IP Address leaking on torrents?

Bug discussion
#1

I’ve used multiple sites for testing my torrent IP address and they all say i am using my ISP IP address, i tried both single hop and double hop to no avail, it seems to deduct my token balance but doesn’t seem to offer me any privacy.

Here’s a test showing my VPN IP address only showing up and none of the tribler proxies (2 hops setting) :

I’ve also tested this without any VPN at all but i cannot show my actual ip address for obvious reasons, however i can confirm that is leaking too.

Just to clear up any misconceptions, when i add a torrent i have both tickboxes selected for downloading through a proxy, i’ve tried with both admin and non-admin privledge levels to the same result, any help would be appreciated and anyone else having this problem please speak up so i know if it’s only me or not, thank you.

#2

@databoose To download a torrent, first Tribler needs to download the torrent metadata and then if anonymity is enabled Tribler will start creating tor-like circuits to do anonymous downloads.

As of v7.1.2, the first part of getting the torrent metadata (not the content) is not anonymous yet. It is a normal torrent DHT request where IP address is exposed. Many torrent IP checkers check this metadata request and display your IP. Note that, at this point, you’re not actually downloading the content files. If you choose to download the content files (all or partial) with anonymity enabled, then all the download will go through proxies and your actual IP will not be exposed.

We have also recently built our own DHT implementation which can be extended to support anonymous metadata request but that will take some time. We would like you to stay tuned for future releases.

#3

Ah i see, thank you for the response. Would enabling a VPN during metadata fetching and peer discovery, and then turning off the VPN conceal my IP address?