Tor VoIP, & etc...

[Damian Gerow]

Thus spake Tyler Durden (camera_lumina at hotmail.com) [03/09/05 14:03]:
: Well, here I meant after registration, etc...in a "regular" IP network it 
: can take seconds to minutes in order for routing tables (at layer 3) or the 
: local MAC Address tables (at layer 2) to recognize that you're back on 
: line. With a Tor node I'm wondering how long it takes for the greater Tor 
: network to both notice your existence and then trust that you're here to 
: stay...for a while.
: 
: In other words, am I contributing to the greater Tor network if I allow my 
: USB Tor node to function while I'm sucking down a cappucino or two?

As others have stated, no, likely not: bouncing your connection up and down
like that will likely cause great untrust within the TOR routing.  Whether
you will be /harming/ the TOR network or not is a more interesting
question...  I'd suspect not, but it's probably worth looking into.

: In other words, just for me. That, of course, is great.

Good.

: As for simplicity, I need that: I know my way around the BLSR protection 
: switching bytes in an OC-48 4 fiber ring, but I'm a veritable IP dummy (oh, 
: well I DID design parts of a layer 2 GbE switch, but I'm no routing jock). 
: I just don't have time to have to fiddle with the OS myself, so this will 
: be interesting. Think I might get me one of those gizmos and then stick it 
: on my PDA.

It is, quite literally, a matter of installing the binary (whichever OS you
are using will determine the method of installation), setting two, maybe
three configuration parameters -- things like logging levels, interfaces to
use, and other very basic parameters -- starting it up and using it.

So I imagine you can handle it quite easily.

: So: Can Tor support VoIP Yet? I could call up bin Laden from a Starbucks!

In theory, TOR can support anything that can handle a SOCKS connection.  So
if your VoIP program can do SOCKS, then yes, it can.  If your VoIP program
can't, wrappers are readily available.

The question to ask here is: can TOR support VoIP /well/?  I wouldn't put
much faith in maintaining a solid VoIP connection: due to the very nature of
what TOR does, you're introducing a substantial amount of latency to your
connection, and it might be enough to throw off any VoIP connections you try
to make.

But it's worth trying...

  - Damian