QUIC Protocol with OpenVPN?

Discussion in 'privacy technology' started by MonarchX, Mar 29, 2020.

  1. MonarchX

    MonarchX Registered Member

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    Can enabling QUIC Protocol compromise privacy when used with OpenVPN and QUIC-supporting browsero_O I also noticed that Windows 10 comes with WinQuic driver, but Brave and/or Edge Chromium apply QUIC without activating/enabling/using WinQuic.sys driver service/process. WinQuic.sys remains in On-Demand (Not Running) state at all times on my machine.
     
  2. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    QUIC just replaces TCP with UDP, so I doubt that it's a huge issue for OpenVPN.

    However, I can imagine how QUIC could lead to bypassing Tor, because Tor doesn't handle UDP traffic, unless you had firewall rules that blocked all non-Tor traffic. That shouldn't be an issue if you just use Tor browser, because they'd never implement QUIC. But maybe you could manage to fsck yourself, if you tried hard enough.
     
  3. MonarchX

    MonarchX Registered Member

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    So it is best NOT to enable that feature in Chrome/Edge if privacy is the goal?
     
  4. reasonablePrivacy

    reasonablePrivacy Registered Member

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    QUIC was a protocol that was later send as draft of HTTP/3. HTTP/3 is modified QUIC. HTTP/3, QUIC and HTTP/2 are binary protocols while HTTP/1.1 is text-based protocol. I would say HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 implementation-wise are completely different protocols than HTTP/1.1, it just happens API of libraries implementing HTTP/3 and HTTP/2 are very similar to HTTP/1.1.
     
  5. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    No, I don't see any clear reason to avoid QUIC.

    If you delve into why Tor doesn't transport UDP, you'll find arguments that UDP is less privacy-friendly than TCP. I haven't thought about that for years, and sitting here I'm not sure whether those issues are still relevant.

    As I said, you don't want UDP-using apps where you rely on Tor for anonymity. Because that would increase the risk of bypassing Tor. But otherwise, I don't believe there's a substantial issue.

    I note that I2P both uses UDP for transport, and itself transports UDP. Also, the Loki network, which is implementing a new onion-routing network, somewhat like Tor and I2P, also uses UDP for transport, and itself transports UDP. It's a new protocol, developed by people who seem to care a lot about privacy, so that implies that UDP is OK for privacy.
     
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