overview.html (0fdab6949) - tor-webwml.git

0fdab694954a6b06254820b3c90ed0eb02a47676

first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`1) <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> 2) 3) <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> 4) <head> 5) <title>Tor: Overview</title>`
clean up my meta and br tags Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`6) <meta name="Author" content="Roger Dingledine" />`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`7) <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> 8) <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="default.css" />`
list the favicon on every page Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	`9) <link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.ico" />`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`10) </head> 11) 12) <body> 13) <div class="menu" id="side"> 14) <!-- <img id="logo" src="tor.jpg" alt="cute tor gate" /> -->`
clean up my meta and br tags Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`15) <a href="index.html">Home</a> <br />`
website patches from annalee Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`16) <a href="howitworks.html">How it works</a> <br />`
clean up my meta and br tags Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`17) <a href="download.html">Download</a> <br /> 18) <a href="documentation.html">Documentation</a><br /> 19) <a href="contribute.html">Contribute</a> <br /> 20) <a href="developers.html">Developers</a> <br /> 21) <a href="research.html">Research</a> <br /> 22) <a href="people.html">People</a> <br />`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`23) </div><!-- #side --> 24) <div class="main" id="main"> 25)`
give Tor: Overview a differ... Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`26) <h2>Tor: Overview</h2>`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`27) 28) <p>`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	`29) Tor is a network-within-a-network that allows people and groups to 30) improve their privacy and security on the Internet. It also enables 31) future software developers to create new kinds of communication tools 32) that have built-in privacy features. Tor can provide the foundation for 33) a whole range of applications that allow organizations and individuals 34) to share information over public networks without compromising their 35) privacy.`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`36) </p> 37) 38) <p>`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	`39) Individuals can use Tor to shield themselves and their family members 40) from being tracked by remote websites. They can also use it to connect 41) to resources such as news sites or instant messaging services that are 42) blocked by their local Internet service providers (ISPs).`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`43) </p> 44) 45) <p>`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	46) Groups such as the German "Diabetes People" organization recommend Tor 47) for safeguarding their members' online privacy and security. Activist 48) groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are supporting 49) Tor's development as a mechanism for maintaining civil liberties online. 50) Corporations are investigating Tor as a safe way to conduct competitive 51) analysis, and are considering using Tor to test new experimental projects 52) without associating their names with these projects. A branch of the 53) US Navy uses Tor for open source intelligence gathering, and one of its 54) teams used Tor while deployed in the Middle East recently.
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`55) </p> 56) 57) <p>`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	58) The variety of people who use Tor is actually part of what makes it 59) so secure. The more populous and diverse the user base for Tor is, 60) the more your anonymity will be protected. 61) </p> 62) 63) <h3>Why We Need Tor</h3> 64) 65) <p> 66) Using Tor protects you against a common form of Internet surveillance 67) known as "traffic analysis." Traffic analysis can be used to infer 68) who is talking to whom over a public network. Knowing the source 69) and destination of your Internet traffic allows others to track your 70) behavior and interests. This can impact your checkbook if, for example, 71) an e-commerce site uses price discrimination based on your country or 72) institution of origin. It can even threaten your job and physical safety 73) by revealing who and where you are. 74) </p> 75) 76) <p> 77) How does traffic analysis work? Internet data packets have two parts: 78) a data payload, and a header used for routing. The data payload is 79) whatever is being sent, whether that's an email message, a web page, or an 80) audio file. Even if you encrypt the data payload of your communications, 81) traffic analysis still reveals a great deal about what you're doing and, 82) possibly, what you're saying. That's because it focuses on the header, 83) which discloses source, destination, size, timing, and so on. 84) </p> 85) 86) <p> 87) A basic problem, for the privacy minded, is that the recipient of your 88) communications can see who sent them by looking at headers. So can 89) authorized intermediaries like Internet service providers, and sometimes 90) unauthorized intermediaries as well. A very simple form of traffic 91) analysis might involve sitting somewhere between sender and recipient on 92) the network, looking at headers. 93) </p> 94) 95) <p> 96) But there are also more powerful kinds of traffic analysis. Some 97) attackers spy on multiple parts of the Internet and use sophisticated 98) statistical techniques to track the communications patterns of many 99) different organizations and individuals. 100) </p> 101) 102) <h3>The Solution: a Distributed, Anonymous Network</h3> 103) 104) <p> 105) Tor helps to reduce the risks of both simple and sophisticated traffic 106) analysis by distributing your transactions over several places on the 107) Internet, so no single point can link you to your destination. The idea 108) is similar to using a twisty, hard-to-follow route in order to throw off 109) somebody who is tailing you -- and then periodically erasing your 110) footprints. Instead of taking a direct route from source to 111) destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random pathway 112) through several servers that cover your tracks so no observer at any 113) single point can tell where the data came from or where it's going. 114) </p> 115) 116) <p> 117) To create a private network pathway with Tor, the user's software or 118) client incrementally builds a circuit of encrypted connections through 119) servers on the network. The circuit is extended one hop at a time, and 120) each server along the way knows only which server gave it data and which 121) server it is giving data to. No individual server will ever know the 122) complete path that a data packet has taken. The client negotiates a 123) separate set of encryption keys for each hop along the circuit to ensure 124) that each hop can't see what these connections are as they pass through.
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`125) </p> 126) 127) <p> 128) [Insert snazzy onion diagram here.] 129) </p> 130) 131) <p>`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	132) Once a circuit has been established, many kinds of data can be exchanged 133) and several different sorts of software applications can be deployed 134) over the Tor network. Because each server sees no more than one hop in 135) the circuit, neither an eavesdropper nor a compromised server can use 136) traffic analysis to link the connection's source and destination. Tor 137) only works for TCP streams and can be used by any application with SOCKS 138) support. 139) </p> 140) 141) <p> 142) For efficiency, the Tor software uses the same circuit for connections 143) that happen within the same minute or so. Later requests are given a 144) new circuit, to keep people from linking your earlier actions to the new 145) ones.
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`146) </p> 147)`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	`148) <h3>Hidden Services</h3> 149)`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`150) <p>`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	151) Tor also makes it possible for users to hide their locations while 152) offering various kinds of services, such as web publishing or an instant 153) messaging server. Using Tor "rendezvous points," other Tor users can 154) connect to these hidden services, each without knowing the other's 155) network identity. This hidden service functionality could allow Tor 156) users to set up a website where people publish material without worrying 157) about censorship. Nobody would be able to determine who was offering 158) the site, and nobody who offered the site would know who was posting to it.
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`159) </p>`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	`160) 161) <h3>Staying Anonymous</h3>`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`162) 163) <p>`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	`164) Of course, Tor can't solve all anonymity problems. It focuses only on 165) protecting the transport of data. You need to use protocol-specific 166) support software if you don't want the sites you visit to see your 167) identifying information. For example, web proxies such as Privoxy can 168) be used while web browsing to block cookies and withhold information 169) about your browser type.`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`170) </p> 171) 172) <p>`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	173) Also, to protect your anonymity, be smart. Don't provide your name 174) or other revealing information in web forms. Be aware that like all 175) anonymizing networks that are fast enough for web browsing, Tor does not 176) provide protection against end-to-end timing attacks: if your attacker 177) can watch the traffic coming out of your computer, and also the traffic 178) arriving at your chosen destination, he can use statistical analysis to 179) discover that they are part of the same circuit. 180) </p> 181) 182) <h3>The Future of Tor</h3> 183) 184) <p>
make usability/security dis... Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	185) Providing a usable anonymizing network on the Internet today is 186) an ongoing challenge. We want software that meets users' needs. 187) And we also want to keep the network up and running in a way that 188) handles as many users as possible. Security and usability don't have 189) to be at odds: as Tor's usability increases, it will attract more 190) users, which will increase the possible sources and destinations 191) of each communication, thus increasing security for everyone. 192) We're making progress, but we need your help. Please consider 193) <a href="cvs/tor/doc/tor-doc.html#installing">installing</a> 194) a <a href="cvs/tor/doc/tor-doc.html#server">server</a>
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	`195) or <a href="contribute.html">volunteering</a> as a <a 196) href="developers.html">developer</a>.`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`197) </p> 198) 199) <p>`
try out a better takeaway m... Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`200) Anonymity is threatened as never before by trends in law, policy, and 201) technology that are undermining our ability to speak and read freely`
revised overview text Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago	`202) online without being forced to reveal who we are. With each new user 203) and server, we enhance Tor's ability to restore people's control over 204) their privacy.`
first cut of new website Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`205) </p> 206) 207) </div><!-- #main -->`
decide on a format for cont... Roger Dingledine authored 20 years ago	`208) <div class="bottom" id="bottom"> 209) <i><a href="mailto:tor-webmaster@freehaven.net">Webmaster</a></i> - 210) $Id$ 211) </div>`