What is Tor?
Tor is free software and an open
network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that
threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and
relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.
- Tor
(The Onion Router) is a part of the internet hidden to normal browser
software, but accessible via a specially modified version of Firefox.
- It
was invented by the US Naval Research Laboratory to help people use the net
without being traced and aids anonymity in two ways.
- Firstly,
it can be used to browse the world wide web anonymously. It does this by
randomly bouncing the data packets involved through hard-to-follow routes
across computer networks using internet bandwidth donated by volunteers.
- Secondly,
there are hidden sites on Tor that use the .onion domain suffix rather
than .com, .org or one of the standard address endings.
- These
are effectively websites but, as they sit on Tor, have typically been hard
to find unless you have been given the relevant address since they are not
indexed by normal search engines such as Google or Bing.
- Although
many media reports about Tor have focused on how it is used to spread
pornography and images of child abuse, it is also used for many legitimate
means.
- Journalists
and whistle-blowers use it to communicate with each other, with the New
Yorker magazine's Strongbox being one example of a "dead drop"
service based on the technology.
- Tor
has been funded by, among others, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
digital rights group, Google, Human Rights Watch and the US National
Science Foundation.
