Anonymous Torrenting With I2P

In a world where censorship is rising, true online privacy demands more than just a VPN; it requires a robust, decentralized network like i2p to keep your digital footprint hidden.

In a world of increasing censorship and online content moderation, peer-to-peer file sharing is becoming more important than ever. However, there is a downside to using peer-to-peer protocols like BitTorrent. The peers who participate in data exchanges or torrent swarms are identifiable by their IP addresses, which creates a significant problem. If the data being exchanged is copyrighted or something that a tyrannical government wants to suppress, the participants in the data exchange could be unmasked through an official request to their respective internet companies.

You might consider using a VPN and configuring it in your BitTorrent client so that your IP address is hidden whenever you share files. This approach does work, but it requires a lot of trust in your VPN not to unmask you. After all, they know your true IP address, what torrent you are sharing, and when you are connecting to them. Additionally, everyone else participating in the torrent swarm can see which VPN you are using; they can even see the exact server you are connected to because that is the IP address that shows up in the swarm. Therefore, any threat actor who does not want you sharing that data could simply go to the VPN provider and request data to unmask you.

Unless you are using one of the few VPNs that truly do not keep any activity logs, allow you to pay for the service without a credit card, and do not require you to create an account with your email, phone number, or anything else that would leave a paper trail back to you, you could be in serious trouble. Even if your VPN meets all these criteria, it still might not be enough. There are only a handful of VPN companies that offer this gold standard of privacy, and not many people are actually using them. If a threat actor collaborates with an ISP to monitor your internet traffic, like a tyrannical government might, they will see when you connected to the VPN server. They can then monitor the swarm for whatever torrents you share or download, observing the same server's IP pop up.

Even though your connection is encrypted by the VPN, the time of connection and data sent can still be correlated. For example, if you torrent a 5 GB file at 10:00 a.m., the threat actor can see the VPN server connected to the swarm around the same time you connected to the VPN. They will notice that at least 5 GB of data traveled through each hop around that same time. Depending on your situation, these correlations might be enough for the government to come and lock you up, obtain a search warrant, question you, and subject you to other unpleasant consequences.

To share files anonymously, we need some kind of dark web to facilitate this. This is where I2P, also known as The Invisible Internet Project, comes into play. Similar to Tor, I2P routes your connection through multiple encrypted hops located around the world, making it very difficult to track anyone. The main difference is that everyone using I2P actually ends up routing traffic for other people as well. Therefore, the more people that use it, the faster it gets. In contrast, with Tor, the vast majority of users simply consume bandwidth on the network, and less than 1% of people are actively running relays to support it. Consequently, during times when everyone and their mother hops on to visit a new dark web market, Tor can become quite slow.

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i2p makes your online experience faster and more secure by routing your connection through multiple encrypted hops, while also encouraging users to share bandwidth, unlike Tor where most just consume.

The I2P network routes your connection through multiple encrypted hops that are in different locations around the world, making it very difficult to track anyone. The main difference between I2P and Tor is that everyone using I2P actually ends up routing traffic for other people as well. Therefore, the more people that use it, the faster it gets. In contrast, with Tor, the vast majority of users just take bandwidth on the network, and less than 1% of people are actually running relays to help the network.

At times when everyone and their mother hops on to visit a new dark web market or something similar, Tor ends up getting really slow. However, as mentioned, the more people that connect to I2P, the faster it becomes. Additionally, the traffic routing through I2P makes data and time correlation attacks much harder to execute because the traffic that is meant for you is being mixed in with traffic that you are routing to other people. This results in way more data flowing through your connection than the stuff that you are actually downloading or uploading.

Finally, because I2P is already a peer-to-peer network, torrenting is not only supported but encouraged. In fact, there are torrent clients like I2P Snark that are preconfigured to work over this amazing dark web. I am going to demo it to you all really quick. Of course, we need to have an I2P router running, which I have covered how to do on my channel already.

Currently, I am running my router through I2P and, unfortunately, as you can see, my connection is firewalled by my ISP. I might be able to call them to fix that, but I2P still works even with a subpar internet connection like this. I want to show you that it can function under a worst-case scenario connection; it might be a little slow, but in my experience, it is still faster than Tor.

When configuring your I2P console, make sure that you enable I2CP in your config so that you can use I2P Snark, the torrent application, along with other clients like BiglyBT. You need I2CP to connect to the network, and other torrent clients will require SAM or other I2P protocols. Therefore, ensure that you enable whichever ones you need and verify that the settings are enabled within your web console before starting your torrent application.

This is the setting to enable I2CP within the I2PD.com file on the default port of 7654. Now go ahead and download the I2P Snark standalone program from I2Pplus.github.io if you haven't already. You can also get I2P Snark with the I2P Plus bundle if you don’t have an I2P router like I2PD installed already. I2P Plus is actually more similar to the original I2P Java implementation but with a better UI and more software bundled together with it. However, since I am already using I2PD, I will just use the standalone application.

Also, since I2P Plus and the original I2P program are written in Java, you will need to download Java to your system in order to run them. Once you have all of those dependencies installed and I2P Snark downloaded, we can go ahead and run it with the Launch I2P Snark script. This should automatically open up the web interface for it in your default browser.

This is what the I2P Snark program looks like, and you can always access this web interface when it’s running by visiting localhost and then the port 802 in your browser. We will come down here to the magic wand icon to create a torrent file. Here, it wants us to put in the data to seed, so all you have to do is copy the path to a directory or to a file that you want to share. I will be using this test torrent, and there are also options to select trackers and filter out content that you don’t want.

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Unlock the power of anonymous file sharing with I2P—because some content is too controversial for the mainstream.

To begin, open up the web interface for the I2P Snark program in your default browser. This is what the I2P Snark program looks like, and you can always access this web interface when it's running by visiting Local Host and then Port 802 in your browser.

Next, navigate to the magic wand icon to create a torrent file. Here, you will need to input the data to seed. All you have to do is copy the path to a directory or to a file that you want to share. For this demonstration, I will be using a file named test torrent. There are also options available to select trackers and to filter out content that you do not want to share, ensuring that you do not accidentally include unwanted files. Once you have set everything up, simply click the create torrent button.

After clicking the button, you will see some information indicating that the torrent has been detected successfully. The folder for test torrent will now be visible, and if you click into it, you can see the content. I will be testing with Jordan Peterson's most controversial lecture ever. Here is a quick preview of this content:

“Sneed's Feed and Seed, but you really have to think about this. It has what you need to create and sustain life. It's like how would you say an analogous manifest of the Garden of Eden?”

This is indeed heavy material for YouTube, so I won’t play any more of it. There are many City Slickers out there with cars made in Guatemala who wish they could purge this from the internet. Well, good luck deleting it from the dark web, bucko.

Now, let’s start the torrent. We are actively sharing it, and up here is the magnet link that we can copy. Alternatively, you can copy it more easily by going back to the I2P Snark homepage and clicking on the link. Boom! Our magnet link has been copied to our clipboard, and you can now share this with anyone who you want to download the content.

Moving on, I am currently in I2P Snark, which is running on a different computer as part of I2P Plus. I can show you what that web console looks like for that version of I2P, which is definitely the nicest looking one out of all the different I2P implementations that I have used. You can see all the different programs available here.

To add a new torrent in I2P Snark, click on the green plus button. Make sure that the data directory is set to where you actually want to download the torrent. On Windows, by default, it will download to your program folder, so ensure that this is set correctly. In the from URL field, paste in the magnet link, and now we can get started with downloading the torrent.

Keep in mind that it takes a little longer for peers to discover each other on I2P compared to when you are using torrents on the clearnet. Additionally, this download might take a bit longer because my connection is firewalled. However, if you configure I2P for high bandwidth, it will still be relatively fast. I will now speed up this part of the video until the download finishes.

Now that the download is complete, we can go ahead and start playing this file on the other computer.

“Sneed's Feed and Seed, but you really have to think about this. It has what you need to create and sustain life. It's like how would you say an analogous manifest of the Garden of Eden?”

In this context, you have Homer, whose farming life is in chaos, an absolute hell, but he makes this sort of pilgrimage to Sneed's Feed and Seed to find what he needs.

And there you have it! That’s how you can transfer files peer-to-peer anonymously over the I2P network. If you enjoyed this video, please like and share to hack the algorithm. Also, check out my online store, base.win, where you can find awesome merchandise like the Little Damon t-shirt and the Common Finded hoodie. There’s a 10% discount storewide for paying with Monero at checkout. Have a great rest of your day!