Implementing irssi IRC Anonymity

I'm looking to connect to an IRC server that I do not trust with any of my information, including my IP. In the past I have connected through a web client over Tor but it has become unreliable. My preferred IRC client is irssi on the Unix command line.

I've looked into IRC bouncers including the built-in irssi-proxy but I don't think they will adequately protect me and suit my needs. I am not sure whether or not connecting via Tor would work on the server's end since I know that many servers blacklist Tor nodes, but it is supposed to be unnecessarily inconvenient to implement client-side, so I'd like to avoid it regardless. The methods for obscuring your IP/DNS to other people on the server won't work for me because I'm looking to obscure my IP from the server itself.

What is the best way to anonymously access this IRC server with irssi? External proxies? VPN? Something else?

jstrieb

Posted 2015-12-04T03:07:41.627

Reputation: 125

Answers

All of these bouncers, proxies and VPNs work the same way; the rely on the fact that you're running them on some other 3rd party server whos IP address is different from your own. You have to install them yourself on a vps for them to act as an anonymizer, or subscribe to a turnkey service like irccloud or a VPN.

In your example, you'd most likely register for an openvz-based virtual linux server somewhere, install & configure irssi, and then connect through that.

cloneman

Posted 2015-12-04T03:07:41.627

Reputation: 1 016

I also don't see any other way than using TOR. Last time I checked, it is cumbersome to set up irc to use TOR. It would be easier to TORrify this traffic from your router to the IRC server. Then irssi would not be aware that it is going through TOR. Of course, the server may still blacklist you. You then just need to cycle through exit-nodes until you hit one that is not blocked – Chris V – 2019-03-29T06:35:02.650