Re: Making package.el talk over Tor

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> Cc: philipk@posteo.net, akib@disroot.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2023 23:06:38 -0500
> 
>   > > Is this the code you mean?
>   > > 
>   > > 		      (open-network-stream
>   > > 		       name buffer host service
>   > > 		       :type gw-method
>   > > 		       ;; Use non-blocking socket if we can.
>   > > 		       :nowait (and (featurep 'make-network-process)
>   > >                                     (url-asynchronous url-current-object)
>   > >                                     '(:nowait t)))
> 
>   > > How can I make that use TOR?
> 
>   > Perhaps the ':type shell' connection is the solution?
> 
> I have no idea.  How could I use that to acheieve the goal?

I never tried this, and I'm not familiar with TOR, so all I have is
what the ELisp manual says where it documents open-network-stream
(which is the workhorse of all Emacs commands that use network
connections):

 -- Function: open-network-stream name buffer host service &rest
          parameters
     This function opens a TCP connection, with optional encryption, and
     returns a process object that represents the connection.
 [...]
     The remaining arguments PARAMETERS are keyword/argument pairs that
     are mainly relevant to encrypted connections:
 [...]
     ‘:type TYPE’
          The type of connection.  Options are:
          ‘plain’
               An ordinary, unencrypted connection.
          ‘tls’
          ‘ssl’
               A TLS (Transport Layer Security) connection.
          ‘nil’
          ‘network’
               Start with a plain connection, and if parameters
               ‘:success’ and ‘:capability-command’ are supplied, try to
               upgrade to an encrypted connection via STARTTLS.  If that
               fails, retain the unencrypted connection.
          ‘starttls’
               As for ‘nil’, but if STARTTLS fails drop the connection.
          ‘shell’
               A shell connection.
 [...]
     ‘:shell-command STRING-OR-NIL’
          If the connection ‘type’ is ‘shell’, this parameter will be
          interpreted as a format-spec string that will be executed to
          make the connection.  The specs available are ‘%s’ for the
          host name and ‘%p’ for the port number.  For instance, if you
          want to first ssh to ‘gateway’ before making a plain
          connection, then this parameter could be something like ‘ssh
          gateway nc %s %p’.

This sounds like a way to make the connection by running a shell
command.  Maybe you could arrange for using this facility to do what
you want?  Apologies if this makes no sense to someone who does
understand how TOR works; I don't.