TOR

TOR, standing for The Onion Router is a system intended to enable online anonymity. TOR client software routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers It is a freebie which is often a good sign. The download button comes with a page on how to use it, how to make sure it does what it should. Here it is. Take the time to read it at Want Tor to really work?
PS The FBI hates TOR; it hates privacy which is why they attacked the Silk Road but they didn't break the Darknet behind it. Popular darknets include Freenet, GNUnet (when using its "F2F topology" option).
PPS The Economist tells us that TOR really does slow the attackers down - see One Dread Pirate On Trial. 

TOR (anonymity network) ex Wiki
QUOTE
Tor (short for The onion router) is a system intended to enable online anonymity. Tor client software routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers in order to conceal a user's location or usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis. Using Tor makes it more difficult to trace Internet activity, including "visits to Web sites, online posts, instant messages and other communication forms", back to the user[5] and is intended to protect users' personal freedom, privacy, and ability to conduct confidential business by keeping their internet activities from being monitored.

"Onion routing" refers to the layered nature of the encryption service: The original data are encrypted and re-encrypted multiple times, then sent through successive Tor relays, each one of which decrypts a "layer" of encryption before passing the data on to the next relay and, ultimately, its destination. This reduces the possibility of the original data being unscrambled or understood in transit.[6]

The Tor client is free software and use of the Tor network is free of charge.
UNQUOTE
It sounds good to me.

 

Want Tor to really work?

You need to change some of your habits, as some things won't work exactly as you are used to.

  1. Use the Tor Browser
    Tor does not protect all of your computer's Internet traffic when you run it. Tor only protects your applications that are properly configured to send their Internet traffic through Tor. To avoid problems with Tor configuration, we strongly recommend you use the Tor Browser Bundle. It is pre-configured to protect your privacy and anonymity on the web as long as you're browsing with the Tor Browser itself. Almost any other web browser configuration is likely to be unsafe to use with Tor.

  2. Don't enable or install browser plugins
    The Tor Browser will block browser plugins such as Flash, RealPlayer, Quicktime, and others: they can be manipulated into revealing your IP address. Similarly, we do not recommend installing additional addons or plugins into the Tor Browser, as these may bypass Tor or otherwise harm your anonymity and privacy. The lack of plugins means that YouTube videos are blocked by default, but YouTube does provide an experimental opt-in feature (enable it here) that works for some videos.

  3. Use HTTPS versions of websites
    Tor will encrypt your traffic to and within the Tor network, but the encryption of your traffic to the final destination website depends upon on that website. To help ensure private encryption to websites, the Tor Browser Bundle includes HTTPS Everywhere to force the use of HTTPS encryption with major websites that support it. However, you should still watch the browser URL bar to ensure that websites you provide sensitive information to display a blue or green URL bar button, include https:// in the URL, and display the proper expected name for the website.

  4. Don't open documents downloaded through Tor while online
    The Tor Browser will warn you before automatically opening documents that are handled by external applications. DO NOT IGNORE THIS WARNING. You should be very careful when downloading documents via Tor (especially DOC and PDF files) as these documents can contain Internet resources that will be downloaded outside of Tor by the application that opens them. This will reveal your non-Tor IP address. If you must work with DOC and/or PDF files, we strongly recommend either using a disconnected computer, downloading the free VirtualBox and using it with a virtual machine image with networking disabled, or using Tails. Under no circumstances is it safe to use BitTorrent and Tor together, however.

  5. Use bridges and/or find company
    Tor tries to prevent attackers from learning what destination websites you connect to. However, by default, it does not prevent somebody watching your Internet traffic from learning that you're using Tor. If this matters to you, you can reduce this risk by configuring Tor to use a Tor bridge relay rather than connecting directly to the public Tor network. Ultimately the best protection is a social approach: the more Tor users there are near you and the more diverse their interests, the less dangerous it will be that you are one of them. Convince other people to use Tor, too!

Be smart and learn more. Understand what Tor does and does not offer. This list of pitfalls isn't complete, and we need your help identifying and documenting all the issues.

 

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3092/how-can-i-access-the-deep-dark-web

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3092/how-can-i-access-the-deep-dark-web

 

 

 

 

Tor: At The Heart of Internet Freedom

Our apologies if you're receiving multiple notes from us today.  We've just converted to a new donation infrastructure, and we haven't had a chance to eliminate duplications of email addresses.  We promise not to bother you so much in the future.

 

Dear Friend of Freedom:

The Tor Project, Inc. is celebrating a decade of protecting the rights of journalists, activists, whistleblowers, and millions of vulnerable and marginalized people from around the world. Will you help us continue this important work with a financial donation today?

Individual donors like you make it possible for us to work on projects that might not be funded from other sources. Here are some of the things we've accomplished over the last year, thanks in part to donations from people like you:

·     Updated and released over a dozen stable versions of the Tor Browser, a critical tool for securely and anonymously accessing the Tor Network and all Internet websites, to add features and fix bugs in coordination with new releases of Mozilla Firefox.

·     Added additional Pluggable Transports (PTs) to the Tor Browser, making it easier for users under repressive governments to connect to the Tor network and bypass censorship.

·     Improved the security and performance of the core Tor program, the underlying proxy software that Tor Browser uses to protect your traffic.

·     Researched post-quantum cryptography alternatives for deployment to ensure the security of our systems into the future.

·     Upgraded our cryptographic backends to ensure that Tor can provide the widest number of supported cryptographic algorithms, as well as support platform specific implementations.

·     Strengthened our external community by ramping up work on better user support and documentation, including a new Tor Browser manual.

·     Strengthened our internal community by coming together around the Tor Social Contract, which affirms our commitment to our beliefs, including our promise to never put backdoors into Tor.

·     Grew the Community Team to build the network of people around the world doing Tor outreach and to provide them with training resources. 

·     Empowered people in Brazil, Russia, Turkey, and other countries suffering from increased censorship in 2016.

·     Improved GetTor, helping more people who live under oppressive censorship regimes to easily access the Tor Browser and other vital information.

·     Released the public beta of OONI Explorer, a global map of Internet censorship (and how well Tor circumvents it) in over 100 countries over the last three years.

·     Made great progress toward next-generation Onion Services, including deployment throughout the Debian infrastructure, and tools like OnionBalance, a server tool that helps improve the stability and availability of popular Onion Services. 

·     Conducted an informal review of our major bugs from the last few years to look for trends and patterns to help us use our time and resources more effectively to write our code more safely over the coming years.

·     Served as founding partner in a Tor Android phone, an important step in providing uncensored Internet access for millions of worldwide mobile device users.

·     Built a sandbox system for Tor Browser for Linux, to be released in alpha form by the end of the year, that will help protect users from malicious attacks at the application layer. 

·     Grew the community of enthusiastic privacy and security developers, including mentoring seven students in the Google Summer of Code program.

·     Continued our central role in the privacy research community, pointing academic research groups at the most pressing problems and helping their results to have real-world impact.

The list goes on. The Tor Project has been extremely efficient and vital over the past decade, and we owe a lot of our ability to "fight the good fight" to support from individuals like you. Any chance you can help to support us again financially this year?

Tor is at the heart of Internet freedom. During the month of December, we're going to be highlighting other organizations and projects that depend on Tor. Check out our blog each day to learn about our fellow travelers. 

Please let me know if I can supply you with any additional information or fill you in on any of our latest endeavors.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Shari

Shari Steele
Executive Director
The Tor Project
public key: 69B4 D9BE 2765 A81E 5736  8CD9 0904 1C77 C434 1056
 

“Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” 
– Edward Snowden

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https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-deep-dark-web-and-how-do-you-access-it

 

Errors & omissions, broken links, cock ups, over-emphasis, malice [ real or imaginary ] or whatever; if you find any I am open to comment.

Email me at Mike Emery. All financial contributions are cheerfully accepted. If you want to keep it private, use my PGP key.  Home

Updated  on Wednesday, 13 December 2023 20:10:04