7 things you need to know about Tor

1. Tor still works

Apparently, the Tor network remains unbreakable. At least, according to the NSA internal report of 2012 , although this organization had the opportunity in certain cases to disclose the identity of certain nodes, in general, they are not able to open any node upon request. Yes, and these disclosures occurred on the occasion of the type of error in the browser Firefox, which was part of the tor bundle and other similar. If you use Tor correctly, then the probability of disclosure is extremely small.

2. Tor is not only used by criminals.

Contrary to popular belief, Tor is used not only by criminals, pedophiles and other bad terrorists. This, to put it mildly, is far from true. Activists of all kinds, journalists, just people who love privacy make up a portrait of Tor users. Personally, I am very impressed by the position of Tor developers who answer the question “what do you have, what to hide?” With the phrase: “No, this is not a secret - it's just not your business.”
And criminals have a large arsenal of tools, from personality changes to stolen devices or network access, from botnets to Trojan viruses. Using and promoting Tor you no more help criminals than using the Internet.

3. Tor has no hidden loopholes and backdoors.

Rumor has it that Tor was created by the military, and they specifically made hidden loopholes for themselves. Although Tor was initially funded with money from the US Navy, its code has since been publicly available, and many cryptographic specialists have been studying its sources. Everyone can study them. And now enthusiasts, advocates of privacy and anonymity on the Internet are working on the project.
There is also information that US intelligence agencies hold about 60% of all nodes - but this is most likely distorted information that about 60% of funding is allocated by the United States in the form of grants.
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4. There were no cases of convicting anyone for supporting the relay node.

True, in Europe, in this guise of human rights and a legal paradise, or rather, in Austria, literally the other day, the person who held the exit node was accused of complicity, because through this node passed traffic illegal content. So the danger of the content of the output node is obvious. Well, relay nodes should be safe, as they do not know the network operation scheme, where the request came from, where it was sent to, or what kind of traffic they send. And to prove the passage of traffic through the relay is almost impossible.

5. Tor is easy to use.

Many people think that Tor is something difficult for hackers and computer geniuses. In fact, the developers have already simplified its use as much as possible - just download the Tor Browser , and when you start it, you will automatically use the Tor network. No settings, commands on the command line and other things.

6. Tor is not as slow as you think.

A couple of years ago, the network was slow. Now access to sites occurs at a reasonable rate. Yes, torrents cannot be downloaded via Tor - both slowly and badly for the network. But you can lead any other usual activity without irritation.

7. Tor is not a panacea

Using Tor, you still need to follow a few rules and understand a little about how it works, what it can do and what it cannot, so as not to negate all its efforts. If you use Tor Browser and log in to Facebook, there is little point in this. Understand how it works and use it correctly.

If you are interested in the project, I recommend reading a recent interview with one of the Tor developers .

Personally, I - a supporter of privacy and anonymity on the Internet. I propagandize and urge everyone to support the Tor project as necessary and useful, especially in the light of sad events with new laws "against the Internet". Support the Tor network. Set yourself a relay - if you can allocate at least 50 kb / s for Tor in your channel, this will be enough.

Why I advocate privacy and the possibility of anonymity. After all, I am a law-abiding citizen and I have nothing to hide, right?
Well, I personally can answer this with the following arguments:

• I may have nothing to hide, but what I do is none of your business
• times change, people change, and laws change. I wrote something in the comments, and a couple of years after the adoption of the next elegant law, it suddenly became possible to rank as extremist statements
• I do not believe that all the people who are trying to follow my actions are crystal honest and devoted servants of Themis. That no one will try to use the information obtained for their own dirty selfish purposes.

It will be interesting to know your opinion on privacy and anonymity,% username%