tor-webwml.git

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2) # Revision: $Revision$
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5) #include "head.wmi" TITLE="Torbutton Options"
6) 
7) <div class="main-column">
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9) <!-- PUT CONTENT AFTER THIS TAG -->
10) 
11) <h2>Torbutton Options</h2>
12) <hr />
13) 

14) <p>Torbutton 1.2.0 adds several new security features to protect your
15) anonymity from all the major threats we know about. The defaults should be
16) fine (and safest!) for most people, but in case you are the tweaker type,

17) or if you prefer to try to outsource some options to more flexible extensions,
18) here is the complete list. (In an ideal world, these descriptions should all be
19) tooltips in the extension itself, but Firefox bugs <a
20) href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45375">45375</a> and <a
21) href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=218223">218223</a> currently

22) prevent this.)</p>

23) 
24) <ul>

25)  <li>Disable plugins on Tor Usage (crucial)<p> 

26) 
27)   This option is key to Tor security. Plugins perform their own networking
28) independent of the browser, and many plugins only partially obey even their own
29) proxy settings.

30) </p></li>

31)   <li>Isolate Dynamic Content to Tor State (crucial)<p> 

32) 
33)   Another crucial option, this setting causes the plugin to disable Javascript
34)   on tabs that are loaded during a Tor state different than the current one,
35)   to prevent delayed fetches of injected URLs that contain unique identifiers,
36)   and to prevent meta-refresh tags from revealing your IP when you turn off
37)   Tor. It also prevents all fetches from tabs loaded with an opposite Tor
38)   state. This serves to block non-Javascript dynamic content such as CSS
39)   popups from revealing your IP address if you disable Tor.

40) </p></li>

41)   <li>Hook Dangerous Javascript (crucial)<p> 

42) 
43) This setting enables the Javascript hooking code. Javascript is injected into
44) pages to hook the Date object to mask your timezone, and to hook the navigator
45) object to mask OS and user agent properties not handled by the standard
46) Firefox user agent override settings.

47) </p></li>

48)   <li>Resize window dimensions to multiples of 50px on toggle (recommended)<p> 

49) 
50) To cut down on the amount of state available to fingerprint users uniquely, 
51) this pref causes windows to be resized to a multiple of 50 pixels on each
52) side when Tor is enabled and pages are loaded.

53) </p></li>

54)   <li>Disable Updates During Tor (recommended)<p> 

55) 
56) Under Firefox 2, many extension authors did not update their extensions from 
57) SSL-enabled websites. It is possible for malicious Tor nodes to hijack these extensions and replace them with malicious ones, or add malicious code to 
58) existing extensions. Since Firefox 3 now enforces encrypted and/or
59) authenticated updates, this setting is no longer as important as it once
60) was (though updates do leak information about which extensions you have, it is
61) fairly infrequent).

62) </p></li>

63)   <li>Disable Search Suggestions during Tor (optional)<p> 

64) 
65) This optional setting governs if you get Google search suggestions during Tor
66) usage. Since no cookie is transmitted during search suggestions, this is a
67) relatively benign behavior.

68) </p></li>

69)   <li>Block Tor/Non-Tor access to network from file:// urls (recommended)<p> 

70) 
71) These settings prevent local html documents from transmitting local files to
72) arbitrary websites <a href="http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/content-disposition-hacking/">under Firefox 2</a>. Since exit nodes can insert headers that
73) force the browser to save arbitrary pages locally (and also inject script into
74) arbitrary html files you save to disk via Tor), it is probably a good idea to
75) leave this setting on.

76) </p></li>

77)   <li>Close all Non-Tor/Tor windows and tabs on toggle (optional)<p> 

78) 
79) These two settings allow you to obtain a greater degree of assurance that
80) after you toggle out of Tor, the pages are really gone and can't perform any
81) extra network activity. Currently, there is no known way that pages can still
82) perform activity after toggle, but these options exist as a backup measure
83) just in case a flaw is discovered. They can also serve as a handy 'Boss
84) Button' feature for clearing all Tor browsing off your screen in a hurry.

85) </p></li>

86)   <li>Isolate access to history navigation to Tor state (crucial)<p> 

87) 
88) This setting prevents both Javascript and accidental user clicks from causing
89) the session history to load pages that were fetched in a different Tor state
90) than the current one. Since this can be used to correlate Tor and Non-Tor
91) activity and thus determine your IP address, it is marked as a crucial 
92) setting.

93) </p></li>

94)   <li>Block History Reads during Tor (crucial)<p> 

95) 
96)   Based on code contributed by <a href="http://www.collinjackson.com/">Collin
97)   Jackson</a>, when enabled and Tor is enabled, this setting prevents the
98) rendering engine from knowing if certain links were visited.  This mechanism
99) defeats all document-based history disclosure attacks, including CSS-only
100) attacks.

101) </p></li>

102)   <li>Block History Reads during Non-Tor (recommended)<p> 

103) 
104)   This setting accomplishes the same but for your Non-Tor activity.

105) </p></li>

106)   <li>Block History Writes during Tor (recommended)<p> 

107) 
108)   This setting prevents the rendering engine from recording visited URLs, and
109) also disables download manager history. Note that if you allow writing of Tor history,
110) it is recommended that you disable non-Tor history reads, since malicious
111) websites you visit without Tor can query your history for .onion sites and
112) other history recorded during Tor usage (such as Google queries).

113) </p></li>

114)   <li>Block History Writes during Non-Tor (optional)<p> 

115) 
116) This setting also disables recording any history information during Non-Tor
117) usage.

118) </p></li>

119) <li>Clear History During Tor Toggle (optional)<p> 

120) 
121)   This is an alternate setting to use instead of (or in addition to) blocking
122) history reads or writes.

123) </p></li>

124)   <li>Block Password+Form saving during Tor/Non-Tor<p> 

125) 
126)   These options govern if the browser writes your passwords and search
127)   submissions to disk for the given state.

128) </p></li>

129)   <li>Block Tor disk cache and clear all cache on Tor Toggle<p> 

130) 
131)   Since the browser cache can be leveraged to store unique identifiers, cache
132) must not persist across Tor sessions. This option keeps the memory cache active
133) during Tor usage for performance, but blocks disk access for caching.

134) </p></li>

135)   <li>Block disk and memory cache during Tor<p> 

136) 
137)   This setting entirely blocks the cache during Tor, but preserves it for
138) Non-Tor usage.

139) </p></li>

140)   <li>Clear Cookies on Tor Toggle<p> 

141) 
142)   Fully clears all cookies on Tor toggle.

143) </p></li>

144)   <li>Store Non-Tor cookies in a protected jar<p> 

145) 
146)   This option stores your persistent Non-Tor cookies in a special cookie jar
147)   file, in case you wish to preserve some cookies. Based on code contributed
148)   by <a href="http://www.collinjackson.com/">Collin Jackson</a>. It is
149)   compatible with third party extensions that you use to manage your Non-Tor
150)   cookies. Your Tor cookies will be cleared on toggle, of course.

151) </p></li>

152)   <li>Store both Non-Tor and Tor cookies in a protected jar (dangerous)<p> 

153) 
154)   This option stores your persistent Tor and Non-Tor cookies 
155)   separate cookie jar files. Note that it is a bad idea to keep Tor
156)   cookies around for any length of time, as they can be retrieved by exit
157)   nodes that inject spoofed forms into plaintext pages you fetch.

158) </p></li>

159)   <li>Manage My Own Cookies (dangerous)<p> 

160) 
161)   This setting allows you to manage your own cookies with an alternate
162) extension, such as <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/82">CookieCuller</a>. Note that this is particularly dangerous,
163) since malicious exit nodes can spoof document elements that appear to be from
164) sites you have preserved cookies for (and can then do things like fetch your
165) entire gmail inbox, even if you were not using gmail or visiting any google
166) pages at the time!).

167) </p></li>

168)   <li>Do not write Tor/Non-Tor cookies to disk<p> 

169) 
170)   These settings prevent Firefox from writing any cookies to disk during the
171)   corresponding Tor state. If cookie jars are enabled, those jars will
172)   exist in memory only, and will be cleared when Firefox exits.

173) </p></li>

174)   <li>Disable DOM Storage during Tor usage (crucial)<p> 

175) 
176)   Firefox has recently added the ability to store additional state and
177)   identifiers in persistent tables, called <a
178)   href="http://developer.mozilla.org/docs/DOM:Storage">DOM Storage</a>.
179)   Obviously this can compromise your anonymity if stored content can be
180)   fetched across Tor-state.

181) </p></li>

182)   <li>Clear HTTP auth sessions (recommended)<p> 

183) 
184)   HTTP authentication credentials can be probed by exit nodes and used to both confirm that you visit a certain site that uses HTTP auth, and also impersonate you on this site. 

185) </p></li>

186)   <li>Clear cookies on Tor/Non-Tor shutdown<p> 

187) 
188)   These settings install a shutdown handler to clear cookies on Tor
189) and/or Non-Tor browser shutdown. It is independent of your Clear Private Data
190) settings, and does in fact clear the corresponding cookie jars.

191) </p></li>

192)   <li>Prevent session store from saving Tor-loaded tabs (recommended)<p> 

193) 
194)   This option augments the session store to prevent it from writing out
195)   Tor-loaded tabs to disk. Unfortunately, this also disables your ability to 
196)   undo closed tabs. The reason why this setting is recommended is because
197)   after a session crash, your browser will be in an undefined Tor state, and
198)   can potentially load a bunch of Tor tabs without Tor. The following option
199)   is another alternative to protect against this.

200) </p></li>

201)   <li>On normal startup, set state to: Tor, Non-Tor, Shutdown State<p> 

202) 
203)   This setting allows you to choose which Tor state you want the browser to
204)   start in normally: Tor, Non-Tor, or whatever state the browser shut down in.

205) </p></li>

206)   <li>On crash recovery or session restored startup, restore via: Tor, Non-Tor<p> 

207) 
208)   When Firefox crashes, the Tor state upon restart usually is completely
209)   random, and depending on your choice for the above option, may load 
210)   a bunch of tabs in the wrong state. This setting allows you to choose
211)   which state the crashed session should always be restored in to.

212) </p></li>

213)   <li>Prevent session store from saving Non-Tor/Tor-loaded tabs<p> 

214) 
215)   These two settings allow you to control what the Firefox Session Store
216)   writes to disk. Since the session store state is used to automatically
217)   load websites after a crash or upgrade, it is advisable not to allow
218)   Tor tabs to be written to disk, or they may get loaded in Non-Tor
219)   after a crash (or the reverse, depending upon the crash recovery setting, 
220)   of course).

221) </p></li>

222)   <li>Set user agent during Tor usage (crucial)<p> 

223) 
224)   User agent masking is done with the idea of making all Tor users appear
225) uniform. A recent Firefox 2.0.0.4 Windows build was chosen to mimic for this
226) string and supporting navigator.* properties, and this version will remain the
227) same for all TorButton versions until such time as specific incompatibility
228) issues are demonstrated. Uniformity of this value is obviously very important
229) to anonymity. Note that for this option to have full effectiveness, the user
230) must also allow Hook Dangerous Javascript ensure that the navigator.*
231) properties are reset correctly.  The browser does not set some of them via the
232) exposed user agent override preferences.

233) </p></li>

234)   <li>Spoof US English Browser<p> 

235) 
236) This option causes Firefox to send http headers as if it were an English
237) browser. Useful for internationalized users.

238) </p></li>

239)   <li>Don't send referrer during Tor Usage<p> 

240) 
241) This option disables the referrer header, preventing sites from determining
242) where you came from to visit them. This can break some sites, however. <a
243) href="http://www.digg.com">Digg</a> in particular seemed to be broken by this.
244) A more streamlined, less intrusive version of this option should be available
245) eventually. In the meantime, <a
246) href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/953">RefControl</a> can
247) provide this functionality via a default option of <b>Forge</b>.

248) </p></li>