Bridge or no bridge?

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1

hello dear Whonix community, I have thought about using bridges to hide that I am using Tor (Whonix). the obvious advantage is that it is harder for potential observers (ISP, government…) to find out that I am using it.

however, if i understood the Whonix documentation right, it says that it might not be necessarily better to use bridges if I don’t live in a country which blocks Tor:

[Quote] [Roger Dingledine, cofounder] of [Tor]

[…] Bridges are less reliable and tend to have lower performance than other entry points. If you live in a uncensored area, they are not necessarily more secure than entry guards. […]

Quote question:

If that is true, that also means, that bridge users are sufficiently more vulnerable to attacks, which are circumvented by entry guards?

[Quote] Roger Dingledine, cofounder of Tor:

[…] They’re probably more vulnerable, but I don’t know if I’d say “sufficiently”. […]

If a user is only concerned with connectivity (getting Whonix ™ connected) and local ISPs do not usually hinder connections to the public Tor network, then something simpler than Bridges can be tried; see: [Better Connectivity without Real Censorship Circumvention].

what are your thoughts about this? i surely don’t want to increase the vulnerabilities by using bridges. what kind of vulnerabilities could they mean exactly?

2

Whonix doesn’t really say this. Well, depends the way you look at it. Whonix is only citing, pointing to an authoritative source. In this case, Roger Dingledine, cofounder of Tor.

If you have a complex follow-up question, and desire a high quality answer, I recommend to go back to the source where it was originally stated.

  • Ask a good follow-up question. → General Advice
  • Citation of the original statement and author.
  • Link to original source.
  • Leaving out irrelevant information such as “found this on the Whonix website”.
  • CC the original author.
  • Probably post this in the same venue, same mailing list and/or research where the author / Tor developers are most active nowadays.

See also:

You could look up online available materials, research on Tor entry guards and rotation.