tor/privacy (socks5) option giving ssl error

[Daniel Atallah]

On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 7:08 PM, Ileana <ileana at fairieunderground.info> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Pidgin 2.10.6 (libpurple 2.10.6)
> 4cfe697ea3ae39a4fb3dad8e3ed1c70855901095
>
> I am trying to connect to Tor using Pidgin.  I am having a connection
> issue.  Of the three proxy options socks4, socks5, and
> tor/privacy(socks5), it seems I should be using tor/privacy(socks5).
>
> This issue has come up on some Tor lists.
>
> Can someone explain exactly what is the difference between Tor/Privacy
> Socks5, and just Socks5, and whether you believe Pidgin to preserve the
> anonymity?

The difference is that the Tor/Privacy proxy will disable various
other pieces of functionality (e.g. DNS queries) instead of just
proxying actual connections through a proxy.  If you have pidgin
configured appropriately (e.g. disabling UPnP, etc) we're not aware of
any leakage of information to someone listening between you and the
proxy endpoint.

> And also, my question as to why on my system, socks 5 works, but
> Tor/Privacy(Socks5) results in "SSL connection error" almost
> immediately (i.e. I don't think it is even making any network activity,
> it just immediately displays the SSL connect error.  Setting "Socks5"
> works fine.

You didn't provide any context to the specific issue, but the likely
reason for this particular error is that the Tor/Privacy Socks5 mode
will prevent DNS queries from occurring and this probably has the
effect of preventing you from determining the correct server to
connect to (e.g. a DNS SRV lookup is necessary to connect to the
appropriate XMPP server for a number of domains unless you specify a
Connect Server manually).

-D