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5) #include "head.wmi" TITLE="Tor Project: FAQ" CHARSET="UTF-8"
6) <div id="content" class="clearfix">
7)   <div id="breadcrumbs">

8)     <a href="<page index>">Home &raquo; </a>

9)     <a href="<page docs/documentation>">Documentation &raquo; </a>
10)     <a href="<page docs/faq>">FAQ</a>
11)   </div>
12)   <div id="maincol">
13)     <!-- PUT CONTENT AFTER THIS TAG -->
14)     <h1>Tor FAQ</h1>

15)     <hr>

16) 

17)     <p>General questions:</p>
18)     <ul>
19)     <li><a href="#WhatIsTor">What is Tor?</a></li>
20)     <li><a href="#Torisdifferent">How is Tor different from other proxies?</a></li>
21)     <li><a href="#CompatibleApplications">What programs can I use with
22)     Tor?</a></li>
23)     <li><a href="#WhyCalledTor">Why is it called Tor?</a></li>
24)     <li><a href="#Backdoor">Is there a backdoor in Tor?</a></li>
25)     <li><a href="#DistributingTor">Can I distribute Tor on my magazine's
26)     CD?</a></li>
27)     <li><a href="#SupportMail">How can I get an answer to my
28)     Tor support mail?</a></li>
29)     <li><a href="#WhySlow">Why is Tor so slow?</a></li>
30)     <li><a href="#Funding">What would The Tor Project do with more
31)     funding?</a></li>

32)     <li><a href="#Metrics">How many people use Tor? How many relays or
33)     exit nodes are there?</a></li>

34)     <li><a href="#SSLcertfingerprint">What are your SSL cerificate

35)     fingerprints?</a></li>

36)     </ul>

37) 

38)     <p>Compilation and Installation:</p>
39)     <ul>
40)     <li><a href="#HowUninstallTor">How do I uninstall Tor?</a></li>
41)     <li><a href="#PGPSigs">What are these "sig" files on the download
42)     page?</a></li>

43)     <li><a href="#GetTor">Your website is blocked in my country. How
44)     do I download Tor?</a></li>

45)     <li><a href="#CompileTorWindows">How do I compile Tor under Windows?</a></li>
46)     <li><a href="#VirusFalsePositives">Why does my Tor executable appear to
47)     have a virus or spyware?</a></li>
48)     <li><a href="#LiveCD">Is there a LiveCD or other bundle that includes Tor?</a></li>
49)     </ul>

50) 

51)     <p>Running Tor:</p>

52)     <ul>
53)     <li><a href="#torrc">I'm supposed to "edit my torrc". What does
54)     that mean?</a></li>

55)     <li><a href="#Logs">How do I set up logging, or see Tor's

56)     logs?</a></li>

57)     </ul>

58) 

59)     <p>Running a Tor client:</p>
60)     <ul>

61)     <li><a href="#DoesntWork">I installed Tor and Polipo but it's not
62)     working.</a></li>
63)     <li><a href="#VidaliaPassword">Tor/Vidalia prompts for a password at
64)     start.</a></li>
65)     <li><a href="#ChooseEntryExit">Can I control which nodes (or country)
66)     are used for entry/exit?</a></li>
67)     <li><a href="#GoogleCaptcha">Google makes me solve a Captcha or tells
68)     me I have spyware installed.</a></li>
69)     <li><a href="#GmailWarning">Gmail warns me that my account may have
70)     been compromised.</a></li>

71)     <li><a href="#FirewallPorts">My firewall only allows a few outgoing
72)     ports.</a></li>

73)     </ul>

74) 

75)     <p>Running a Tor relay:</p>
76)     <ul>
77)     <li><a href="#RelayFlexible">How stable does my relay need to be?</a></li>
78)     <li><a href="#ExitPolicies">I'd run a relay, but I don't want to deal
79)     with abuse issues.</a></li>
80)     <li><a href="#RelayOrBridge">Should I be a normal relay or bridge
81)     relay?</a></li>

82)     <li><a href="#MultipleRelays">I want to run more than one relay.</a></li>

83)     <li><a href="#RelayMemory">Why is my Tor relay using so much memory?</a></li>
84)     <li><a href="#WhyNotNamed">Why is my Tor relay not named?</a></li>
85)     </ul>

86) 

87)     <p>Running a Tor hidden service:</p>

88) 

89)     <p>Anonymity and Security:</p>
90)     <ul>
91)     <li><a href="#KeyManagement">Tell me about all the keys Tor uses.</a></li>

92)     <li><a href="#EntryGuards">What are Entry Guards?</a></li>

93)     </ul>

94) 

95)     <p>Alternate designs that we don't do (yet):</p>
96)     <ul>
97)     <li><a href="#EverybodyARelay">You should make every Tor user be a
98)     relay.</a></li>

99)     <li><a href="#TransportIPnotTCP">You should transport all IP packets,
100)     not just TCP packets.</a></li>

101)     </ul>

102) 

103)     <p>Abuse:</p>

104)     <ul>
105)     <li><a href="#Criminals">Doesn't Tor enable criminals to do bad things?</a></li>
106)     <li><a href="#RespondISP">How do I respond to my ISP about my exit
107)     relay?</a></li>
108)     </ul>

109) 

110)     <p>For other questions not yet on this version of the FAQ, see the <a

111)     href="<wikifaq>">wiki FAQ</a> for now.</p>

112) 

113)     <hr>

114) 

115)     <a id="General"></a>

116) 

117)     <a id="WhatIsTor"></a>
118)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhatIsTor">What is Tor?</a></h3>

119) 

120)     <p>
121)     The name "Tor" can refer to several different components.
122)     </p>

123) 

124)     <p>
125)     The Tor software is a program you can run on your computer that helps keep
126)     you safe on the Internet. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications
127)     around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around
128)     the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from
129)     learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit
130)     from learning your physical location. This set of volunteer relays is
131)     called the Tor network. You can read more about how Tor works on the <a
132)     href="<page about/overview>">overview page</a>.
133)     </p>

134) 

135)     <p>
136)     The Tor Project is a non-profit (charity) organization that maintains
137)     and develops the Tor software.
138)     </p>

139) 

140)     <hr>

141) 

142)     <a id="Torisdifferent"></a>
143)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#Torisdifferent">How is Tor different from other proxies?</a></h3>
144)     <p>

145)     A typical proxy provider sets up a server somewhere on the Internet and
146) allows you to use it to relay your traffic.  This creates a simple, easy to
147) maintain architecture.  The users all enter and leave through the same server.
148) The provider may charge for use of the proxy, or fund their costs through
149) advertisements on the server.  In the simplest configuration, you don't have to
150) install anything.  You just have to point your browser at their proxy server.
151) Simple proxy providers are fine solutions if you do not want protections for
152) your privacy and anonymity online and you trust the provider from doing bad
153) things.  Some simple proxy providers use SSL to secure your connection to them.
154) This may protect you against local eavesdroppers, such as those at a cafe with
155) free wifi Internet.
156)     </p>
157)     <p>
158)     Simple proxy providers also create a single point of failure.  The provider
159) knows who you are and where you browse on the Internet.  They can see your

160) traffic as it passes through their server.  In some cases, they can even see
161) inside your

162) encrypted traffic as they relay it to your banking site or to ecommerce stores.
163) You have to trust the provider isn't doing any number of things, such as
164) watching your traffic, injecting their own advertisements into your traffic

165) stream, and recording your personal details.

166)     </p>
167)     <p>
168)     Tor passes your traffic through at least 3 different servers before sending

169) it on to the destination. Because there's a separate layer of encryption for
170) each of the three relays, Tor does not modify, or even know, what you are

171) sending into it.  It merely relays your traffic, completely encrypted through
172) the Tor network and has it pop out somewhere else in the world, completely
173) intact.  The Tor client is required because we assume you trust your local
174) computer.  The Tor client manages the encryption and the path chosen through
175) the network.  The relays located all over the world merely pass encrypted
176) packets between themselves.</p>

177)     <p>
178)     <dl>

179)     <dt>Doesn't the first server see who I am?</dt><dd>Possibly. A bad first of
180) three servers can see encrypted Tor traffic coming from your computer.  It
181) still doesn't know who you are and what you are doing over Tor.  It merely sees
182) "This IP address is using Tor".  Tor is not illegal anywhere in the world, so
183) using Tor by itself is fine.  You are still protected from this node figuring
184) out who you are and where you are going on the Internet.</dd>
185)     <dt>Can't the third server see my traffic?</dt><dd>Possibly.  A bad third
186) of three servers can see the traffic you sent into Tor.  It won't know who sent
187) this traffic.  If you're using encryption, such as visiting a bank or
188) e-commerce website, or encrypted mail connections, etc, it will only know the
189) destination.  It won't be able to see the data inside the traffic stream.  You
190) are still protected from this node figuring out who you are and if using
191) encryption, what data you're sending to the destination.</dd>

192)     </dl>
193)     </p>

194) 

195)     <hr>

196) 

197)     <a id="CompatibleApplications"></a>

198)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#CompatibleApplications">What programs can I use with Tor?</a></h3>

199) 

200)     <p>
201)     There are two pieces to "Torifying" a program: connection-level anonymity
202)     and application-level anonymity. Connection-level anonymity focuses on
203)     making sure the application's Internet connections get sent through Tor.
204)     This step is normally done by configuring
205)     the program to use your Tor client as a "socks" proxy, but there are
206)     other ways to do it too. For application-level anonymity, you need to
207)     make sure that the information the application sends out doesn't hurt
208)     your privacy. (Even if the connections are being routed through Tor, you
209)     still don't want to include sensitive information like your name.) This
210)     second step needs to be done on a program-by-program basis, which is
211)     why we don't yet recommend very many programs for safe use with Tor.
212)     </p>

213) 

214)     <p>
215)     Most of our work so far has focused on the Firefox web browser. The
216)     bundles on the <a href="<page download/download>">download page</a> automatically

217)     install the <a href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton Firefox

218)     extension</a> if you have Firefox installed. As of version 1.2.0,
219)     Torbutton now takes care of a lot of the connection-level and
220)     application-level worries.
221)     </p>

222) 

223)     <p>
224)     There are plenty of other programs you can use with Tor,
225)     but we haven't researched the application-level anonymity
226)     issues on them well enough to be able to recommend a safe
227)     configuration. Our wiki has a list of instructions for <a

228)     href="<wiki>doc/TorifyHOWTO">Torifying

229)     specific applications</a>. There's also a <a

230)     href="<wiki>doc/SupportPrograms">list

231)     of applications that help you direct your traffic through Tor</a>.
232)     Please add to these lists and help us keep them accurate!
233)     </p>

234) 

235)     <hr>

236) 

237)     <a id="WhyCalledTor"></a>
238)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhyCalledTor">Why is it called Tor?</a></h3>

239) 

240)     <p>
241)     Because Tor is the onion routing network. When we were starting the
242)     new next-generation design and implementation of onion routing in
243)     2001-2002, we would tell people we were working on onion routing,
244)     and they would say "Neat. Which one?" Even if onion routing has
245)     become a standard household term, Tor was born out of the actual <a
246)     href="http://www.onion-router.net/">onion routing project</a> run by
247)     the Naval Research Lab.
248)     </p>

249) 

250)     <p>
251)     (It's also got a fine translation from German and Turkish.)
252)     </p>

253) 

254)     <p>
255)     Note: even though it originally came from an acronym, Tor is not spelled
256)     "TOR". Only the first letter is capitalized. In fact, we can usually
257)     spot people who haven't read any of our website (and have instead learned
258)     everything they know about Tor from news articles) by the fact that they
259)     spell it wrong.
260)     </p>

261) 

262)     <hr>

263) 

264)     <a id="Backdoor"></a>
265)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#Backdoor">Is there a backdoor in Tor?</a></h3>

266) 

267)     <p>
268)     There is absolutely no backdoor in Tor. Nobody has asked us to put one
269)     in, and we know some smart lawyers who say that it's unlikely that anybody
270)     will try to make us add one in our jurisdiction (U.S.). If they do
271)     ask us, we will fight them, and (the lawyers say) probably win.
272)     </p>

273) 

274)     <p>
275)     We think that putting a backdoor in Tor would be tremendously
276)     irresponsible to our users, and a bad precedent for security software
277)     in general. If we ever put a deliberate backdoor in our security
278)     software, it would ruin our professional reputations. Nobody would
279)     trust our software ever again &mdash; for excellent reason!
280)     </p>

281) 

282)     <p>
283)     But that said, there are still plenty of subtle attacks
284)     people might try. Somebody might impersonate us, or break into our
285)     computers, or something like that. Tor is open source, and you should
286)     always check the source (or at least the diffs since the last release)
287)     for suspicious things. If we (or the distributors) don't give you
288)     source, that's a sure sign something funny might be going on. You
289)     should also check the <a href="<page docs/verifying-signatures>">PGP
290)     signatures</a> on the releases, to make sure nobody messed with the
291)     distribution sites.
292)     </p>

293) 

294)     <p>
295)     Also, there might be accidental bugs in Tor that could affect your
296)     anonymity. We periodically find and fix anonymity-related bugs, so make
297)     sure you keep your Tor versions up-to-date.
298)     </p>

299) 

300)     <hr>

301) 

302)     <a id="DistributingTor"></a>

303)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#DistributingTor">Can I distribute Tor on my magazine's CD?</a></h3>

304) 

305)     <p>
306)     Yes.
307)     </p>

308) 

309)     <p>
310)     The Tor software is <a href="https://www.fsf.org/">free software</a>. This
311)     means we give you the rights to redistribute the Tor software, either
312)     modified or unmodified, either for a fee or gratis. You don't have to
313)     ask us for specific permission.
314)     </p>

315) 

316)     <p>
317)     However, if you want to redistribute the Tor software you must follow our
318)     <a href="<gitblob>LICENSE">LICENSE</a>.
319)     Essentially this means that you need to include our LICENSE file along
320)     with whatever part of the Tor software you're distributing.
321)     </p>

322) 

323)     <p>
324)     Most people who ask us this question don't want to distribute just the
325)     Tor software, though. They want to distribute the Tor bundles, which
326)     typically include <a href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a>
327)     and <a href="<page projects/vidalia>">Vidalia</a>.
328)     You will need to follow the licenses for those programs
329)     as well. Both of them are distributed under the <a
330)     href="https://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html">GNU General
331)     Public License</a>. The simplest way to obey their licenses is to
332)     include the source code for these programs everywhere you include
333)     the bundles themselves. Look for "source" packages on the <a
334)     href="<page projects/vidalia>">Vidalia page</a> and the <a
335)     href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo
336)     download page</a>.
337)     </p>

338) 

339)     <p>
340)     Also, you should make sure not to confuse your readers about what Tor is,
341)     who makes it, and what properties it provides (and doesn't provide). See
342)     our <a href="<page docs/trademark-faq>">trademark FAQ</a> for details.
343)     </p>

344) 

345)     <p>
346)     Lastly, you should realize that we release new versions of the
347)     Tor software frequently, and sometimes we make backward incompatible
348)     changes. So if you distribute a particular version of the Tor software, it
349)     may not be supported &mdash; or even work &mdash; six months later. This
350)     is a fact of life for all security software under heavy development.
351)     </p>

352) 

353)     <hr>

354) 

355)     <a id="SupportMail"></a>

356)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#SupportMail">How can I get an answer to my Tor support mail?</a></h3>

357) 

358)     <p>There is no official support for Tor. Your best bet is to try the following:</p>

359)     <ol>
360)     <li>Read through this <a href="<page docs/faq>">FAQ</a>.</li>
361)     <li>Read through the <a href="<page docs/documentation>">documentation</a>.</li>
362)     <li>Read through the <a

363)     href="https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk">tor-talk
364)     archives</a> and

365)     see if your question is already answered.</li>
366)     <li>Join our <a href="irc://irc.oftc.net#tor">irc channel</a> and
367)     state the issue and wait for help.</li>
368)     <li>Send an email to tor-assistants at torproject.org. These are
369)     volunteers who may be able to help you but you may not get a response
370)     for days.</li>
371)     </ol>

372) 

373)     <p>If you find your answer, please stick around on the IRC channel or the
374)     mailing list and answer questions from others.</p>

375) 

376)     <hr>

377) 

378)     <a id="WhySlow"></a>
379)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhySlow">Why is Tor so slow?</a></h3>

380) 

381)     <p>
382)     There are many reasons why the Tor network is currently slow.
383)     </p>

384) 

385)     <p>
386)     Before we answer, though, you should realize that Tor is never going to
387)     be blazing fast. Your traffic is bouncing through volunteers' computers
388)     in various parts of the world, and some bottlenecks and network latency
389)     will always be present. You shouldn't expect to see university-style
390)     bandwidth through Tor.
391)     </p>

392) 

393)     <p>
394)     But that doesn't mean that it can't be improved. The current Tor network
395)     is quite small compared to the number of people trying to use it, and
396)     many of these users don't understand or care that Tor can't currently
397)     handle file-sharing traffic load.
398)     </p>

399) 

400)     <p>
401)     For the much more in-depth answer, see <a

402)     href="<blog>why-tor-is-slow">Roger's blog

403)     post on the topic</a>, which includes both a detailed PDF and a video
404)     to go with it.
405)     </p>

406) 

407)     <p>
408)     What can you do to help?
409)     </p>

410) 

411)     <ul>

412) 

413)     <li>
414)     <a href="<page docs/tor-doc-relay>">Configure your Tor to relay traffic
415)     for others</a>. Help make the Tor network large enough that we can handle
416)     all the users who want privacy and security on the Internet.
417)     </li>

418) 

419)     <li>

420)     <a href="<page projects/vidalia>">Help us make Tor more usable</a>. We

421)     especially need people to help make it easier to configure your Tor
422)     as a relay. Also, we need help with clear simple documentation to
423)     walk people through setting it up.
424)     </li>

425) 

426)     <li>
427)     There are some bottlenecks in the current Tor network. Help us design
428)     experiments to track down and demonstrate where the problems are, and
429)     then we can focus better on fixing them.
430)     </li>

431) 

432)     <li>
433)     There are some steps that individuals
434)     can take to improve their Tor performance. <a

435)     href="<wiki>doc/FireFoxTorPerf">You

436)     can configure your Firefox to handle Tor better</a>, <a
437)     href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/tor.html">you can use
438)     Polipo with Tor</a>, or you can try <a href="<page download/download>">upgrading
439)     to the latest version of Tor</a>.  If this works well, please help by
440)     documenting what you did, and letting us know about it.
441)     </li>

442) 

443)     <li>
444)     Tor needs some architectural changes too. One important change is to
445)     start providing <a href="#EverybodyARelay">better service to people who
446)     relay traffic</a>. We're working on this, and we'll finish faster if we
447)     get to spend more time on it.
448)     </li>

449) 

450)     <li>
451)     Help do other things so we can do the hard stuff. Please take a moment
452)     to figure out what your skills and interests are, and then <a href="<page
453)     getinvolved/volunteer>">look at our volunteer page</a>.
454)     </li>

455) 

456)     <li>
457)     Help find sponsors for Tor. Do you work at a company or government agency
458)     that uses Tor or has a use for Internet privacy, e.g. to browse the
459)     competition's websites discreetly, or to connect back to the home servers
460)     when on the road without revealing affiliations? If your organization has
461)     an interest in keeping the Tor network working, please contact them about
462)     supporting Tor. Without sponsors, Tor is going to become even slower.
463)     </li>

464) 

465)     <li>
466)     If you can't help out with any of the above, you can still help out
467)     individually by <a href="<page donate/donate>">donating a bit of money to the
468)     cause</a>. It adds up!
469)     </li>

470) 

471)     </ul>

472) 

473)     <hr>

474) 

475)     <a id="Funding"></a>

476)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#Funding">What would The Tor Project do with more funding?</a></h3>

477) 

478)     <p>
479)     We have about 1800 relays right now, pushing over 150 MB/s average
480)     traffic. We have several hundred thousand active users. But the Tor
481)     network is not yet self-sustaining.
482)     </p>

483) 

484)     <p>
485)     There are six main development/maintenance pushes that need attention:
486)     </p>

487) 

488)     <ul>

489) 

490)     <li>
491)     Scalability: We need to keep scaling and decentralizing the Tor
492)     architecture so it can handle thousands of relays and millions of
493)     users. The upcoming stable release is a major improvement, but there's
494)     lots more to be done next in terms of keeping Tor fast and stable.
495)     </li>

496) 

497)     <li>
498)     User support: With this many users, a lot of people are asking questions
499)     all the time, offering to help out with things, and so on. We need good
500)     clean docs, and we need to spend some effort coordinating volunteers.
501)     </li>

502) 

503)     <li>
504)     Relay support: the Tor network is run by volunteers, but they still need
505)     attention with prompt bug fixes, explanations when things go wrong,
506)     reminders to upgrade, and so on. The network itself is a commons, and
507)     somebody needs to spend some energy making sure the relay operators stay

508)     happy. We also need to work on stability on some platforms — e.g.,
509)     Tor relays have problems on Win XP currently.

510)     </li>

511) 

512)     <li>
513)     Usability: Beyond documentation, we also need to work on usability of the
514)     software itself. This includes installers, clean GUIs, easy configuration
515)     to interface with other applications, and generally automating all of
516)     the difficult and confusing steps inside Tor. We've got a start on this

517)     with the <a href="<page projects/vidalia>">Vidalia GUI</a>, but much more work

518)     remains — usability for privacy software has never been easy.
519)     </li>

520) 

521)     <li>
522)     Incentives: We need to work on ways to encourage people to configure
523)     their Tors as relays and exit nodes rather than just clients.
524)     <a href="#EverybodyARelay">We need to make it easy to become a relay,
525)     and we need to give people incentives to do it.</a>
526)     </li>

527) 

528)     <li>
529)     Research: The anonymous communications field is full
530)     of surprises and gotchas. In our copious free time, we
531)     also help run top anonymity and privacy conferences like <a
532)     href="http://petsymposium.org/">PETS</a>. We've identified a set of
533)     critical <a href="<page getinvolved/volunteer>#Research">Tor research questions</a>
534)     that will help us figure out how to make Tor secure against the variety of
535)     attacks out there. Of course, there are more research questions waiting
536)     behind these.
537)     </li>

538) 

539)     </ul>

540) 

541)     <p>
542)     We're continuing to move forward on all of these, but at this rate
543)     <a href="#WhySlow">the Tor network is growing faster than the developers
544)     can keep up</a>.
545)     Now would be an excellent time to add a few more developers to the effort
546)     so we can continue to grow the network.
547)     </p>

548) 

549)     <p>
550)     We are also excited about tackling related problems, such as
551)     censorship-resistance.
552)     </p>

553) 

554)     <p>
555)     We are proud to have <a href="<page about/sponsors>">sponsorship and support</a>
556)     from the Omidyar Network, the International Broadcasting Bureau, Bell
557)     Security Solutions, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, several government
558)     agencies and research groups, and hundreds of private contributors.
559)     </p>

560) 

561)     <p>
562)     However, this support is not enough to keep Tor abreast of changes in the
563)     Internet privacy landscape. Please <a href="<page donate/donate>">donate</a>
564)     to the project, or <a href="<page about/contact>">contact</a> our executive
565)     director for information on making grants or major donations.
566)     </p>

567) 

568)     <hr>
569) 

570)     <a id="Metrics"></a>

571)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#Metrics">How many people use Tor? How many relays or exit nodes are there?</a></h3>

572) 

573)     <p>All this and more about measuring Tor can be found at the <a

574)     href="https://metrics.torproject.org/">Tor Metrics Portal</a>.</p>

575)     <hr>

576) 

577)     <a id="SSLcertfingerprint"></a>
578)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#SSLcertfingerprint">What are the SSL

579) certificate fingerprints for Tor's various websites?</a></h3>
580)     <p>

581)     <pre>

582)     *.torproject.org SSL certificate from Digicert:

583)     The serial number is: 02:DA:41:04:89:A5:FD:A2:B5:DB:DB:F8:ED:15:0D:BE
584)     The SHA-1 fingerprint is: a7e70f8a648fe04a9677f13eedf6f91b5f7f2e25
585)     The SHA-256 fingerprint is: 23b854af6b96co224fd173382c520b46fa94f2d4e7238893f63ad2d783e27b4b
586) 

587)     blog.torproject.org SSL certificate from RapidSSL:

588)     The serial number is: 00:EF:A3
589)     The SHA-1 fingerprint is: 50af43db8438e67f305a3257d8ef198e8c42f13f

590)     </pre>

591)     </p>
592)     <hr>
593) 

594)     <a id="HowUninstallTor"></a>

595)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#HowUninstallTor">How do I uninstall Tor?</a></h3>

596) 

597)     <p>
598)     This depends entirely on how you installed it and which operating system you
599)     have. If you installed a package, then hopefully your package has a way to
600)     uninstall itself. The Windows packages include uninstallers. The proper way to
601)     completely remove Tor, Vidalia, Torbutton for Firefox, and Polipo on any
602)     version of Windows is as follows:
603)     </p>

604) 

605)     <ol>
606)     <li>In your taskbar, right click on Vidalia (the green onion or the black head)
607)     and choose exit.</li>
608)     <li>Right click on the taskbar to bring up TaskManager. Look for tor.exe in the
609)     Process List. If it's running, right click and choose End Process.</li>
610)     <li>Click the Start button, go to Programs, go to Vidalia, choose Uninstall.
611)     This will remove the Vidalia bundle, which includes Tor and Polipo.</li>
612)     <li>Start Firefox. Go to the Tools menu, choose Add-ons. Select Torbutton.
613)     Click the Uninstall button.</li>
614)     </ol>

615) 

616)     <p>
617)     If you do not follow these steps (for example by trying to uninstall
618)     Vidalia, Tor, and Polipo while they are still running), you will need to
619)     reboot and manually remove the directory "Program Files\Vidalia Bundle".
620)     </p>

621) 

622)     <p>
623)     For Mac OS X, follow the <a
624)     href="<page docs/tor-doc-osx>#uninstall">uninstall directions</a>.
625)     </p>

626) 

627)     <p>
628)     If you installed by source, I'm afraid there is no easy uninstall method. But
629)     on the bright side, by default it only installs into /usr/local/ and it should
630)     be pretty easy to notice things there.
631)     </p>

632) 

633)     <hr>

634) 

635)     <a id="PGPSigs"></a>

636)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#PGPSigs">What are these "sig" files on the download page?</a></h3>

637) 

638)     <p>
639)     These are PGP signatures, so you can verify that the file you've downloaded is
640)     exactly the one that we intended you to get.
641)     </p>

642) 

643)     <p>
644)     Please read the <a
645)     href="<page docs/verifying-signatures>">verifying signatures</a> page for details.
646)     </p>

647) 

648) <hr>
649) 
650) <a id="GetTor"></a>
651) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#GetTor">Your website is blocked in my
652) country. How do I download Tor?</a></h3>
653) 
654) <p>
655) Some government or corporate firewalls censor connections to Tor's
656) website. In those cases, you have three options. First, get it from

657) a friend &mdash; the <a href="<page projects/torbrowser>">Tor Browser

658) Bundle</a> fits nicely on a USB key. Second, find the google cache
659) for the <a href="<page getinvolved/mirrors>">Tor mirrors</a> page
660) and see if any of those copies of our website work for you. Third,
661) you can download Tor via email: log in to your Gmail account and mail
662) '<tt>gettor AT torproject.org</tt>'. If you include the word 'help'
663) in the body of the email, it will reply with instructions. Note that
664) only a few webmail providers are supported, since they need to be able
665) to receive very large attachments.
666) </p>
667) 
668) <p>

669) Be sure to <a href="<page docs/verifying-signatures>">verify the signature</a>

670) of any package you download, especially when you get it from somewhere
671) other than our official HTTPS website.

672) </p>
673) 
674) <hr>

675) 

676)     <a id="CompileTorWindows"></a>

677)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#CompileTorWindows">How do I compile Tor under Windows?</a></h3>

678) 

679)     <p>
680)     Try following the steps at <a href="<gitblob>doc/tor-win32-mingw-creation.txt">
681)     tor-win32-mingw-creation.txt</a>.
682)     </p>

683) 

684)     <p>
685)     (Note that you don't need to compile Tor yourself in order to use
686)     it. Most people just use the packages available on the <a href="<page
687)     download/download>">download page</a>.)
688)     </p>

689) 

690)     <hr>

691) 

692)     <a id="VirusFalsePositives"></a>

693)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#VirusFalsePositives">Why does my Tor executable appear to have a virus or spyware?</a></h3>

694) 

695)     <p>
696)     Sometimes, overzealous Windows virus and spyware detectors trigger on some
697)     parts of the Tor Windows binary. Our best guess is that these are false
698)     positives &mdash; after all, the anti-virus and anti-spyware business is just a
699)     guessing game anyway. You should contact your vendor and explain that you have
700)     a program that seems to be triggering false positives. Or pick a better vendor.
701)     </p>

702) 

703)     <p>
704)     In the meantime, we encourage you to not just take our word for
705)     it. Our job is to provide the source; if you're concerned, please do <a
706)     href="#CompileTorWindows">recompile it yourself</a>.
707)     </p>

708) 

709)     <hr>

710) 

711)     <a id="LiveCD"></a>

712)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#LiveCD">Is there a LiveCD or other bundle that includes Tor?</a></h3>

713) 

714)     <p>

715)     Yes.  Use <a href="https://tails.boum.org/">The Amnesic Incognito

716)     Live System</a> or <a href="<page projects/torbrowser>">the Tor Browser
717)     Bundle</a>.

718)     </p>

719) 
720) <hr>
721) 

722) <a id="torrc"></a>

723) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#torrc">I'm supposed to "edit my torrc". What does that mean?</a></h3>

724) 
725) <p>
726) Tor installs a text file called torrc that contains configuration
727) instructions for how your Tor program should behave. The default
728) configuration should work fine for most Tor users. Users of Vidalia can
729) make common changes through the Vidalia interface &mdash; only advanced
730) users should need to modify their torrc file directly.
731) </p>
732) 
733) <p>
734) The location of your torrc file depends on the way you installed Tor:
735) </p>
736) 
737) <ul>
738) <li>On Windows, if you installed a Tor bundle with Vidalia, you can
739) find your torrc file in the Start menu under Programs -&gt; Vidalia
740) Bundle -&gt; Tor, or you can find it by hand in <code>\Documents and
741) Settings\<i>username</i>\Application Data\Vidalia\torrc</code>. If you
742) installed Tor without Vidalia, you can find your torrc in the Start
743) menu under Programs -&gt; Tor, or manually in either <code>\Documents
744) and Settings\Application Data\tor\torrc</code> or <code>\Documents and
745) Settings\<i>username</i>\Application Data\tor\torrc</code>.
746) </li>
747) <li>On OS X, if you use Vidalia, edit
748) <code>~/.vidalia/torrc</code>. Otherwise, open your favorite text editor
749) and load <code>/Library/Tor/torrc</code>.
750) </li>
751) <li>On Unix, if you installed a pre-built package, look for
752) <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> or <code>/etc/torrc</code> or consult your
753) package's documentation.
754) </li>
755) <li>Finally, if you installed from source, you may not have a torrc
756) installed yet: look in <code>/usr/local/etc/</code> and note that you
757) may need to manually copy <code>torrc.sample</code> to <code>torrc</code>.
758) </li>
759) </ul>
760) 
761) <p>
762) If you use Vidalia, be sure to exit both Tor and Vidalia before you edit
763) your torrc file. Otherwise Vidalia might overwrite your changes.
764) </p>
765) 
766) <p>
767) Once you've changed your torrc, you will need to restart Tor for the
768) changes to take effect. (For advanced users on OS X and Unix, note that
769) you actually only need to send Tor a HUP signal, not actually restart it.)
770) </p>
771) 
772) <p>
773) For other configuration options you can use, look at the <a href="<page
774) docs/tor-manual>">Tor manual page</a>. Remember, all lines beginning
775) with # in torrc are treated as comments and have no effect on Tor's
776) configuration.
777) </p>
778) 
779) <hr>
780) 

781) <a id="Logs"></a>

782) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#Logs">How do I set up logging, or see Tor's logs?</a></h3>

783) 
784) <p>

785) If you installed a Tor bundle that includes Vidalia, then Vidalia has a
786) window called "Message Log" that will show you Tor's log messages. You
787) can click on "Settings" to see more details, or to save the messages to
788) a file. You're all set.

789) </p>
790) 
791) <p>
792) If you're not using Vidalia, you'll have to go find the log files by

793) hand. Here are some likely places for your logs to be:

794) </p>
795) 
796) <ul>
797) <li>On OS X, Debian, Red Hat, etc, the logs are in /var/log/tor/
798) </li>

799) <li>On Windows, there are no default log files currently. If you enable
800) logs in your torrc file, they default to <code>\username\Application
801) Data\tor\log\</code> or <code>\Application Data\tor\log\</code>
802) </li>
803) <li>If you compiled Tor from source, by default your Tor logs to <a
804) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_streams">"stdout"</a>
805) at log-level notice. If you enable logs in your torrc file, they
806) default to <code>/usr/local/var/log/tor/</code>.

807) </li>
808) </ul>
809) 
810) <p>

811) To change your logging setup by hand, <a href="#torrc">edit your torrc</a>
812) and find the section (near the top of the file) which contains the
813) following line:

814) </p>
815) 
816) <pre>

817) \## Logs go to stdout at level "notice" unless redirected by something
818) \## else, like one of the below lines.

819) </pre>

820) 
821) <p>

822) For example, if you want Tor to send complete debug, info, notice, warn,

823) and err level messages to a file, append the following line to the end
824) of the section:
825) </p>
826) 
827) <pre>
828) Log debug file c:/program files/tor/debug.log
829) </pre>
830) 
831) <p>

832) Replace <code>c:/program files/tor/debug.log</code> with a directory
833) and filename for your Tor log.

834) </p>
835) 
836) <hr>
837) 

838) <a id="DoesntWork"></a>

839) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#DoesntWork">I installed Tor and Polipo but it's not working.</a></h3>

840) 
841) <p>
842) Once you've installed the Tor bundle, there are two questions to ask:
843) first, is your Tor able to establish a circuit? Second, is your
844) Firefox correctly configured to send its traffic through Tor?
845) </p>
846) 
847) <p>If Tor can establish a circuit, the onion icon in
848) Vidalia will turn green. You can also check in the Vidalia
849) Control Panel to make sure it says "Connected to the Tor
850) network!" under Status. For those not using Vidalia, check your <a

851) href="#Logs">Tor logs</a> for

852) a line saying that Tor "has successfully opened a circuit. Looks like
853) client functionality is working."
854) </p>
855) 
856) <p>
857) If Tor can't establish a circuit, here are some hints:
858) </p>
859) 
860) <ol>
861) <li>Are you sure Tor is running? If you're using Vidalia, you may have
862) to click on the onion and select "Start" to launch Tor.</li>
863) <li>Check your system clock. If it's more than a few hours off, Tor will
864) refuse to build circuits. For XP users, synchronize your clock under
865) the clock -&gt; Internet time tab. In addition, correct the day and date
866) under the 'Date &amp; Time' Tab.</li>
867) <li>Is your Internet connection <a

868) href="#FirewallPorts">firewalled by port</a>,

869) or do you normally need to use a <a

870) href="<wikifaq>#MyInternetconnectionrequiresanHTTPorSOCKSproxy.">proxy</a>?

871) </li>
872) <li>Are you running programs like Norton Internet Security or SELinux that
873) block certain connections, even though you don't realize they do? They
874) could be preventing Tor from making network connections.</li>
875) <li>Are you in China, or behind a restrictive corporate network firewall
876) that blocks the public Tor relays? If so, you should learn about <a

877) href="<page docs/bridges>">Tor bridges</a>.</li>

878) <li>Check your <a href="#Logs">Tor logs</a>. Do they give you any hints
879) about what's going wrong?</li>

880) </ol>
881) 
882) <p>
883) Step two is to confirm that Firefox is correctly configured to send its
884) traffic through Tor. Try the <a href="https://check.torproject.org/">Tor
885) Check</a> site and see whether it thinks you are using Tor. See <a

886) href="<wikifaq>#HowcanItellifTorisworkingandthatmyconnectionsreallyareanonymizedArethereexternalserversthatwilltestmyconnection">the

887) Tor Check FAQ entry</a> for details.

888) </p>

889) 
890) <p>
891) If it thinks you're not using Tor, here are some hints:
892) </p>
893) 
894) <ol>
895) <li>Did you install the Torbutton extension for Firefox? The installation
896) bundles include it, but sometimes people forget to install it. Make sure
897) it says "Tor enabled" at the bottom right of your Firefox window. (For
898) expert users, make sure your http proxy is set to localhost port
899) 8118.)</li>
900) <li>Do you have incompatible Firefox extensions like FoxyProxy
901) installed? If so, uninstall them. (Note that using FoxyProxy is NOT
902) a sufficient substitute for Torbutton. There are many known attacks
903) against a browser setup that does not include Torbutton. Read more

904) in the <a href="<page torbutton/torbutton-faq>">Torbutton FAQ</a> and the <a

905) href="https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/design/">Torbutton design</a>
906) specification.)</li>
907) <li>If your browser says "The proxy server is refusing connections.",
908) check that Polipo (the http proxy that passes traffic between Firefox
909) and Tor) is running. On Windows, look in the task manager and check for
910) a polipo.exe. On OS X, open the utilities folder in your applications
911) folder, and open Terminal.app. Then run "ps aux|grep polipo".</li>
912) <li>If you're upgrading from OS X, some of the earlier OS X installers
913) were broken in really unfortunate ways. You may find that <a href="<page
914) docs/tor-doc-osx>#uninstall">uninstalling everything</a> and then
915) installing a fresh bundle helps. Alas, the current uninstall instructions
916) may not apply anymore to your old bundle. Sorry.</li>
917) <li>If you're on Linux, make sure Privoxy isn't running, since it will
918) conflict with the port that our Polipo configuration file picks.</li>
919) <li>If you installed Polipo yourself (not from a bundle), did you edit the

920) config file as described? Did you restart Polipo after this change? Are
921) you sure?</li>

922) <li>For Red Hat Linux and related systems, do you have SELinux enabled? If
923) so, it might be preventing Polipo from talking to Tor. We also run across
924) BSD users periodically who have local firewall rules that prevent some
925) connections to localhost.</li>
926) </ol>
927) 
928) <hr />
929) 
930) <a id="VidaliaPassword"></a>

931) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#VidaliaPassword">Tor/Vidalia prompts for a password at start.</a></h3>

932) 
933) <p>
934) Vidalia interacts with the Tor software via Tor's "control port". The
935) control port lets Vidalia receive status updates from Tor, request a new
936) identity, configure Tor's settings, etc. Each time Vidalia starts Tor,
937) Vidalia sets a random password for Tor's control port to prevent other
938) applications from also connecting to the control port and potentially
939) compromising your anonymity.
940) </p>
941) 
942) <p>
943) Usually this process of generating and setting a random control password
944) happens in the background. There are three common situations, though,
945) where Vidalia may prompt you for a password:
946) </p>
947) 
948) <ol>
949) <li>You're already running Vidalia and Tor. For example, this situation
950) can happen if you installed the Vidalia bundle and now you're trying to
951) run the Tor Browser Bundle. In that case, you'll need to close the old
952) Vidalia and Tor before you can run this one.
953) </li>
954) <li>Vidalia crashed, but left Tor running with the last known random
955) password. After you restart Vidalia, it generates a new random password,
956) but Vidalia can't talk to Tor, because the random passwords are different.
957) <br />
958) If the dialog that prompts you for a control password has a Reset button,
959) you can click the button and Vidalia will restart Tor with a new random
960) control password.
961) <br />
962) If you do not see a Reset button, or if Vidalia is unable to restart
963) Tor for you, you can still fix the problem manually. Simply go into your
964) process or task manager, and terminate the Tor process. Then use Vidalia
965) to restart Tor and all will work again.
966) </li>
967) <li>You had previously set Tor to run as a Windows NT service. When Tor
968) is set to
969) run as a service, it starts up when the system boots. If you configured
970) Tor to start as a service through Vidalia, a random password was set
971) and saved in Tor. When you reboot, Tor starts up and uses the random
972) password it saved. You login and start up Vidalia. Vidalia attempts to
973) talk to the already running Tor. Vidalia generates a random password,
974) but it is different than the saved password in the Tor service.
975) <br />
976) You need to reconfigure Tor to not be a service. See the FAQ entry on

977) <a href="<wikifaq>#HowdoIrunmyTorrelayasanNTservice">running Tor as a Windows NT service</a>

978) for more information on how to remove the Tor service.
979) </li>
980) </ol>
981) 

982)     <hr>

983) 

984)     <a id="ChooseEntryExit"></a>
985)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#ChooseEntryExit">Can I control which nodes (or country) are used for entry/exit?</a></h3>

986) 

987)     <p>

988)     Yes. You can set preferred entry and exit nodes as well as
989)     inform Tor which nodes you do not want to use.

990)     The following options can be added to your config file <a
991)     href="#torrc">"torrc"</a> or specified on the command line:

992)     </p>
993)     <dl>
994)       <dt><tt>EntryNodes $fingerprint,$fingerprint,...</tt></dt>
995)         <dd>A list of preferred nodes to use for the first hop in the circuit, if possible.
996)         </dd>
997)       <dt><tt>ExitNodes $fingerprint,$fingerprint,...</tt></dt>

998)         <dd>A list of preferred nodes to use for the last hop in the circuit, if possible.

999)         </dd>
1000)       <dt><tt>ExcludeNodes $fingerprint,$fingerprint,...</tt></dt>

1001)         <dd>A list of nodes to never use when building a circuit.

1002)         </dd>
1003)       <dt><tt>ExcludeExitNodes $fingerprint,$fingerprint,...</tt></dt>

1004)         <dd>A list of nodes to never use when picking an exit.
1005)             Nodes listed in <tt>ExcludeNodes</tt> are automatically in this list.

1006)         </dd>
1007)     </dl>
1008)     <p>

1009)     <em>We recommend you do not use these</em>
1010)     &mdash; they are intended for testing and may disappear in future versions.
1011)     You get the best security that Tor can provide when you leave the
1012)     route selection to Tor; overriding the entry / exit nodes can mess
1013)     up your anonymity in ways we don't understand.

1014)     </p>
1015)     <p>

1016)     The <tt>EntryNodes</tt> and <tt>ExitNodes</tt> config options are
1017)     treated as a request, meaning if the nodes are down or seem slow,
1018)     Tor will still avoid them. You can make the option mandatory by
1019)     setting <tt>StrictExitNodes 1</tt> or <tt>StrictEntryNodes 1</tt>
1020)     &mdash; but if you do, your Tor connections will stop working
1021)     if all of the nodes you have specified become unreachable.
1022)     See the <a href="<page docs/documentation>#NeatLinks">Tor status pages</a>

1023)     for some nodes you might pick.
1024)     </p>
1025)     <p>

1026)     Instead of <tt>$fingerprint</tt> you can also specify a 2 letter
1027)     ISO3166 country code in curly braces (for example {de}), or an ip
1028)     address pattern (for example 255.254.0.0/8), or a node nickname. Make
1029)     sure there are no spaces between the commas and the list items.

1030)     </p>
1031)     <p>

1032)     If you want to access a service directly through Tor's SOCKS interface
1033)     (eg. using ssh via connect.c), another option is to set up an
1034)     internal mapping in your configuration file using <tt>MapAddress</tt>.

1035)     See the manual page for details.
1036)     </p>

1037) 

1038)     <hr>

1039) 
1040) <a id="GoogleCaptcha"></a>

1041) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#GoogleCaptcha">Google makes me solve a Captcha or tells me I have spyware installed.</a></h3>

1042) 
1043) <p>
1044) This is a known and intermittent problem; it does not mean that Google
1045) considers Tor to be spyware.
1046) </p>
1047) 
1048) <p>
1049) When you use Tor, you are sending queries through exit relays that are also
1050) shared by thousands of other users. Tor users typically see this message
1051) when many Tor users are querying Google in a short period of time. Google
1052) interprets the high volume of traffic from a single IP address (the exit
1053) relay you happened to pick) as somebody trying to "crawl" their website,
1054) so it slows down traffic from that IP address for a short time.
1055) </p>
1056) <p>
1057) An alternate explanation is that Google tries to detect certain
1058) kinds of spyware or viruses that send distinctive queries to Google
1059) Search. It notes the IP addresses from which those queries are received
1060) (not realizing that they are Tor exit relays), and tries to warn any
1061) connections coming from those IP addresses that recent queries indicate
1062) an infection.
1063) </p>
1064) 
1065) <p>
1066) To our knowledge, Google is not doing anything intentionally specifically
1067) to deter or block Tor use. The error message about an infected machine
1068) should clear up again after a short time.
1069) </p>
1070) 
1071) <p>
1072) Torbutton 1.2.5 (released in mid 2010) detects Google captchas and can
1073) automatically redirect you to a more Tor-friendly search engine such as
1074) Ixquick or Bing.
1075) </p>
1076) 
1077) <hr />
1078) 
1079) <a id="GmailWarning"></a>

1080) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#GmailWarning">Gmail warns me that my account may have been compromised.</a></h3>

1081) 
1082) <p>
1083) Sometimes, after you've used Gmail over Tor, Google presents a

1084) pop-up notification that your account may have been compromised.
1085) The notification window lists a series of IP addresses and locations
1086) throughout the world recently used to access your account.

1087) </p>
1088) 
1089) <p>
1090) In general this is a false alarm: Google saw a bunch of logins from

1091) different places, as a result of running the service via Tor, and decided
1092) it was a good idea to confirm the account was being accessed by it's
1093) rightful owner.

1094) </p>
1095) 
1096) <p>

1097) Even though this may be a biproduct of using the service via tor,
1098) that doesn't mean you can entirely ignore the warning. It is
1099) <i>probably</i> a false positive, but it might not be since it is
1100) possible for someone to hijack your Google cookie.
1101) </p>
1102) 
1103) <p>
1104) Cookie hijacking is possible by either physical access to your computer
1105) or by watching your network traffic.  In theory only physical access
1106) should compromise your system because Gmail and similar services
1107) should only send the cookie over an SSL link. In practice, alas, it's <a
1108) href="http://fscked.org/blog/fully-automated-active-https-cookie-hijacking">
1109) way more complex than that</a>.

1110) </p>
1111) 
1112) <p>
1113) And if somebody <i>did</i> steal your google cookie, they might end
1114) up logging in from unusual places (though of course they also might
1115) not). So the summary is that since you're using Tor, this security
1116) measure that Google uses isn't so useful for you, because it's full of
1117) false positives. You'll have to use other approaches, like seeing if
1118) anything looks weird on the account, or looking at the timestamps for
1119) recent logins and wondering if you actually logged in at those times.
1120) </p>
1121) 

1122) <hr>
1123) 
1124) <a id="FirewallPorts"></a>

1125) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#FirewallPorts">My firewall only allows a few outgoing ports.</a></h3>

1126) 
1127) <p>
1128) If your firewall works by blocking ports, then you can tell Tor to only
1129) use the ports that your firewall permits by adding "FascistFirewall 1" to

1130) your <a href="<page docs/faq>#torrc">torrc

1131) configuration file</a>, or by clicking "My firewall only lets me connect
1132) to certain ports" in Vidalia's Network Settings window.
1133) </p>
1134) 
1135) <p>
1136) By default, when you set this Tor assumes that your firewall allows only
1137) port 80 and port 443 (HTTP and HTTPS respectively). You can select a
1138) different set of ports with the FirewallPorts torrc option.
1139) </p>
1140) 
1141) <p>
1142) If you want to be more fine-grained with your controls, you can also
1143) use the ReachableAddresses config options, e.g.:
1144) </p>
1145) 
1146) <pre>
1147)   ReachableDirAddresses *:80
1148)   ReachableORAddresses *:443
1149) </pre>
1150) 
1151) <hr>

1152) 

1153)     <a id="RelayFlexible"></a>

1154)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#RelayFlexible">How stable does my relay need to be?</a></h3>

1155) 

1156)     <p>
1157)     We aim to make setting up a Tor relay easy and convenient:
1158)     </p>

1159) 

1160)     <ul>
1161)     <li>Tor has built-in support for <a

1162)     href="<wikifaq>#WhatbandwidthshapingoptionsareavailabletoTorrelays">

1163)     rate limiting</a>. Further, if you have a fast
1164)     link but want to limit the number of bytes per
1165)     day (or week or month) that you donate, check out the <a

1166)     href="<wikifaq>#HowcanIlimitthetotalamountofbandwidthusedbymyTorrelay">hibernation

1167)     feature</a>.
1168)     </li>
1169)     <li>Each Tor relay has an <a href="#ExitPolicies">exit policy</a> that
1170)     specifies what sort of outbound connections are allowed or refused from
1171)     that relay. If you are uncomfortable allowing people to exit from your
1172)     relay, you can set it up to only allow connections to other Tor relays.
1173)     </li>
1174)     <li>It's fine if the relay goes offline sometimes. The directories
1175)     notice this quickly and stop advertising the relay. Just try to make
1176)     sure it's not too often, since connections using the relay when it
1177)     disconnects will break.
1178)     </li>
1179)     <li>We can handle relays with dynamic IPs just fine &mdash; simply
1180)     leave the Address config option blank, and Tor will try to guess.
1181)     </li>
1182)     <li>If your relay is behind a NAT and it doesn't know its public
1183)     IP (e.g. it has an IP of 192.168.x.y), you'll need to set up port

1184)     forwarding. Forwarding TCP connections is system dependent but

1185)     <a href="<wikifaq>#ImbehindaNATFirewall">this FAQ entry</a>

1186)     offers some examples on how to do this.
1187)     </li>
1188)     <li>Your relay will passively estimate and advertise its recent
1189)     bandwidth capacity, so high-bandwidth relays will attract more users than
1190)     low-bandwidth ones. Therefore having low-bandwidth relays is useful too.
1191)     </li>
1192)     </ul>

1193) 

1194)     <hr>

1195) 

1196)     <a id="RunARelayBut"></a>
1197)     <a id="ExitPolicies"></a>

1198)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#ExitPolicies">I'd run a relay, but I don't want to deal with abuse issues.</a></h3>

1199) 

1200)     <p>
1201)     Great. That's exactly why we implemented exit policies.
1202)     </p>

1203) 

1204)     <p>
1205)     Each Tor relay has an exit policy that specifies what sort of
1206)     outbound connections are allowed or refused from that relay. The exit
1207)     policies are propagated to Tor clients via the directory, so clients
1208)     will automatically avoid picking exit relays that would refuse to
1209)     exit to their intended destination. This way each relay can decide
1210)     the services, hosts, and networks he wants to allow connections to,

1211)     based on abuse potential and his own situation. Read the FAQ entry on
1212)     <a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#TypicalAbuses">issues you might encounter</a>
1213)     if you use the default exit policy, and then read Mike Perry's

1214)     <a href="<blog>tips-running-exit-node-minimal-harassment">tips

1215)     for running an exit node with minimal harassment</a>.
1216)     </p>

1217) 

1218)     <p>

1219)     The default exit policy allows access to many popular services

1220)     (e.g. web browsing), but <a href="<wikifaq>#Istherealistofdefaultexitports">restricts</a>

1221)     some due to abuse potential (e.g. mail) and some since
1222)     the Tor network can't handle the load (e.g. default
1223)     file-sharing ports). You can change your exit policy

1224)     using Vidalia's "Sharing" tab, or by manually editing your

1225)     <a href="<page docs/faq>#torrc">torrc</a>

1226)     file. If you want to avoid most if not all abuse potential, set it to
1227)     "reject *:*" (or un-check all the boxes in Vidalia). This setting means
1228)     that your relay will be used for relaying traffic inside the Tor network,
1229)     but not for connections to external websites or other services.
1230)     </p>

1231) 

1232)     <p>
1233)     If you do allow any exit connections, make sure name resolution works
1234)     (that is, your computer can resolve Internet addresses correctly).
1235)     If there are any resources that your computer can't reach (for example,
1236)     you are behind a restrictive firewall or content filter), please
1237)     explicitly reject them in your exit policy &mdash; otherwise Tor users
1238)     will be impacted too.
1239)     </p>

1240) 

1241)     <hr>

1242) 

1243)     <a id="RelayOrBridge"></a>

1244)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#RelayOrBridge">Should I be a normal relay or bridge relay?</a></h3>

1245) 

1246)     <p><a href="<page docs/bridges>">Bridge relays</a> (or "bridges" for short)
1247)     are <a href="<page docs/tor-doc-relay>">Tor relays</a> that aren't listed
1248)     in the main Tor directory. That means
1249)     that even an ISP or government trying to filter connections to the Tor
1250)     network probably won't be able to block all the bridges.
1251)     </p>

1252) 

1253)     <p>Being a normal relay vs being a bridge relay is almost the same
1254)     configuration: it's just a matter of whether your relay is listed
1255)     publically or not.
1256)     </p>

1257) 

1258)     <p>Right now, there are a small number of places in the world that filter

1259)     connections to the Tor network. So getting a lot of bridges running
1260)     right now is mostly a backup measure, a) in case the Tor network does

1261)     get blocked in more places, and b) for people who want an extra layer of

1262)     security because they're worried somebody will recognize that it's a
1263)     public Tor relay IP address they're contacting.
1264)     </p>

1265) 

1266)     <p>So should you run a normal relay or bridge relay? If you have
1267)     lots of bandwidth, you should definitely run a normal relay &mdash;

1268)     bridge relays see very little use these days. If you're willing to

1269)     <a href="#ExitPolicies">be an exit</a>, you should definitely run a normal
1270)     relay, since we need more exits. If you can't be an exit and only have
1271)     a little bit of bandwidth, then flip a coin. Thanks for volunteering!
1272)     </p>

1273) 

1274)     <hr>

1275) 

1276) <a id="MultipleRelays"></a>
1277) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#MultipleRelays">I want to run more than one relay.</a></h3>

1278) 
1279) <p>
1280) Great. If you want to run several relays to donate more to the network,
1281) we're happy with that. But please don't run more than a few dozen on
1282) the same network, since part of the goal of the Tor network is dispersal
1283) and diversity.
1284) </p>
1285) 
1286) <p>
1287) If you do decide to run more than one relay, please set the "MyFamily"

1288) config option in the <a href="#torrc">torrc</a> of each relay, listing
1289) all the relays (comma-separated) that are under your control:

1290) </p>
1291) 
1292) <pre>
1293)     MyFamily $fingerprint1,$fingerprint2,$fingerprint3
1294) </pre>
1295) 
1296) <p>
1297) where each fingerprint is the 40 character identity fingerprint (without
1298) spaces). You can also list them by nickname, but fingerprint is safer. Be
1299) sure to prefix the digest strings with a dollar sign ('$') so that the
1300) digest is not confused with a nickname in the config file.
1301) </p>
1302) 
1303) <p>
1304) That way clients will know to avoid using more than one of your relays
1305) in a single circuit. You should set MyFamily if you have administrative
1306) control of the computers or of their network, even if they're not all in
1307) the same geographic location.
1308) </p>
1309) 
1310)     <hr>
1311) 

1312)     <a id="RelayMemory"></a>

1313)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#RelayMemory">Why is my Tor relay using so much memory?</a></h3>

1314) 

1315)     <p>If your Tor relay is using more memory than you'd like, here are some
1316)     tips for reducing its footprint:
1317)     </p>

1318) 

1319)     <ol>
1320)     <li>If you're on Linux, you may be encountering memory fragmentation
1321)     bugs in glibc's malloc implementation. That is, when Tor releases memory
1322)     back to the system, the pieces of memory are fragmented so they're hard
1323)     to reuse. The Tor tarball ships with OpenBSD's malloc implementation,
1324)     which doesn't have as many fragmentation bugs (but the tradeoff is higher
1325)     CPU load). You can tell Tor to use this malloc implementation instead:
1326)     <tt>./configure --enable-openbsd-malloc</tt></li>

1327) 

1328)     <li>If you're running a fast relay, meaning you have many TLS connections
1329)     open, you are probably losing a lot of memory to OpenSSL's internal
1330)     buffers (38KB+ per socket). We've patched OpenSSL to <a

1331)     href="https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2008-June/001519.html">release

1332)     unused buffer memory more aggressively</a>. If you update to OpenSSL
1333)     1.0.0-beta5, Tor's build process will automatically recognize and use
1334)     this feature.</li>

1335) 

1336)     <li>If you're running on Solaris, OpenBSD, NetBSD, or
1337)     old FreeBSD, Tor is probably forking separate processes
1338)     rather than using threads. Consider switching to a <a

1339)     href="<wikifaq>#WhydoesntmyWindowsorotherOSTorrelayrunwell">better

1340)     operating system</a>.</li>

1341) 

1342)     <li>If you still can't handle the memory load, consider reducing the
1343)     amount of bandwidth your relay advertises. Advertising less bandwidth
1344)     means you will attract fewer users, so your relay shouldn't grow
1345)     as large. See the <tt>MaxAdvertisedBandwidth</tt> option in the man
1346)     page.</li>

1347) 

1348)     </ol>

1349) 

1350)     <p>
1351)     All of this said, fast Tor relays do use a lot of ram. It is not unusual
1352)     for a fast exit relay to use 500-1000 MB of memory.
1353)     </p>

1354) 

1355)     <hr>

1356) 

1357)     <a id="WhyNotNamed"></a>

1358)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhyNotNamed">Why is my Tor relay not named?</a></h3>

1359) 

1360)     <p>

1361)     We currently use these metrics to determine if your relay should be named:<br>

1362)     </p>
1363)     <ul>
1364)     <li>The name is not currently mapped to a different key. Existing mappings
1365)     are removed after 6 months of inactivity from a relay.</li>
1366)     <li>The relay must have been around for at least two weeks.</li>
1367)     <li>No other router may have wanted the same name in the past month.</li>
1368)     </ul>

1369) 

1370)     <hr>

1371) 

1372)     <a id="KeyManagement"></a>

1373)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#KeyManagement">Tell me about all the keys Tor uses.</a></h3>

1374) 

1375)     <p>
1376)     Tor uses a variety of different keys, with three goals in mind: 1)
1377)     encryption to ensure privacy of data within the Tor network, 2)
1378)     authentication so clients know they're
1379)     talking to the relays they meant to talk to, and 3) signatures to make
1380)     sure all clients know the same set of relays.
1381)     </p>

1382) 

1383)     <p>
1384)     <b>Encryption</b>: first, all connections in Tor use TLS link encryption,
1385)     so observers can't look inside to see which circuit a given cell is
1386)     intended for. Further, the Tor client establishes an ephemeral encryption
1387)     key with each relay in the circuit, so only the exit relay can read
1388)     the cells. Both sides discard the circuit key when the circuit ends,
1389)     so logging traffic and then breaking into the relay to discover the key
1390)     won't work.
1391)     </p>

1392) 

1393)     <p>
1394)     <b>Authentication</b>:
1395)     Every Tor relay has a public decryption key called the "onion key".
1396)     When the Tor client establishes circuits, at each step it <a
1397)     href="<svnprojects>design-paper/tor-design.html#subsec:circuits">demands
1398)     that the Tor relay prove knowledge of its onion key</a>. That way
1399)     the first node in the path can't just spoof the rest of the path.
1400)     Each relay rotates its onion key once a week.
1401)     </p>

1402) 

1403)     <p>
1404)     <b>Coordination</b>:
1405)     How do clients know what the relays are, and how do they know that they
1406)     have the right keys for them? Each relay has a long-term public signing
1407)     key called the "identity key". Each directory authority additionally has a
1408)     "directory signing key". The directory authorities <a

1409)     href="<specblob>dir-spec.txt">provide a signed list</a>

1410)     of all the known relays, and in that list are a set of certificates from
1411)     each relay (self-signed by their identity key) specifying their keys,
1412)     locations, exit policies, and so on. So unless the adversary can control
1413)     a threshold of the directory authorities, he can't trick the Tor client
1414)     into using other Tor relays.
1415)     </p>

1416) 

1417)     <p>
1418)     How do clients know what the directory authorities are? The Tor software
1419)     comes with a built-in list of location and public key for each directory
1420)     authority. So the only way to trick users into using a fake Tor network
1421)     is to give them a specially modified version of the software.
1422)     </p>

1423) 

1424)     <p>
1425)     How do users know they've got the right software? When we distribute
1426)     the source code or a package, we digitally sign it with <a
1427)     href="http://www.gnupg.org/">GNU Privacy Guard</a>. See the <a
1428)     href="<page docs/verifying-signatures>">instructions
1429)     on how to check Tor's signatures</a>.
1430)     </p>

1431) 

1432)     <p>
1433)     In order to be certain that it's really signed by us, you need to have
1434)     met us in person and gotten a copy of our GPG key fingerprint, or you
1435)     need to know somebody who has. If you're concerned about an attack on
1436)     this level, we recommend you get involved with the security community
1437)     and start meeting people.
1438)     </p>

1439) 

1440)     <hr>

1441) 

1442) <a id="EntryGuards"></a>
1443) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#EntryGuards">What are Entry Guards?</a></h3>
1444) 
1445) <p>
1446) Tor (like all current practical low-latency anonymity designs) fails
1447) when the attacker can see both ends of the communications channel. For

1448) example, suppose the attacker controls or watches the Tor relay you choose
1449) to enter the network, and also controls or watches the website you visit. In

1450) this case, the research community knows no practical low-latency design
1451) that can reliably stop the attacker from correlating volume and timing
1452) information on the two sides.
1453) </p>
1454) 
1455) <p>
1456) So, what should we do? Suppose the attacker controls, or can observe,

1457) <i>C</i> relays. Suppose there are <i>N</i> relays total. If you select
1458) new entry and exit relays each time you use the network, the attacker
1459) will be able to correlate all traffic you send with probability
1460) <i>(c/n)<sup>2</sup></i>. But profiling is, for most users, as bad
1461) as being traced all the time: they want to do something often without
1462) an attacker noticing, and the attacker noticing once is as bad as the
1463) attacker noticing more often. Thus, choosing many random entries and exits
1464) gives the user no chance of escaping profiling by this kind of attacker.

1465) </p>
1466) 
1467) <p>

1468) The solution is "entry guards": each Tor client selects a few relays at random

1469) to use as entry points, and uses only those relays for her first hop. If
1470) those relays are not controlled or observed, the attacker can't win,
1471) ever, and the user is secure. If those relays <i>are</i> observed or
1472) controlled by the attacker, the attacker sees a larger <i>fraction</i>
1473) of the user's traffic &mdash; but still the user is no more profiled than
1474) before. Thus, the user has some chance (on the order of <i>(n-c)/n</i>)
1475) of avoiding profiling, whereas she had none before.

1476) </p>
1477) 
1478) <p>

1479) You can read more at <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#wright02">An
1480) Analysis of the Degradation of Anonymous Protocols</a>, <a
1481) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#wright03">Defending Anonymous
1482) Communication Against Passive Logging Attacks</a>, and especially
1483) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#hs-attack06">Locating Hidden
1484) Servers</a>.

1485) </p>
1486) 
1487) <p>
1488) Restricting your entry nodes may also help against attackers who want
1489) to run a few Tor nodes and easily enumerate all of the Tor user IP
1490) addresses. (Even though they can't learn what destinations the users
1491) are talking to, they still might be able to do bad things with just a

1492) list of users.) However, that feature won't really become useful until
1493) we move to a "directory guard" design as well.

1494) </p>
1495) 
1496)     <hr>
1497) 

1498)     <a id="EverybodyARelay"></a>

1499)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#EverybodyARelay">You should make every Tor user be a relay.</a></h3>

1500) 

1501)     <p>
1502)     Requiring every Tor user to be a relay would help with scaling the

1503)     network to handle all our users, and <a
1504)     href="<wikifaq>#DoIgetbetteranonymityifIrunarelay">running a Tor

1505)     relay may help your anonymity</a>. However, many Tor users cannot be good
1506)     relays &mdash; for example, some Tor clients operate from behind restrictive
1507)     firewalls, connect via modem, or otherwise aren't in a position where they
1508)     can relay traffic. Providing service to these clients is a critical
1509)     part of providing effective anonymity for everyone, since many Tor users
1510)     are subject to these or similar constraints and including these clients
1511)     increases the size of the anonymity set.
1512)     </p>

1513) 

1514)     <p>
1515)     That said, we do want to encourage Tor users to run relays, so what we
1516)     really want to do is simplify the process of setting up and maintaining
1517)     a relay. We've made a lot of progress with easy configuration in the past
1518)     few years: Vidalia has an easy relay configuration interface, and supports
1519)     uPnP too. Tor is good at automatically detecting whether it's reachable and
1520)     how much bandwidth it can offer.
1521)     </p>

1522) 

1523)     <p>
1524)     There are five steps we need to address before we can do this though:
1525)     </p>

1526) 

1527)     <p>
1528)     First, we need to make Tor stable as a relay on all common
1529)     operating systems. The main remaining platform is Windows,
1530)     and we plan to finally address that in 2009. See Section 4.1 of <a
1531)     href="https://www.torproject.org/press/2008-12-19-roadmap-press-release">our
1532)     development roadmap</a>.
1533)     </p>

1534) 

1535)     <p>
1536)     Second, we still need to get better at automatically estimating
1537)     the right amount of bandwidth to allow. See item #7 on the
1538)     <a href="<page getinvolved/volunteer>#Research">research section of the
1539)     volunteer page</a>: "Tor doesn't work very well when relays
1540)     have asymmetric bandwidth (e.g. cable or DSL)". It might be that <a

1541)     href="<page docs/faq>#TransportIPnotTCP">switching

1542)     to UDP transport</a> is the simplest answer here &mdash; which alas is
1543)     not a very simple answer at all.
1544)     </p>

1545) 

1546)     <p>
1547)     Third, we need to work on scalability, both of the network (how to
1548)     stop requiring that all Tor relays be able to connect to all Tor
1549)     relays) and of the directory (how to stop requiring that all Tor
1550)     users know about all Tor relays). Changes like this can have large
1551)     impact on potential and actual anonymity. See Section 5 of the <a
1552)     href="<svnprojects>design-paper/challenges.pdf">Challenges</a> paper
1553)     for details. Again, UDP transport would help here.
1554)     </p>

1555) 

1556)     <p>
1557)     Fourth, we need to better understand the risks from
1558)     letting the attacker send traffic through your relay while
1559)     you're also initiating your own anonymized traffic. <a
1560)     href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#back01">Three</a> <a
1561)     href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">different</a>
1562)     <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#torta05">research</a> papers
1563)     describe ways to identify the relays in a circuit by running traffic
1564)     through candidate relays and looking for dips in the traffic while the
1565)     circuit is active. These clogging attacks are not that scary in the Tor
1566)     context so long as relays are never clients too. But if we're trying to
1567)     encourage more clients to turn on relay functionality too (whether as
1568)     <a href="<page docs/bridges>">bridge relays</a> or as normal relays), then
1569)     we need to understand this threat better and learn how to mitigate it.
1570)     </p>

1571) 

1572)     <p>
1573)     Fifth, we might need some sort of incentive scheme to encourage people
1574)     to relay traffic for others, and/or to become exit nodes. Here are our

1575)     <a href="<blog>two-incentive-designs-tor">current

1576)     thoughts on Tor incentives</a>.
1577)     </p>

1578) 

1579)     <p>
1580)     Please help on all of these!
1581)     </p>

1582) 

1583) <hr>
1584) 
1585) <a id="TransportIPnotTCP"></a>

1586) <h3><a class="anchor" href="#TransportIPnotTCP">You should transport all IP packets, not just TCP packets.</a></h3>

1587) 
1588) <p>

1589) This would be handy, because it would make Tor better able to handle
1590) new protocols like VoIP, it could solve the whole need to socksify
1591) applications, and it would solve the fact that exit relays need to
1592) allocate a lot of file descriptors to hold open all the exit connections.

1593) </p>
1594) 
1595) <p>

1596) We're heading in this direction: see <a
1597) href="https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/1855">this trac
1598) ticket</a> for directions we should investigate. Some of the hard
1599) problems are:

1600) </p>
1601) 

1602) <ol>

1603) <li>IP packets reveal OS characteristics. We would still need to do
1604) IP-level packet normalization, to stop things like TCP fingerprinting
1605) attacks. Given the diversity and complexity of TCP stacks, along with <a

1606) href="<wikifaq>#DoesTorresistremotephysicaldevicefingerprinting">device

1607) fingerprinting attacks</a>, it looks like our best bet is shipping our
1608) own user-space TCP stack.

1609) </li>

1610) <li>Application-level streams still need scrubbing. We will still need
1611) user-side applications like Torbutton. So it won't become just a matter
1612) of capturing packets and anonymizing them at the IP layer.

1613) </li>
1614) <li>Certain protocols will still leak information. For example, we must
1615) rewrite DNS requests so they are delivered to an unlinkable DNS server
1616) rather than the DNS server at a user's ISP; thus, we must understand
1617) the protocols we are transporting.
1618) </li>
1619) <li><a
1620) href="http://crypto.stanford.edu/~nagendra/projects/dtls/dtls.html">DTLS</a>

1621) (datagram TLS) basically has no users, and IPsec sure is big. Once we've
1622) picked a transport mechanism, we need to design a new end-to-end Tor
1623) protocol for avoiding tagging attacks and other potential anonymity and
1624) integrity issues now that we allow drops, resends, et cetera.

1625) </li>
1626) <li>Exit policies for arbitrary IP packets mean building a secure
1627) IDS. Our node operators tell us that exit policies are one of the main
1628) reasons they're willing to run Tor. Adding an Intrusion Detection System
1629) to handle exit policies would increase the security complexity of Tor,
1630) and would likely not work anyway, as evidenced by the entire field of IDS
1631) and counter-IDS papers. Many potential abuse issues are resolved by the
1632) fact that Tor only transports valid TCP streams (as opposed to arbitrary
1633) IP including malformed packets and IP floods), so exit policies become
1634) even <i>more</i> important as we become able to transport IP packets. We
1635) also need to compactly describe exit policies in the Tor directory,
1636) so clients can predict which nodes will allow their packets to exit &mdash;
1637) and clients need to predict all the packets they will want to send in
1638) a session before picking their exit node!
1639) </li>

1640) <li>The Tor-internal name spaces would need to be redesigned. We support
1641) hidden service ".onion" addresses by intercepting the addresses when
1642) they are passed to the Tor client. Doing so at the IP level will require
1643) a more complex interface between Tor and the local DNS resolver.

1644) </li>
1645) </ol>
1646) 

1647)     <hr>

1648) 

1649)     <a id="Criminals"></a>

1650)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#Criminals">Doesn't Tor enable criminals to do bad things?</a></h3>

1651) 

1652)     <p>
1653)     For the answer to this question and others, please see our <a
1654)     href="<page docs/faq-abuse>">Tor Abuse FAQ</a>.
1655)     </p>

1656) 

1657)     <hr>

1658) 

1659)     <a id="RespondISP"></a>

1660)     <h3><a class="anchor" href="#RespondISP">How do I respond to my ISP about my exit relay?</a></h3>

1661) 

1662)     <p>
1663)     A collection of templates for successfully responding to ISPs is <a

1664)     href="<wiki>doc/TorAbuseTemplates">collected

1665)     here</a>.
1666)     </p>

1667) 

1668)     <hr>

1669) 

1670)   </div>
1671)   <!-- END MAINCOL -->
1672)   <div id = "sidecol">
1673) #include "side.wmi"
1674) #include "info.wmi"
1675)   </div>
1676)   <!-- END SIDECOL -->
1677) </div>
1678) <!-- END CONTENT -->