UKC

I've probably been very slow but I've just heard about this, and read a wee bit about it. Any point asking if anyone here uses it? Seems weird that it's partly funded by U.S. government.

In reply to aln:

due to the media attention it gets there's a general misunderstanding that it is a purely criminal network set up by evil underground hackers and drug dealers. There is quite a lot of illegal stuff going on on there, but it's generally there for anyone that wants to be able to communicate without being traced. This can include people working for the government, journalists, and various others.

In reply to aln:
I use it occasionally. Probably it's biggest downfall is that it is now, always has been and probably always will be super duper slow. Partly by design and partly due to various other reasons (bottlenecks in the code, lack of high speed relays/exits). This greatly hampers usability and is the reason most people, myself included, use a VPN rather than Tor to anonymise our connections.

As for the US funding TOR, it was their naval intelligence guys who came up with the idea with the aim of securing their communications. They don't have any hand in producing the current version of TOR that you can go and download at the moment. They released the source code under a free usage licence in 2004 and it's been developed by The TOR Project (Americans from MIT). The code is open source, that means anyone can go and look at what makes up the program to see that there's nothing malicious hidden in the current build (ie: no backdoor that'd let the feds snoop on yo data/connection which would compromise anonymity).

So yeah, brilliant idea just lacking in speed. Use a VPN instead if you want to hide your connection/data/browsing. I use mullvad > https://mullvad.net/. Unlike many VPN providers who do log various aspects of the connection (and so can then pass those logs on if they are requested to do so by law enforcement/whoever) Mullvad simply don't log anything so they have no logs to release.

If you do intend to use it make sure you read a dummies guide to protecting yourself while running TOR, too many people make stupid mistakes like leaving Javascript on which can be exploited. Some info here, though much isn't relevant: http://lifehacker.com/how-can-i-stay-anonymous-with-tor-1498876762

In reply to Removed User:

I understood some of that. Take it I can't download TOR and just carry on using the internet as usual?

In reply to aln:
When you download TOR you generally download the Tor Browser Bundle which is a separate copy of Firefox that runs alongside TOR. You'd see about a 95% drop in internet speed if you tried to use TOR while browsing normally. If anonymity is what you're going for (or preventing your ISP from throttling your connection while you're torrenting or whatever) then pay for a VPN. That would anonymise your connection at a very small reduction in speed, perhaps 10%, though that varies with VPN provider and how decent their setups are - and of course where you choose your connection to exit. I exit from germany or holland so the speed reduction is pretty low, cause those 2 countries are geographically close to where we are. If you used an exit in russia or indonesia or something you'd expect a bigger speed reduction.

So the way a vpn exiting in germany would work is as follows:-

I request a website - that request is sent to the german VPN server - the vpn server requests the site - the site replies to the request made by the VPN server - the german VPN server relays the page to me. This way my connection is never revealed to the website, all they see is a request from german VPN server. Therefore I'm hidden.

The way tor works:-

I request a website - the request is sent to relay1 in ireland - the request is forwarded to relay2 in russia - the request is forwarded to relay3 in alaska - the request is forwarded to relay4 in china - the request is forwarded to the exit node in brazil - the website responds to the request and then the chain is reversed till I get the website. So relay4 in china only knows that relay3 wants that website, relay2 only knows that relay1 wants that website, therefore you're hidden behind numerous connections. This is super slow because there's so many relays and slow connections involved.

The way a normal internet connection works:-

I request a website - the request goes to the website - the website replies and gives me the site. They know who I am because there's no computers between me and that request.

Hope that helps to explain it a bit more.

In reply to Removed User:


Definitely, thanks for that.

In reply to aln:

Lots of people use tor to browse pr0n these days. What with ISP's implementing the great firewall of cameron where people have to opt in to an unfiltered feed. (Tick the box if you're a perv and want to see nudie pictures and terrorist material.)

You can download an ISO called Tails. You boot from cd, crack one off (or plot the overthrow of governments) and then remove the disk afterwards. You can access tor specific sites (.onion) and the general interwebs as well.

I2p, is where people are looking for a more secure darknet, after the Silkroad takedowns. You can access that from the Tails ISO as well.

In reply to dread-i:

Can you imagine using tor to browse porn? It'd be like dialup speeds but with a high chance of timing out and failing to load at all.

Just like Roy said in The IT Crowd : "Up all night and you'd see 8 women."