How can I find out how to configure wget to work securely with torify? The official documentation for doing it seems outdated.
I'm using Ubuntu Linux 16.04, with tor installed from the repositories, but using the stand-alone browser bundle is accepteable as long as it can be used through the command line/scripts.
I know that I can use torify wget [url]
and it will download file/s, and I know that using the suggested method from this post (getting public IP address) that running this:
wget http://ipinfo.io/ip -qO -
and then running this
torify wget http://ipinfo.io/ip -qO -
do successfully return different IP addresses.
But a lot of sources always imply that it's not that simple and other identifying information could be leaked by wget.
This link (which seems official) specifically mentions configuring wget for torify
There it says for Unix/Linux to edit /home/user/.bashrc
and add these lines:
http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:8123/
HTTP_PROXY=$http_proxy
export http_proxy HTTP_PROXY
And then it says to edit /etc/wgetrc
and add these lines:
http_proxy = http://localhost:8118
use_proxy = on
But doing that causes torify wget
to fail with this error:
Connecting to localhost (localhost)|127.0.0.1|:8118... [Sep 06 21:55:50] WARNING torsocks[3680]: [connect] Connection to a local address are denied since it might be a TCP DNS query to a local DNS server. Rejecting it for safety reasons. (in tsocks_connect() at connect.c:186)
failed: Operation not permitted.
Retrying.
I really have no idea what that error message or those config lines mean. What do they mean? Is this still the right way to configure wget for use with torify? Because really the main problem here is that the link that recommends those configurations clearly states that that is all "Old Advice (outdated)."
Is there any new, up-to-date advice?
What about Tails? Is any of this configuration necessary to make wget work securely running in Tails?
Please keep in mind that I don't know much about advanced networking and the inner workings of tor. Beginner-friendly advice would be preferred, but any information would be appreciated. Thank you.
Related questions:
- How to anonymize the programs from the terminal?
This one is where I originally heard about
torify
. It's a good how-to for basic use, but does not mention any of the security leaks of just usingtorify wget
. - How to use command line utilities through Tor?
This one the best answers talk about doing a lot of things like
"using proxy chains" and "configuring your firewall to drop all UDP
packets" but offers no explanation of how to do them, or what the
consequences of doing them are. It's way over my head. - https://askubuntu.com/questions/410057/tor-in-command-prompt just basic use again.
- How to anonymize the programs from the terminal? again this is just the basics.