Quote from: cellard on November 12, 2017, 05:46:52 PM

This seems to be the case. I was confused and just assumed taht if the Tor Browser was oppened then Bitcoin Core autoamtically sets it up for you.

By the way I was reading on using Tor with Core and I saw this:

Quote

Note: It is not recommended that you use the Tor network for transferring wallets (unless well encrypted) as there are various attacks against this that can result in you losing your wallet, such as man in the middle exit nodes. In this example we are simply using the Tor network to route Bitcoin client traffic over the Tor network in order to perform simple tasks such as transactions and downloading the block chain, as this can help reduce your susceptibility to de-anonymization attacks.

So im not sure anymore if this is a good idea at all... maybe it's better to use a regular VPN than Tor if you want an increased degree of privacy?

I see people very often confused about exit nodes, that is the part where most people don't understand the best about Tor. VPN are worse for privacy in every way unless you are running a VPN yourself, which kind of defeats the purpose of anonymity in the first place.

Running a Bitcoin node through Tor is absolutely just as safe (even more so) then running it through a VPN or just directly connected through the Internet. Bitcoin is distributed so there is no real harm of MITM attacks, safety is in the protocol already.

Tor exit nodes know about your data just as much as your ISP, there is no difference, except they don't know where it is coming from. Most websites use HTTPS and the contents of the data is hidden between the client and the server, otherwise everyone on your wifi network or your ISP would know your data. All wifi networks are insecure currently as WPA2 has been broken, so if you use a wifi there is no reason not to use Tor exit nodes, as your connection should be end to end encrypted anyway.

I am unsure if Bitcoin Core uses encryption for connections between nodes, but I can tell you that all the data that they are transferring (blocks, transactions,...) is already public knowledge and accessible to anyone and any other Bitcoin full node. So there is absolutely no risk in using Tor in any situation.

Transferring wallet data, which nodes don't do of course as everyone would have everyone's private keys, is just as safe over Tor as over a regular connection or VPN, as your data will be available for your ISP, anyone on your LAN network (and WLAN) network, VPN service and every router between you and the destination to which you are sending your wallet.