Tor - Online Anonymity

What is Tor?

Tor was originally designed, implemented, and deployed as a third-generation onion routing project of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. It was originally developed with the U.S. Navy in mind, for the primary purpose of protecting government communications. Today, it is used every day for a wide variety of purposes by normal people, the military, journalists, law enforcement officers, activists, and many others.

Why do we need Tor?

Using Tor protects you against a common form of Internet surveillance known as “traffic analysis.” Traffic analysis can be used to infer who is talking to whom over a public network. Knowing the source and destination of your Internet traffic allows others to track your behavior and interests. This can impact your checkbook if, for example, an e-commerce site uses price discrimination based on your country or institution of origin. It can even threaten your job and physical safety by revealing who and where you are. For example, if you’re travelling abroad and you connect to your employer’s computers to check or send mail, you can inadvertently reveal your national origin and professional affiliation to anyone observing the network, even if the connection is encrypted.

Tor is a very great tool, but it is not entirely user friendly.  It is most effective when configured properly and offers an extra proxy on top of its node set up.  Tor also has an add on for Firefox called TorButton (MacOS | Linux | Windows) which works great if you use Firefox. For some people Tor can be a bit difficult to use at first but again, take your time to learn security and safety as it is VERY crucial. You can visit the Tor Project site Here to learn more and download.