PROFESSORSNAPPER  Well, I think I've answered my own question (kinda).

It seems that sending torrent traffic through anonymous onion routing (Tor) is bad form and slow, but that there's value in at least connecting with the tracker via proxy.

Some info on this is at:

http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/

TheOnionRouter/TorifyHOWTO/BitTorrent

An intro to Tor (including some useful FAQ pages via the "Docs" link) is at:

http://tor.eff.org/index.html.en  
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PROFESSORSNAPPER  Thanks for the response.

So, back to my first Q: would using Tor provide anonymity while torrenting? Anyone have experience of this?

Thanks...  
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PROFESSORSNAPPER  An interesting contribution to the privacy discussion, from an interview with the inventor of BitTorrent:

"The so-called ‘encryption’ of BitTorrent traffic isn’t really encryption, it’s obfuscation. It provides no anonymity whatsoever, and only temporarily evades traffic shaping. There are better approaches to obfuscation, and I’ve got a great team of engineers who are quite eager to fight that battle..."

(complete interview at)

http://torrentfreak.com/interview-with-bram-cohen-the-inventor-of-bittorrent/

So, where does that leave the privacy-conscious torrenter? Hmmm....  
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PROFESSORSNAPPER  Can anyone suggest a checklist of steps to take, in order to use torrenting anonymously (preferably using free / opensource software)? Would using Tor (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17679)

help? Thanks....  
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