{"id":138,"date":"2011-11-22T22:12:32","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T22:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/?p=138"},"modified":"2011-11-22T22:12:32","modified_gmt":"2011-11-22T22:12:32","slug":"how-to-anonymize-and-encrypt-your-bittorrent-traffic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/?p=138","title":{"rendered":"How To Anonymize and Encrypt Your BitTorrent Traffic"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"7ahgbsdh\" src=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/7ahgbsdh.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"7ahgbsdh\" width=\"640\" height=\"250\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Whether you\u2019re trying to dodge an angry government, a connection  throttling ISP, or the watchful gaze of media conglomerates, anonymizing  and encrypting your BitTorrent traffic can help. Read on to learn how.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo by <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jinthai\/3184925372\/sizes\/z\/in\/photostream\/\"><em>jin.thai<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>What Is This and What Do I Need?<\/h3>\n<p>BitTorrent is a form of distributed file sharing. Undistributed file  sharing is when you connect to a single source and download a file. When  you visit a software repository online, for example, and download a new  version of some application you\u2019re engaging in an undistributed file  transfer\u2014the file went from their server directly to you.<\/p>\n<p>Distributed file sharing changes that model. When you use BitTorrent,  a distributed file sharing protocol, you don\u2019t download a file from a  single source but instead from any number of sources. Everyone who is  part of the swarm of file sharers using the same tracker and sharing the  torrent you\u2019re downloading can potentially send you a piece of that  file. Your download is no longer between you and a single source but  between everyone in the swarm and you. This means anyone can join the  torrent swarm and see what files you are downloading and, in turn,  uploading\u2014reciprocating to the swarm is part of the BitTorrent model.<\/p>\n<p>If that person spying in your torrent activity is a hostile  government, your ISP seeking to throttle your connection, or an agent  hired by a media conglomerate to monitor BitTorrent networks, you can  find yourself in unexpected trouble.<\/p>\n<p>How can you circumvent such outcomes? By anonymizing and\/or encrypting your BitTorrent traffic.<\/p>\n<p>What are the upsides? Your BitTorrent traffic will be anonymous, the  IP the swarm sees will not be your actual IP address. If you choose to  encrypt as well as anonymize, even your ISP\u2014the very people with direct  access to your bandwidth pipe\u2014won\u2019t be able to see what you\u2019re doing.  You\u2019ll be able to use BitTorrent without fear.<\/p>\n<p>What are the downsides? Proxying\/tunneling can slow down your  connection and encryption can further slow it down. While many people  are perfectly comfortable taking a performance hit in order to better  secure their BitTorrent connection, it\u2019s something to be aware of.<\/p>\n<p>Ready to get started? To anonymize and encrypt BitTorrent you\u2019ll need the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For both techniques you\u2019ll need a BitTorrent client with proxy support. We\u2019re going to be using <a href=\"http:\/\/user.utorrent.com\/\">uTorrent<\/a> on Windows.<\/li>\n<li>You\u2019ll need a proxy\/SSH provider. For this tutorial we\u2019ll be using the popular Canadian BitTorrent proxy provider <a href=\"http:\/\/btguard.com\/?a=J295J359\">BTGuard<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>To encrypt your BitTorrent session you\u2019ll need an additional layer  of security in the form of a local proxy server that connects to your  encrypted tunnel. We\u2019ll highlight how to use both the <a href=\"http:\/\/btguard.com\/?a=J295J359\">BTGuard<\/a> supplied application and the free application <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chiark.greenend.org.uk\/%7Esgtatham\/putty\/\">PuTTY<\/a> to roll your own proxy server.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Our instructions will help you configure any SOCKS proxy to work with  uTorrent (or another proxy-friendly BitTorrent client) but we\u2019re going  to be setting it up for BTGuard. If you don\u2019t have an anonymous proxy  yet, BTGuard is a solid choice and costs a mere $7 a month. Get your  proxy information handy or go <a href=\"http:\/\/btguard.com\/?a=J295J359\">sign up for a BTGuard account here<\/a>. before continuing.<\/p>\n<h3>Configuring uTorrent for Anonymous Torrent Traffic<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"2011-10-11_145756\" src=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/2011-10-11_145756.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"652\" height=\"441\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Run uTorrent. Navigate to Options \u2013&gt; Preferences (or press CTRL+P)  to open up the Preferences panel. From within the Preferences panel,  navigate to the Connection sub-menu.<\/p>\n<p>From within the Connection sub-menu, you need to fill out the Proxy  Server information. For the Type select SOCKS5, for the Proxy fill in  proxy.btguard.com and Port 1025. Check Authentication and fill in your  Username and Password (BTGuard users will use the same username and  password they created their account with). If you\u2019re using another  service besides BTGuard, simply change the previous entries to match  your service providers data.<\/p>\n<p>Under Authentication check <em>all<\/em> the boxes, including \u201cUse  proxy for hostname lookups\u201d, \u201cUse proxy for peer-to-peer connections\u201d.  Make sure to check all the boxes under Proxy Privacy including \u201cDisable  all local DNS lookups\u201d, \u201cDisable features that leak identifying  information\u201d, and \u201cDisable connections unsupported by the proxy\u201d.  Failure to check these options will compromise your anonymity and defeat  the whole purpose of using a proxy server.<\/p>\n<p>Restart uTorrent. <strong>If you do not restart uTorrent the Proxy changes will not take effect.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Encrypting Your BitTorrent Connection<\/h3>\n<p>Anonymization will protect your identity but, if your ISP is throttle  happy, it won\u2019t stop them from detecting and throttling your BitTorrent  traffic. If you want the extra security of encrypted traffic and\/or  your ISP is shaping your traffic and throttling BitTorrent connections,  this is the configuration for you.<\/p>\n<p>BTGuard offers a free encryption proxy that is preconfigured. In  order to use the BTGuard encryption tool, first download it from the <a href=\"http:\/\/btguard.com\/btguard_encrypt-2-00.exe\">BTGuard servers here<\/a>.  Install the application to C:\\BTGUARD (this step is extremely  important, if you install it to another directory the application will  not operate properly). Once you\u2019ve installed it, run the application.<\/p>\n<p>Open up your uTorrent application once again and navigate back to the  Preferences menu. Within the Preferences menu replace proxy.btguard.com  with 127.0.0.1 (the address of the local computer). Leave all the other  settings, including your login information, the same. Restart uTorrent  for the changes to take effect. You\u2019ll still be connected to the BTGuard  servers but the traffic between uTorrent and those servers will be  encrypted.<\/p>\n<p>Alternatively, if you wish to use an SSH service to connect to a  foreign server and anonymize your traffic that way, you\u2019ll need to use  PuTTY to connect to the SSH service and create a local proxy for  uTorrent\u2019s traffic to flow through. Note, if you\u2019re already using  BTGuard you might as well use their encryption too and skip this step.  If you\u2019re using another service and want to use their encrypted SSH  tunnel, keep reading.<\/p>\n<p>Putty is a free Telnet\/SSH client for Windows and Linux that allows  you to easily route your traffic through an encrypted tunnel. Download  and install PuTTY. Run the application for the first time. The first  screen you\u2019ll see is the Session screen. Here you\u2019ll need to enter the  address of your SSH provider. The default SSH port is 22; only change  this port # if your SSH provider indicates you should.\u00a0 Make sure SSH is  checked. Go ahead and give your session a name so that you can save it  for future use.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"2011-10-11_154822\" src=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/2011-10-11_154822.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"652\" height=\"348\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Navigate to Connections \u2013&gt; SSH. In the SSH sub-menu you need to  create a new port configuration. Put a port number in the Source box (it  can be any number that isn\u2019t in conflict with your computer\u2019s existing  port structure, we used 12345) and then check Dynamic and Auto. Press  Add to add the port.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"2011-10-11_153949\" src=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/2011-10-11_153949.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"652\" height=\"339\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Navigate back to the session menu and click Save to save your  configuration. Then click Open to launch the SSH tunnel to your SSH host  and login with your login credentials.<\/p>\n<p>Once you\u2019ve logged in via PuTTY with your login credentials you can  now use PuTTY as your SOCKS server. Open uTorrent and the Preferences  menu. Configure things exactly as you would for BTGuard except for the  IP address put in 127.0.0.1 (the proxy server is on your computer),  change the port number to 12345, and leave the Authentication section  blank.<\/p>\n<h3>Testing The Anonymity of Your BitTorrent Connection<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"2011-10-11_160143\" src=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/2011-10-11_160143.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"652\" height=\"284\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When you set up your web browser with a proxy server, it\u2019s easy to  visit a site like WhatIsMyIP to see if you\u2019re surfing from the new IP  address. What about BitTorrent? It\u2019s not quite so easy. Thankfully  there\u2019s a service designed to help you check the IP address your Torrent  client is broadcasting.<\/p>\n<p>Once you\u2019ve configured uTorrent using the above techniques (either  anonymous but not encrypted with BTGuard, anonymous and encrypted with  BTGuard, or anonymous and encrypted with your SSH provider of choice),  it\u2019s time to visit <a href=\"http:\/\/checkmytorrentip.com\/\">CheckMyTorrentIP<\/a>.  At CheckMyTorrentIP, click the Generate Torrent tab. Save the resulting  torrent file to your computer and load it in uTorrent. It should look  like this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"2011-10-11_150452\" src=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/2011-10-11_150452.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"652\" height=\"104\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Click on the torrent and then look down in the information panel at  the bottom of the screen. Click on the Trackers tab. In that tab you  will get information back from the Tracker (in this case the  CheckMyTorrentIP tracker.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"2011-10-11_150231\" src=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/2011-10-11_150231.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"652\" height=\"161\" \/><\/p>\n<p>See that IP address? That should be the IP address of your new proxy service and <em>not<\/em> the IP address of your internet connection. If you see the address of  your internet connection and not the proxy server you need to go back  and double check your configuration.<\/p>\n<p>You can also visit CheckMyTorrentIP and click on the Check IP tab to  see all the IP addresses your torrent file has connected from:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"2011-10-11_160049\" src=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/2011-10-11_160049.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"651\" height=\"259\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There you have it. If the IP addresses are those provided by your  proxy\/SSH provider and not your home IP address then you\u2019re in the  clear. All your BitTorrent traffic will be routed through that IP  address and your private IP address will never be broadcast to the  greater internet!<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Have a tip or trick for secure and anonymous torrenting? Let\u2019s hear about it in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whether you\u2019re trying to dodge an angry government, a connection throttling ISP, or the watchful gaze of media conglomerates, anonymizing and encrypting your BitTorrent traffic can help. Read on to learn how. Photo by jin.thai. What Is This and What Do I Need? BitTorrent is a form of distributed file sharing. Undistributed file sharing is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-tech-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140,"href":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsoftgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}