Tor

Tor is a distributed 'onion' network, that makes it more difficult for an adversary to track any one peer on the network. Tor also is very useful to access the 'uncensored' internet in countries such as China and Iran.

Bitcoin can run easily on the Tor network.

Tor installation & use

todo explain: onion routing (how tor network helps to anonymize), encryption used, exit nodes, routers

Please follow the instructions provided with installation files and read the list of warnings. Tor doesn't magically anonymize all your traffic just because you install it.
Down the page you can find examples how to configure applications to use Tor to anonymize the origin of your traffic.
This is a detailed installation guide for Windows. Before you setup Bitcoin or mIRC to use Tor, please install Tor and start in.
On the taskbar of your compute you'll see a small green onion when Tor is running.

GUI

From Bitcoin client menu select Settings -> Options

Check "Connect through socks 4 proxy" with the address 127.0.0.1 and port 9050 (the Tor default port number)

Configuring an application to use Tor is also called to torify it. (needs a brief howto here)

Conducting business using bitcoin-otc can be done more anonymously when directly connected to a Freenode IRC hidden service.

bitcoind

Run bitcoind with -proxy=127.0.0.1:9050 (or whatever your SocksPort is).

Hidden services

These services are running within the tor network. You can connect to them for example using the -connect= parameter to bitcoind. Note that you do not need to use them - tor can also anonymize your normal internet traffic, including bitcoin connections. There are some technical reasons why hidden services may be beneficial, see the tor documentation if you're really interested.

Please add your service here if you run a stable bitcoin node under a tor hidden service.

• iy6ni3wkqazp4ytu.onion

mIRC

mIRC is a popular IRC client. This is a guide how to connect to Freenode IRC using Tor + SASL + mIRC.

Register your nick with freenode nickserv

Freenode only allows SASL authenticated users to connect to the onion IRC server. SASL authentication works only with a registered nickname.
Connect to Freenode IRC without using tor & execute
/msg nickserv register <password> <email>

You will see something like this
-NickServ- An email containing nickname activation instructions has been sent to <email>
-NickServ- If you do not complete registration within one day, your nickname will expire.

To finish your nick registration go the provided email and copy/paste the command from e-mail to irc.

Add SASL support to your mIRC installation

Download the SASL.dll and sasl.mrc files and copy them to your mIRC installation directory
Load sasl.mrc script (Alt + R to open script editor, Ctrl + L to load file, browse to sasl.mrc, press OK or "save & exit").

Type /dialog -m SASL.main SASL.main to open the SASL connection manager.

Add Freenode entry.

Network is Freenode.
Username and NS Password must match your nickserv reservation.
Auth Type can be PLAIN

setup mIRC to use Tor

Add the entry for Freenode onion IRC server

Configure mIRC to use a Proxy (your local Tor proxy)


Now you should be able to connect.
Bitcoin forum where this topic is discussed

External Tor Hidden Services

• MyBitcoin - A web-based transaction processor for Bitcoin
• The Bitcoin 4 Cash Service
• Freenode hidden service

External links

• Tor project
• Tor installation guide - Windows
• Tor FAQ
• how Tor works - overview
• Freenode over Tor info
• howto enable SASL in mIRC
• SASL.dll library for mIRC
• sasl script for mIRC
• Freenode resources on SASL