en/faq.wml (ad9d5a464) - tor-webwml.git

faq.wml

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# Revision: $Revision$

#include "head.wmi" TITLE="Tor FAQ"

<ul>
<li><a href="#General">General questions</a></li>
<li><a href="#foo">Compilation and Installation</a></li>
<li><a href="#foo">Running Tor</a></li>
<li><a href="#foo">Running a Tor client</a></li>
<li><a href="#foo">Running a Tor relay</a></li>
<li><a href="#foo">Running a Tor hidden service</a></li>
<li><a href="#foo">What happens to my donation?</a></li>
</ul>

<hr />

<p>
Tor is an anonymity network.  It protects your privacy on the
internet.  Tor uses a series of three proxies - computers (or
nodes) which communicate on your behalf using their own identifying
information - in such a way that none of them know both your identifying
information and your destination.  Tor can also help people get around
restrictive firewalls which censor web content.  Read the <a href="<page
overview>">Tor overview</a> to learn more about Tor and what it can do
for you.
</p>

<a id="CompatibleApplications"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#CompatibleApplications">What programs and
applications work with Tor?</a></h3>

<p>
Tor presents a SOCKS proxy interface to applications, so any application that
supports SOCKS (versions 4, 4a and 5) can be anonymized using Tor. Most
web browsers, many instant messaging and IRC clients, SSH clients and
email clients already have built-in support for SOCKS.  However, not all SOCKS 
interfaces are equal.  See [#SOCKSAndDNS below] for information about how some 
SOCKS interfaces may leak information via DNS about where you are going on the 
internet, and how you can avoid this.
</p>

<p>
Since Tor does not filter message content, additional software
agents should be used to filter content. For example, <a
href="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</a> is a good HTTP proxy for
filtering dangerous or annoying web content, such as tracking scripts
and ads.
</p>

<p>
We have compiled a <a
href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/SupportPrograms">list
of applications that help you direct your traffic
through Tor</a>, and a list of instructions for <a
href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorifyHOWTO">Torifying
specific applications</a>. Please add to these lists and help us keep
them accurate!
</p>

<p>
We've set up a preliminary <a href="<page volunteer>">"volunteer"
page</a>, which lists a few ways to help. If you have something to
contribute that we haven't listed there, chances are we still need it.
</p>

<p>
There are also more answers in the <a href="#WhySlow">Why is Tor slow?</a>
answer and the <a href="#Funding">What we need to work on</a> answer.
</p>

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

<p>
Because Tor is the onion routing network. I kept telling people I was
working on onion routing, and they said "Neat. Which one?" Even if onion
routing has become a standard household term, this is the actual onion
routing project, started out of the Naval Research Lab.
</p>

<p>
(Theories about recursive acronyms are ok too. It's also got a fine
translation into German.)
</p>

<p>
Note: even though it comes from an acronym, Tor is not spelled "TOR".
Only the first letter is capitalized.
</p>

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

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

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

<p>
But that said, there are still plenty of subtle attacks
people might try.  Somebody might impersonate us, or break into our
computers, or something like that.  Tor is open source, and you should
always check the source (or at least the diffs since the last release)
for suspicious things.  If we (or the distributors) don't give you
source, that's a sure sign something funny might be going on. You
should also check the GPG signatures on the releases, to make sure
nobody messed with the distribution sites.
</p>

<p>
Also, there might be accidental bugs in Tor that could affect your
anonymity.  We don't know of such bugs right now.  If we learn of any,
we will let you know.
</p>

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

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

<p>
However, if you want to redistribute the Tor software you must follow our
<a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/trunk/LICENSE">LICENSE</a>.
Essentially this means that you need to include our LICENSE file along
with whatever part of the Tor software you're distributing.
</p>

<p>
Most people who ask us this question don't want to distribute just the
Tor software, though. They want to distribute the Tor bundles, which
typically include <a href="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</a>
and <a href="http://www.vidalia-project.net/">Vidalia</a>.
You will need to follow the licenses for those programs
as well. Both of them are distributed under the <a
href="http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html">GNU General
Public License</a>. The simplest way to obey their licenses is to
include the source code for these programs everywhere you include
the bundles themselves. Look for "source" packages on the <a
href="http://www.vidalia-project.net/download.php">Vidalia
download page</a> and the <a
href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">Privoxy
download page</a>.
</p>

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

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

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

<p>
Many people send the Tor developers mail privately, or send mail to
our internal aliases like tor-webmaster, with questions about their
specific setup -- they can't get their firewall working right,
they can't configure Privoxy correctly, or so on. Sometimes our
volunteers can answer these mails, but typically they need to spend
most of their time on development tasks that will benefit more people.
This is especially true if your question is already covered in the <a
href="<page documentation>">documentation</a> or on this FAQ. We don't
hate you; we're just busy.
</p>

<p>
So if we don't answer your mail, first check the <a href="<page
documentation>">documentation</a> page, along with this FAQ,
to make sure your question isn't already answered.  Then read <a
href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html">"How to ask
questions the smart way"</a>. If this doesn't help you, note that we
have <a href="<page documentation>#Support">an IRC channel</a> where you
can ask your questions (but if they are still open-ended, ill-formed,
or not about Tor, you likely won't get much help there either). Lastly,
people on the <a href="<page documentation>#MailingLists">or-talk
mailing list</a> may be able to provide some hints for you, if
others have experienced your problems too. Be sure to look over <a
href="http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/">the archives</a> first.
</p>

<p>
Another strategy is to <a href="<page docs/tor-doc-relay>">run a Tor
relay for a while</a>, and/or <a href="<page donate>">donate money</a>
<a href="<page volunteer>">or time</a> to the effort. We're more likely
to pay attention to people who have demonstrated interest and commitment
to giving back to the Tor community.
</p>

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

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

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

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

<ul>

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

<li>
<a href="<page gui/index>">Help us make Tor more usable</a>. We
especially need people to help make it easier to configure your Tor
as a relay. Also, we need help with clear simple documentation to
walk people through setting it up.
</li>

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

<li>
There are some steps that individuals
can take to improve their Tor performance. <a
href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/FireFoxTorPerf">You
can configure your Firefox to handle Tor better</a>, <a
href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/tor.html">you can use
Polipo with Tor</a>, or you can try <a href="<page download>">upgrading
to the latest version of Tor</a>.  If this works well, please help by
documenting what you did, and letting us know about it.
</li>

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

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

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

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

</ul>

<a id="Funding"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#Funding">What would the Tor project do with
more funding?</a></h3>

<p>
We have about 1500 relays right now, pushing over 150 MB/s average
traffic. We have several hundred thousand active users. But the Tor
network is not yet self-sustaining.
</p>

<p>
There are six main development/maintenance pushes that need attention:
</p>

<ul>

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

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

<li>
Relay support: the Tor network is run by volunteers, but they still need
attention with prompt bug fixes, explanations when things go wrong,
reminders to upgrade, and so on. The network itself is a commons, and
somebody needs to spend some energy making sure the relay operators stay
happy. We also need to work on <a href="#RelayOS">stability</a> on some
platforms &mdash; e.g., Tor relays have problems on Win XP currently.
</li>

<li>
Usability: Beyond documentation, we also need to work on usability of the
software itself. This includes installers, clean GUIs, easy configuration
to interface with other applications, and generally automating all of
the difficult and confusing steps inside Tor. We've got a start on this
with the <a href="<page gui/index>">GUI Contest</a>, but much more work
remains &mdash; usability for privacy software has never been easy.
</li>

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

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

</ul>

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

<p>
We are also excited about tackling related problems, such as
censorship-resistance.
</p>

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

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

<hr />

<a id="question"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#question">Question?</a></h3>

</div>

#include <foot.wmi>

tor-webwml.git

move the first piece of the faq over to svn so i can start cleaning it up properly