Anonymising ICQ and MSN and other messangers via
Tor on Linux
If you want to imrpove your internet privacy through tor-rifing
your network traffic of ICQ and MSN networks.
Do the following:
1. Install tor server
debian:~# apt-get install tor
2. Install the polipo caching proxy
debian:~# apt-get install polipo
3. 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
4. Restart polipo for the new config settings to take
affect
debian:~# /etc/init.d/polipo restart
Make sure in your /etc/tor/torrc you have existing the following
two torrc directives:
debian:~# vim /etc/tor/torrc
SocksPort 9050 # what port to open for local application
connections
SocksListenAddress 127.0.0.1 # accept connections only from
localhost
5. Start up tor server if it's not already started
debian:~# /etc/init.d/tor retart
6. Install pidgin if you haven't got it installed
already
debian:~# apt-get install pidgin
8. Start up the recent installed pidgin multi-protocol instant
messanger
hipo@debian:~$ pidgin &
If you already previously properly installed and configured version
of pidgin.
9. In pidgin messanger do the following changes to configure it
to proxy traffic via tor
In your either your existing ICQ / MSN pidgin account navigate
to:
- Accounts -> Manage Accounts
- Under Protocol ICQ
- click Modify..
- Now go to Proxy
The default Proxy setting in Debian Sid/Squeeze would
Use GNOME
Proxy Settings however in other Linux distributions or *BSD it
could be either
No Proxy or some other setting.
- Now substitute whatever options is choosen with SOCKS
5
- In the below data input field with a name Host: type
127.0.0.1
- For the Port: field box type the port 9050
You specify for a local proxy port 9050 because this is the default
port where we have previosly configured polipo to proxify traffic
to
tor's anonymity network
The settings tor tunneling of traffic for
Protocol MSN are
analogous like for the ICQ Protocol so I won't repeat myself on
that.
This described tor tunneling for ICQ and MSN traffic should be
applicable to other IM protocols under the same logic.
Here is the time to nota that the above instructions should be also
applicable for
Gain with minor changes or even without
any.
Of course because tunneling traffic via Poplipo and it's handling
over to a tor node which will pass traffic randomly through
different geographical locations whether tor servers reside will be
more time consuming, so login account login time to your Messanger
protocol of choice will vary and would be a bit longer.
The use of tor for your
MSN and ICQ traffic is
twofold:
1. Using tor anonymizing traffic network will keep your
anonymity on the net private
2. Using the tor anonimity online services will let you access
IM servers despite firewall blocking applied by administrators on
certain places for instance (in your School or Your work env) and
will therefore let you still use your favourite IM in spite of the
applied firewall restrictions.
Anyways as we all know life is not perfect :)
Despite the slower logins and the bit slower message transmission,
at least you won't be easily tracable by third party prying
eyes,
administrators or any other messanger spying sniffer traffic logger
installed somewhere in between yourself and the end side of an IM
server.
Hope this article helps somebody out there and will be a step
further in the battle for securying your privacy
online.