So I thought I would highlight the next major enhancement to qBittorrent - I2P support!, what the heck is I2P i hear you cry, well i can’t put it better than the Wikipedia entry for I2P:-
The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is an anonymous network layer (implemented as a mix network) that allows for censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer communication. Anonymous connections are achieved by encrypting the user’s traffic (by using end-to-end encryption), and sending it through a volunteer-run network of roughly 55,000 computers distributed around the world. Given the high number of possible paths the traffic can transit, a third party watching a full connection is unlikely. The software that implements this layer is called an “I2P router”, and a computer running I2P is called an “I2P node”. I2P is free and open sourced, and is published under multiple licenses.[5]
So what does all this mean for you as an end user?, it means the potential end of using VPN’s in order to stay anonymous when torrenting, I2P will completely obfuscate your IP address meaning no more complex VPN setup or costs that are associated with signing up to a VPN provider.
I2P integration with qBittorrent is planned for the next major release, version 4.6.x, keep your eyes open for this landing!.
Note:- libtorrent 1.x does NOT support I2P, so if you are using the tagged docker image libtorrentv1 and want to use I2P then for the time being you will be SOL.
Do we know if running clients will also serve as i2p routers / contribute bandwidth? This could be a massive step forwards for both torrent swarm privacy and the i2p network as a whole
Thanks for sharing binhex!
OHHHHH YESSSSSS!!!
How does this work for the exit node? Surely they’ll just get their IP flagged for torrent data? Or is the intention the data is encrypted so by the time it exits, nobody knows what the data is?
Also, does this turn everyone into a potential exit node too?