For the paranoid and the insecure: the Tor project

As I'm sure many around this board are aware, there are a great deal of members concerned about privacy while online and their government looking in on whatever they may be doing online. Here, I present to you a small piece of software with the sole purpose of completely hiding you and your identity while doing a wide range of things using the internet.

The Tor Project

What is it?

Tor is a collection of virtual tunnels throughout the internet. It can be used to keep yourself protected from being tracked by websites you visit. It can be used to get around blocks put in place by an ISP or a filter put in place by an organization. It can be used to upload or download files without revealing your location. It can be used to conceal communications across the world. Each relay in the chain sees no more than one hop in the circuit, which means that even if one relay is compromised the entire system still remain anonymous.

Tor's secureness relies partially on the number of users, which means the more of us that use it the more secure it will become.

Here is one particular quote from the Tor website that will likely interest members here:

A branch of the U.S. Navy uses Tor for open source intelligence gathering, and one of its teams used Tor while deployed in the Middle East recently. Law enforcement uses Tor for visiting or surveilling web sites without leaving government IP addresses in their web logs, and for security during sting operations.

Now with that said, Tor alone does not protect you entirely. There are certain things like cookies and browser information that an anonymous network cannot stop. This is where the Vidalia bundle comes in. It contains Tor, but also contains software called Privoxy. Privoxy does stop cookies and witholds browsing information. The combination of these two will essentially make you invisible to the eyes and ears of the internet.

There is far more information about it on the website, so I'll let curious readers wander over there instead of expanding this wall of text.

The Tor Project

cool
ill be looking in to this
thanks for the info

sounds cool, does it mess with anything that would effect your browsing? can i still get on ats if i have it on? oh and is it free?

reply to post by GullibleUnderlord


You can indeed still get on ATS with it. It slows your connection quite a bit in most cases, but you will not see any filters of any kind while using Tor. Yes, it's free. Also, I keep it on a flash drive which allows me to be anonymous on whatever computer I may use as long as it has a USB port.

reply to post by warbird03

thanks for the quick reply, that other program you mentioned is that free also ? and can i get it at the same place ?

reply to post by GullibleUnderlord


Yes, look for the download for the Vidalia bundle on their site.

reply to post by warbird03


cool thanks i will try it out , hope it doesn't slow my connection to much .

reply to post by GullibleUnderlord


There will definetly be a noticable decrease in speed in most cases, but for most people it's a small price to pay for anonymity. Let's just say you certainly won't be watching videos with a Tor connection.

Oh, and you may also have to download the Tor addon for Firefox. I'm not sure if there's an extension for Chrome to use Tor, I'll check that out right now.

Edit: I found one method to configure Chrome to use Tor too, although it's a manual process.

1. Download Vidalia from
2. Install Vidalia - a TOR client with GUI.
3. Wait until Vidalia tells you that Tor is working.
4. Start Google Chrome.
5. Using the Tools menus (it looks like a wrench), choose options, "Under the hood". Scroll down to "Network" and click the "Change Proxy Setting" button.
6. Under the "Connections" tab, choose "LAN Setting" - Select Use Proxy server and enter "Localhost" and port 8118.
7. Save your work and return to the Chrome web browser. Check that you are using TOR by going to
check.torproject.org...
A Green message will indicate that TOR is operating correctly. A Red message will indicate that TOR is not set up correctly.
8. Continue to surf using TOR

It is conjecture on my part but TOR is a military program. The Navy in particular. They needed a way for agents to pass information without other people eavesdropping on the information transfer. Now they just could not release TOR and use it with out it pointing them out. If that was the case, only Navy personnel would be using it and easy to spot. So what do you do? Give it away for free to the public so that those users hide the actual Navy users.

The US Navy currently operates the Tor related web site www.onion-router.net

Originally posted by discomfit
Tor (The Onion Router) is a gift from the military also.

Tor is a program that allows you to remain "anonymous" while using its Onion layered style network. In short your traffic hops through several other computers on the "secure" Onion network first before trying to get to its target (web site, ftp, etc).

Tor is widely championed by the EFF and others however few people seem to mention that it was developed by the US Military.

The US Navy currently operates the Tor related web site onion-router.net

onion-router.net is one of those very very ugly 1990s looking web sites. Why the navy is running a .net web site is unknown to me (vs a .gov or .mil) and it should be noted that the word "Navy" and the Navy seal don't appear until the very bottom of the page.

Despite how secure Tor may seem and all the fanboy love it gets please never forget that Tor was born from the US Military.

Think about that for a second. Is the government going to pass out a tool that will allow you to possibly commit crimes - even against them without their ability to detect you ? Not likely.

By using the Tor network in a way you're waving a huge flag saying, hey everyone - I got something to hide ! Don't look at me !

By the way - if your local police station starts passing out free "anti-finger print stuff" that probably don't work so well either.

On another note

I'm fairly sure every ISP is still has to allow law enforce access to their networks. Almost anything you transmit over the internet can easily be intercepted by our (the US) government and possibly other governments (not counting regular hackers).

The vast majority of your internet traffic isn't secure and even the secure traffic may be subject to compromise. If anyone has the computing power to crack something it's the US Government.

USING TOR ONE WOULD HAVE TO BE EXTERMELY PARANOID... ITS SLOWER THAN SNAIL CRAP ON A
FROSTY DAY....

JUST USE OPERA PORTABLE 10.6 ......NO OTHER..JUST THAT ONE..

Originally posted by ZOMBIEMASTER
USING TOR ONE WOULD HAVE TO BE EXTERMELY PARANOID... ITS SLOWER THAN SNAIL CRAP ON A
FROSTY DAY....

JUST USE OPERA PORTABLE 10.6 ......NO OTHER..JUST THAT ONE..

Except that doesn't serve the same purpose whatsoever. Please, don't give advice on things you have no idea what you're talking about. This is like the 4th thread tonight where you've given faulty advice.

Originally posted by cul8rby
GODLIKE PRODUCTIONS BANNED ME FOR INCLUDING MY EMAIL IN A REPLY!!!
THEY ARE JUST AS BAD AS THE GOV. AND THEY REFUSE TO LET ME BACK ON!!! AND THEY HAVE
A LOT OF PORN AND IMPROPER GRAMMER...ETC....AND THEY ARE REFUSING ME???

This is hardly the topic to post this on. I imagine the mods will be along shortly.

TOR is funded by the U.S. State Department and U.S. Naval Intelligence.

That's all you need to know to understand how "anonymous" it is.

Originally posted by CharliePrime
TOR is funded by the U.S. State Department and U.S. Naval Intelligence.

That's all you need to know to understand how "anonymous" it is.

I used TOR for about a week and it is slow as hell...the fact that it is funded by the U.S. State Department was not something I found out until much later...it does speak volumes though.

I would not advise anyone to use TOR...you are not anonymous despite the claims that have been made.

It's bad news...stay away!