TOR browser & other vpn solutions for ppc.

[1042686]

With the recent vote to repeal POTUS Obama's ISP customer service protections restricting ISPs from selling our personal data, I've been reading about vpn services & software like tor and saw some specific tor builds for PowerPC. These all date to around 2014 however. What current solutions are you guys using for your power PC computers?

 

[Hack5190]

With the recent vote to repeal POTUS Obama's ISP customer service protections restricting ISPs from selling our personal data, I've been reading about vpn services & software like tor and saw some specific tor builds for PowerPC. These all date to around 2014 however. What current solutions are you guys using for your power PC computers?

See my post in the FAQ thread -> https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/f-a-q-for-powerpc-macs.1091765/page-7#post-22550168

 

[KawaiiAurora]

With the recent vote to repeal POTUS Obama's ISP customer service protections restricting ISPs from selling our personal data, I've been reading about vpn services & software like tor and saw some specific tor builds for PowerPC. These all date to around 2014 however. What current solutions are you guys using for your power PC computers?

I doubt that the CIA will be interested in hacking a Leopard PPC machine to see what some PPC hobbyist is doing ;p If they do.. America sure has interesting reasons for their debt..

 

[eyoungren]

I doubt that the CIA will be interested in hacking a Leopard PPC machine to see what some PPC hobbyist is doing ;p If they do.. America sure has interesting reasons for their debt..

There is a reason why the Utah Data Collection Center exists. https://www.wired.com/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

And it's not because the NSA had a surplus in servers.
[doublepost=1490997903][/doublepost]

With the recent vote to repeal POTUS Obama's ISP customer service protections restricting ISPs from selling our personal data, I've been reading about vpn services & software like tor and saw some specific tor builds for PowerPC. These all date to around 2014 however. What current solutions are you guys using for your power PC computers?

If you use Tor, keep in mind that your exit nodes are often outside the US. Irrespective of the government, this tends to have a lot of reverberating problems from US ISPs, email providers, etc.

Google alone will start hitting you with CAPTCHA's before letting you search because certain IP addresses that belong to the non-US exit node overuse Google. That's just one aspect.

Cox didn't like my using their IMAP and SMTP servers with foreign IP addresses so my ISP stopped allowing me to send out or receive my email.

Stuff like that…

 

[Hack5190]

TOR is not perfect - at some point your data needs to reenter the public internet. And there have been attempts to control multiple exit nodes so traffic leaving the TOR network can be monitored. Here is just one (1) article on the suject, there are a lot more . . .

https://pando.com/2015/04/27/some-r...ed-tor-exit-nodes-to-spy-on-an-email-service/
[doublepost=1490999748][/doublepost]

I doubt that the CIA will be interested in hacking a Leopard PPC machine to see what some PPC hobbyist is doing ;p If they do.. America sure has interesting reasons for their debt..

The original poster was concerned with the bill being overturned in Washington. That bill allows your ISP to capture and see data about your internet use. Same thing that google, facebook, apple and many more (non ISP's) are already doing. Your reply is off subject!

Implying that governments (NSA, FBI, CIA or another member of the 5-Eyes) don't monitor the traffic of those using outdated hardware / software is both wrong and stupid. Think about it, and next time think before you post.

 

[KawaiiAurora]

TOR is not perfect - at some point your data needs to reenter the public internet. And there have been attempts to control multiple exit nodes so traffic leaving the TOR network can be monitored. Here is just one (1) article on the suject, there are a lot more . . .

https://pando.com/2015/04/27/some-r...ed-tor-exit-nodes-to-spy-on-an-email-service/
[doublepost=1490999748][/doublepost]

The original poster was concerned with the bill being overturned in Washington. That bill allows your ISP to capture and see data about your internet use. Same thing that google, facebook, apple and many more (non ISP's) are already doing. Your reply is off subject!

Implying that governments (NSA, FBI, CIA or another member of the 5-Eyes) don't monitor the traffic of those using outdated hardware / software is both wrong and stupid. Think about it, and next time think before you post.

Sorry for my ignorant reply :/ Maybe using a PowerPC computer, especially on OS X, simply isn't the best way to go considering that they're getting a tad out dated. If the OP's main priority is 100% security, trying various VPNs and avoiding the PPC platform may be the best way to go.

 

[ziggy29]

I use Private Internet Access (PIA, $40 per year for an essentially unlimited number of clients). I would not generally use a PPC Mac for anything that requires the utmost in security and privacy -- but for general use I use Viscosity (1.4.10, the last version that supports PPCs on Leopard) and import PIA's configuration files for OpenVPN. It seems to work and online utilities don't show a DNS leak, so that is something. Still, I'm not assuming this is as secure or private as my VPN usage on my Macs running El Cap or Sierra, or on my Windows 10 gaming rig, all of which are still receiving regular security updates. A lot better than nothing, for sure, as long as you aren't lulled into a false sense of maximum security.

That said, this solution is Leopard-only, so if you are still on Tiger (or earlier), Viscosity won't work.
[doublepost=1491081676][/doublepost]

Sorry for my ignorant reply :/ Maybe using a PowerPC computer, especially on OS X, simply isn't the best way to go considering that they're getting a tad out dated. If the OP's main priority is 100% security, trying various VPNs and avoiding the PPC platform may be the best way to go.

The OP said nothing about hackers or the government tunneling into our activities. The OP was only talking about ISPs selling our browsing history. And in reality, with a properly configured VPN, your ISP generally won't see your browsing history while using it, even on a PPC Mac.

 

[Hack5190]

If you are considering a VPN service let me offer a few things to keep in mind:

• You should choose a VPN provider with an exit node in your own country, otherwise you will have the problem many people dislike when using TOR (websites seeing your traffic as originating outside your own country).
• Many websites use a blacklist check, those lists often include known VPN exit node IP's. As a result some websites / services will block you for using a VPN.
• If your VPN provider doesn't use port 443 for the the server side of the tunnel (and most don't) your ISP will know your using a VPN.
• Use a watchdog to block internet access if the VPN connection drops. Otherwise traffic can be monitored by your ISP.
• Some VPN providers auto disconnect you after X number of hours. (See watchdog above)
• VPN providers limit or restrict certain types of (exit) traffic such as torrents & streaming services.
• Consider that although your ISP can't see anything but encrypted traffic when using a VPN, the VPN service provider can.
  
• Be cautious when selecting a VPN provider to ensure they take privacy seriously. At a minimum the VPN provider should never collect logs (of any kind, never, ever).
  
• And finally choose a VPN provider with a warrant canary (DuckDuckGo it) and monitor it for changes !!!!!!

 

[Dronecatcher]

Forgive my naive thinking here…but won't everyone signed to an ISP with a live connection but using Tor etc present a profile of having non standard traffic…and therefore bring their activity under closer scrutiny?
If my objective was analysing/eavesdropping online traffic for suspicious activity, I'd put all my resources into parties trying to evade detection..

 

[Hack5190]

Forgive my naive thinking here…but won't everyone signed to an ISP with a live connection but using Tor etc present a profile of having non standard traffic…and therefore bring their activity under closer scrutiny?
If my objective was analysing/eavesdropping online traffic for suspicious activity, I'd put all my resources into parties trying to evade detection..

Personally I'm not concerned that my traffic stands out. But you raise a good point. If you can find a VPN provider that operates on port 443 then the ISP wouldn't notice your doing anything out of the ordinary.

Keep in mind that even when using a VPN, unless your routing DNS requests via the VPN tunnel or using DNSCrypt (DuckDuckGo it) - odds are your ISP knows what domain names / urls your visiting. Your ISP and Google don't provide free DNS servers just because they are nice

 

[eyoungren]

Forgive my naive thinking here…but won't everyone signed to an ISP with a live connection but using Tor etc present a profile of having non standard traffic…and therefore bring their activity under closer scrutiny?
If my objective was analysing/eavesdropping online traffic for suspicious activity, I'd put all my resources into parties trying to evade detection..

Yeah. This is one of those things that can get you on a list with the government you don't want to be on. I'm quite sure I'm on several I don't know about.

The government routinely monitors TOR entrance/exit nodes. It's even been reported that they have broken the encryption - although I don't know if that's true or not.

The truly laughable thing is that the United States Navy developed TOR. The US government encouraged it's use by foreign dissedents to report on abuses by their governments. Yet other aspects of the US government are actively trying to breach TOR!

Go figure!

 

[ziggy29]

Keep in mind that even when using a VPN, unless your routing DNS requests via the VPN tunnel or using DNSCrypt (DuckDuckGo it)

Speaking of which, is there a way to make Leopard WebKit default to using DuckDuckGo for searches? I can install the extension but it seems like I can only use Google, Yahoo or Bing even if I go to the preferences and make DDG my default.

 

[internetzel]

Speaking of which, is there a way to make Leopard WebKit default to using DuckDuckGo for searches? I can install the extension but it seems like I can only use Google, Yahoo or Bing even if I go to the preferences and make DDG my default.

Yes there is! Glims for Safari lets you customize your search engine (look for it's preference tab in the Safari preferences!).
You can get the last Leopard compatible version here: http://www.machangout.com/dwnlds/Glims-1.0.39.dmg.zip

 

[topbanana_]

With the recent vote to repeal POTUS Obama's ISP customer service protections restricting ISPs from selling our personal data, I've been reading about vpn services & software like tor and saw some specific tor builds for PowerPC. These all date to around 2014 however. What current solutions are you guys using for your power PC computers?

I use Private Internet Access ('PIA') as my VPN solution across several machines including the PM when it was on Leopard by using it in conjunction with the Tunnelblick application. Of course now only an old version is still supoorted though it still works well.

However on Linux with the PM I use the standard GUI networking client of the O/S to setup PIA.