tor software

[ulu]

https://www.torproject.org/

have you heard of this software? Allows users to browse the web anonymously (without gov tracking) Sounds like a great thing.

 

[Qyöt27]

Yes, I've known about Tor for years, even before it became relatively easy to use it via Tor Browser.

There is a certain irony in the whole 'without government interference' part, since the onion routing technology Tor is built on was patented by the U.S. Navy in 1998 and the current incarnation was originally sponsored by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, before shifting to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, then to its own nonprofit. One of the major drives for it originally was to equip users in countries without freedom of the press/speech to get around their government's Internet censorship (China comes up in the discussion a lot, but others are in there too).

The biggest prevailing issue with it is the speed. It's much slower to connect to than the typical Web, and this issue is pretty much inherent in its design (being decentralized like it is, the speed of the connection inherently rests on the uplink speeds of the computers on the network). At least with my own dealings with it, the speed right now is roughly comparable to about where DSL stood circa 2002. I remember when the speed was at dial-up levels, though.

As noted by the specification, Tor isn't 100% immune from prying eyes. It's been demonstrated that it's not airtight, but you really can't expect 100% anonymity when dealing with Internet security. The only 100% guaranteed method is to not connect to the Internet at all. Doesn't mean it's not useful, though.

 

[ulu]

Interesting. It must be almost untraceable because apparently a company (silk road) is using it to sell narcotics and weapons on the web.

 

[KimberlyAA]

Sounds good.

 

[ulu]

hehe

 

[Qyöt27]

Interesting. It must be almost untraceable because apparently a company (silk road) is using it to sell narcotics and weapons on the web.

Well, from what I understand of the exploit that makes it less-than-anonymous, it's that you can be detected logging on and off of the network, but what you do on the network can't. To break that anonymity, I seem to remember something along the line of the connection the computer is using needing to have already been compromised (on one or both ends) or something like that.

 

[ulu]

Are you self taught on computers, or formally educated? You seem to know a lot

 

[Qyöt27]

Mostly self-taught.

 

[r035198x]

I prefer Garlic to onions myself.

 

[DaedraSun]

I prefer Garlic to onions myself.

Interesting, thanks for the link.