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Re: OT RE: Limiting hops



A VPN might be somewhat overkill to set up. You could just use an ssh
tunnel to accomplish the same thing. It'd still be cross platform, but
instead of configuring openvpn, it'd just be 'ssh -D port
youruser@trustedhost'. This is what I do to get around wifi sniffers or
school networks.

On Tue, 2008-11-18 at 10:55 -0800, Marc Erickson wrote:
> Thanks everyone for the replies.  It's now apparent to me that Tor isn't
> designed for the purpose I'm using it for and I would be better served with
> a different solution. Is a VPN what I should be looking for?  I'm looking
> for a no or low cost solution.  If this discussion should be carried out off
> of this list, feel free to contact me directly.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Marc
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-or-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-or-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Gregory Maxwell
> Sent: November 18, 2008 7:11 AM
> To: or-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Limiting hops
> 
> On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 6:46 AM, Erilenz <erilenz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > * on the Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 01:05:27PM -0800, Marc Erickson wrote:
> >
> >> I use Tor on my laptop to encrypt wireless packets when connecting to an
> >> unsecured wireless network.  Is there a way to limit the number of hops
> the
> >> packets take through the servers so that I can better the speed?  I only
> >> need one hop.  I'm running Windows XP.
> >
> > By using Tor for that purpose, all you're doing is making it so people
> > running Exit Tor nodes can sniff your traffic, rather than people watching
> > the unsecured wireless network.
> >
> > I wouldn't automatically assume that reduces your chance of having your
> > traffic sniffed. It might even increase the chance of that occuring.
> 
> I think we can safely say that for most people using Tor makes it
> *more* likely that their unencrypted traffic will be sniffed.
> 
> But TOR would usually change who is sniffing the traffic:  Some guy in
> his basement, some foreign government, or some spammer/scammer
> harvesting email addresses and credit card numbers from your traffic
> may be preferable to the person's school, employer, or government all
> of which may have a more direct and specific interest in the person's
> activities.
> 

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