is a good idea to use Tor for sites like The Pirate Bay. I know that it will slow down the network for everyone else (and has been asked previously).

I am developing a C++ application that uses a DHT server as the backend. If I use DTLS and route the traffic through Tor, will that be secure and work with Whonix? I know that by default Whonix blocks DHT traffic and requires a VPN for DHT to work. I am also using the rasterbar libtorrent libary.

Thanks

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  • Can you clarify? You say you know you need a VPN for DHT to work so, ultimately Tor won't directly impact what traffic can or cannot be routed over some virtual tunnel you create through it. How does Tor relate to this question?
    – cacahuatl
    Commented Feb 28, 2017 at 22:54

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Well, looks like you're not getting the Tor network principles right, let me explain:

  1. It's not a mistake to use torrents inside Tor network if you're seeding from a hidden service and your retracker is a TCP-based one. It is a benefit, actually, and no slowdown will occur if you have all the nodes inside the Tor network properly
  2. DHT relies on simplicity of communication, that's why it can provide you the significant speedup. If you'll wrap it inside a TCP protocol and you will use Tor's three-layer-onion packet encryption - you will have it, physically, but you will loose almost all the benefits of DHT, the only one that will remain will be a self-reorganizing of the node swarm. UDP is chosen for DHT for a really good and wise reason - it's simple... Instead of TCP it does not perform a lot of checks and state verifications, so you can easily make a 1000 pps on an old netbook, for example. Even without Tor - if you will just wrap it into TCP - you will have hard times to do even this, and adding a 3-layer onion will kill the speed finally.

If you want to make it on DHT - take a look at Yggdrasil network, it will give you IPv6 interface and UDP support with a way more moderate overhead.

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At time of writing, no leaks demonstrated with Whonix ever.

Whonix doesn't really care if DHT or whatever. DHT usually apparently is just UDP. Maybe look if there is some TCP based DHT? Then you can safe the VPN. Or use Tor hidden services as your DHT replacement, a bit like ricochet?

If UDP / DHT leaked, we did something major wrong at Whonix.

Full disclosure: I am a maintainer of Whonix.

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