Bisq is an open-source desktop application that allows you to buy and sell bitcoins in exchange for national currencies, or alternative crypto currencies.
Has anyone been able to get this running? It seems to come pre-packaged with Tor? Is it trying to run Tor over Tor in Whonix? Did I read that Whonix has built-in measures to prevent this?
Bisq seems like an interesting project.
Bubonic Chronic:
Did I read that Whonix has built-in measures to prevent this?
Yes.
If that works depends on the technical specifics how Bisq starts and
uses Tor.
Well, I have not done any extensive testing yet. But out of the box, given enough time, Bisq seems to connect without a problem. (It says I am connected to 8-9 peers at any given time).
I have not attempted to use any currencies yet, but the program itself seems to run as expected.
I’m going to poke at it a bit more, then I’m going to see if I can exchange currencies without going broke.
I’ll keep this thread updated with my progress.
If that works
-> Clarification: If Tor over Tor protection works depends on the Tor integration of Bisq. I don’t know.
There might be indeed connectivity but with Tor over Tor. Look for Tor in running processes and look how Bisq code starts Tor or checks if it is already running.
Tested. Results in Tor over Tor.
https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Dev/anon-ws-disable-stacked-tor can’t prevent it.
Doesn’t talk to system Tor’s default ControlPort.
See also:
/home/user/.local/share/Bisq/btc_mainnet/tor/torrc
# This file was generated by Tor; if you edit it, comments will not be preserved
# The old torrc file was renamed to torrc.orig.1 or similar, and Tor will ignore it
AvoidDiskWrites 1
ClientTransportPlugin fte exec ./PluggableTransports/fteproxy.bin --managed
ClientTransportPlugin obfs2,obfs3,obfs4,scramblesuit exec ./PluggableTransports/obfs4proxy
ClientTransportPlugin meek exec ./PluggableTransports/meek-client
ControlPort auto
CookieAuthentication 1
CookieAuthFile /home/user/.local/share/Bisq/btc_mainnet/tor/.tor/control_auth_cookie
DataDirectory /home/user/.local/share/Bisq/btc_mainnet/tor
GeoIPFile /home/user/.local/share/Bisq/btc_mainnet/tor/geoip
GeoIPv6File /home/user/.local/share/Bisq/btc_mainnet/tor/geoip6
HiddenServiceDir /home/user/.local/share/Bisq/btc_mainnet/tor/hiddenservice
HiddenServicePort 9999 127.0.0.1:39115
HiddenServiceStatistics 0
PidFile /home/user/.local/share/Bisq/btc_mainnet/tor/pid
RunAsDaemon 1
SocksPort auto
/opt/Bisq/Bisq starts a process:
/home/user/.local/share/Bisq/btc_mainnet/tor/tor -f /home/user/.local/share/Bisq/btc_mainnet/tor/torrc __OwningControllerProcess 4987For anyone that knows Java, Bisq needs developers to help them fine tune their Tor implementation. There are quite a few Tor related issues on their tracker.