Skip bad connections?

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1

I’m getting bad connections a few times per day on my workstation that can’t load any websites until TOR loads a different route (10-20 minutes). Is there any way to detect that and get a different route?

2

Good day,

You are always able to manually restart any connections.

Have a nice day,

Ego

3

HI oid0r

You can use the arm Tor contoller.

Or as Ego suggested you can also restart your connection or change your circuit manually. Information on how to do this can be found in the Tor documentation.

4

Those methods have to be used manually, right? I’d like to have it automated. So far I’m not even sure if it’s a problem with my tor connection or the connection between gateway and workstation. All commands to test my connection to the internet on the gateway are blocked by the firewall (ping, wget, host etc).

5

Good day,

Well, ping doesn’t work as per: Frequently Asked Questions - Whonix ™ FAQ Since ping isn’t possible, there would be no way to automate this, as there’d be no way to assess a connections speed. Are you certain your country doesn’t disciminate against Tor traffic in some manner? Could you perhaps try using pluggable transport?

Have a nice day,

Ego

6

My workstation is basically loading the same website every few minutes to check something and can’t load it (or any website) sometimes for 10-20 minutes. The 10-20 minutes duration makes me assume this is due to bad circuits that can’t connect to anything.
I don’t think my traffic is discriminated from Germany.

7
  • a tor circuit is composed of: entry guard → middle relay → exit node
  • each website you visit will be assigned a new random circuit so it’s important that you distinguish whether one website (circuit) is not working or whether all websites are not working
  • if all websites are not working, then it’s likely there is a problem with some more permanent part of your connection. These can include your PC, your LAN, your ISP, or your entry guard.
  • if you have no problems with clearnet traffic, then you may have been assigned an unreliable entry guard. Or a good entry guard may be under attack from attackers who want you to use their entry guard.

If it is the latter, then this is a very difficult problem that is beyond Whonix’s ability to fix. The best place to get expert advice regarding Tor usage is Tor Project’s tor-talk mailing list: tor-talk Info Page

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8

There’s no good answer. At the moment, 3 options I can think of:

  1. suffer with an unreliable entry guard. The entry guard will eventually be killed off or rotated out.
  2. roll the dice and get a new entry guard, possibly playing right into an attacker’s hand.
  3. set up your own entry guard on a different machine - preferably using an ISP / hosting service and a location that adds diversity to the Tor network. It’ll earn entry-guard flag x days later and you can assign that as your entry guard.

Tor needs to make connections more costly (computationally) somehow to lessen denial attacks on relays.

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9

I’m having a connectivity problem that’s somewhat similar to oid0r. It started shortly after my entry guard rotated so I automatically assumed that is what it was. Before I decided weather to change my guard I started up my secondary Gateway and Workstation and sure enough, I had the same problem with Tor Browser which is also version 0.3.1.8 ( different system-different entry guard ).

At the moment I’m looking through the Updates from the Tor Project and hope that I am having a problem with a common bug (that is fixed in a latter version). If not at least I can rule that out and move on to the next possibility. I will report back if I find anything that may be of use.

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10

Many threads talking about relays under attack: The tor-relays December 2017 Archive by thread

Don’t know how present situation compares to historical norms.

Latest thread says attacks are increasing: [tor-relays] botnet? abusing/attacking guard nodes

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11

Official statement: Ongoing DDoS on the Network - Status

(from [tor-relays] Recent wave of abuse on Tor guards):

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