How to install and configure torbutton on Debian
/ Anonymizing Iceweasel on Debian GNU/Linux
There is a quite a buzz online recently about the implications
breach of personal privacy while browing online.
A week ago I've blogged
On How to improve your web browser security for better personal
identity
Though there is probably a plenty of more things to be done on
guaranteeing your anonymous identity online, the article lacked to
mention one very vital project
the tor Anonymity online project
The project offer the user the right to be anonymous online through
a complex network expanding network of volunteers which voluntary
install and grant access to the installed tor server to be used as
a proxy from their computers.
A very thorough explanation on
what is
tor can be red here
Enabling tor on your personal computer would at least guarantee you
that every now and then your traffic browser network traffic
(request) would flow through a random tor servers located on a
different worldly locations.
Usually the traffic to a destination host would pass through 5 tor
network nodes. Where the traffic is unecrypted between last node
and the 4th node, while in the other four ones it's completely
crypted.
This makes your tracking almost impossible if it's based on
technologies like for instance
Maxmind's Geoip or
Geonames's geographical data base
because every now and then you'll appear to be coming to the end
point referrar web server originating from a different tor node ip
address
The tor server is a free software licensed under the GPL and this
is also a good assurance because everybody is able to have a look
on the code and this is a further guarantee that the software
doesn't include a malicious ways for a middle users to sniff on
your traffic.
The tor project has even built a pre-bundled browser ready to be
worn by yourself on a usb stick, so you can quickly start using the
tor anonymous network on any random computer anywhere.
The
tor browser
page is available here also
Tor Browser Bundle for
Windows is available here
Tor server is available for both Windows, Mac OS X,
Linux and
Linux/BSD
Unix
Of course tor is not perfect it
opens some
other possible doors for attackers which are much less likely to
occur if you don't use it, however in general it's better off
with tor than without it.
One serious reason for not reason for not using Tor might be that
it's usually many times slower than normal browser since, it routes
traffic through a different tor network nodes.
So if you decide to go on and use it you better be patient and calm
:)
Since I'm a Debian user and I really do value my privacy I decided
to start using Tor.
In order to start using Tor it's usually necessary to configure
your browser to use
The
TorButoon Firefox browserextension
Nevertheless on Debian GNU/Linux if you try to go the straigh way
as explained on Tor's website install the
TorButton and
configure it to work in cooperation with
the polipo
caching proxy
You will be not able to browse after enabling straight the tor
plugin.
If you try the up-mentioned approach you're probably about to come
to errors like:
"the proxy server is refusing connections"
,
Proxy error: 502 Disconnected operation and object not in
cache
or
504 Connect to superquizgames.com:80 failed: SOCKS error: host
unreachable The following error occurred while trying to access
http://yourwebsite.com/: 504 Connect to superquizgames.com:80
failed: SOCKS error: host unreachable
In order to properly install configure and enable the TorButton on
my Debian GNU/Linux I had to get through the following steps:
1. Install the polipo caching proxy
debian:~# apt-get install polipo
2. Download and overwrite default polipo configuration with the
one from torproject.org
This is necessary to configure in order to have polipo adapted to
work with tor, so issue the following commands:
debian:~# cd /etc/polipo
debian:~# wget
https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torbrowser/trunk/build-scripts/config/polipo.conf
debian:~# mv config config.bak
debian:~# mv polipo.conf config
3. Restart polipo for the new config settings to take
affect
debian:~# /etc/init.d/polipo restart
4. Install the iceweasel-torbutton browser extension
debian:~# apt-get install iceweasel-torbutton
>
The iceweasel-torbutton will also install you the tor package which
is evidently required for the torbutton to operate.
Now you should be ready to go, you can enable the tor use from the
tor button which should appear in your browser in the bottom right
corner of your browser.
It should look something similar to:
Tor Enable/Disable Iceweasel browser Button
To test your Tor Configuration you can use the Test Settings
button which is straight available from TorButton's
preferences
From here after it might be a good idea to play with the TorButton
security settings and configure it according to your liking, bear
in mind that you should have a solid knowledge on how browsers work
and some basic Internet protocols before you start tampering this
options.
If tou don't know what you do you better stop and don't tamper with
the torbutton security options.
The only one that you will most probably want to untick is The
Disable plugins during Tor usage , stopping this option will
allow you to have a flash video streaming display properly,
otherwise you won't be able to use , Vbox
etc.
Below you see a screenshot of the TorButton Security Settings
dialog.
To open up this dialog you need to navigate to the TorButto and
choose preferences with the right mouse buttons :)
Hope this article is informative to somebody out there.
User feedback is mostly welcome! Cheers :)