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  <title>Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system</title>
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<h2>Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system</h2>

<p>
Tor is a toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want
to improve their safety and security on the Internet. Using Tor can help
you anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH,
and more. Tor also provides a platform on which software developers can
build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy
features.
</p>

<p>
Your traffic is safer when you use Tor, because communications
are bounced around a distributed network of servers, called <a
href="overview.html">onion routers</a>.  Instead of taking a direct
route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a
random pathway through several servers that cover your tracks so no observer
at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it's going.
This makes it hard for
recipients, observers, and even the onion routers themselves to figure
out who and where you are. Tor's technology aims to provide Internet
users with protection against "traffic analysis," a form of
network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy,
confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.
</p>

<p>
Traffic analysis is used every day by companies, governments, and
individuals that want to keep track of where people and organizations go
and what they do on the Internet.  Instead of looking at the content of
your communications, traffic analysis tracks where your data goes and
when, as well as how much is sent. For example, online advertising 
companies like Fastclick and Doubleclick uses traffic analysis to record 
what web pages you've visited, and can build a profile of your interests 
from that. A pharmaceutical company could use traffic analysis to monitor
when the research wing of a competitor visits its website, and track
what pages or products that interest the competitor. IBM hosts a
searchable patent index, and it could keep a list of every query your
company makes. A stalker could use traffic analysis to learn whether
you're in a certain Internet cafe.
</p>

<p>
Tor aims to make traffic analysis more difficult by preventing
eavesdroppers from finding out where your communications are going
online, and by letting you decide whether to identify yourself when
you communicate.
</p>

<p>
Tor's security is improved as its user base grows and as
more people volunteer to run servers.  Please consider <a
href="cvs/tor/doc/tor-doc.html#installing">installing it</a> and then
<a href="cvs/tor/doc/tor-doc.html#server">helping out</a>. You can also
<a href="documentation.html">learn more about Tor here</a>.
</p>

<p>
Part of the goal of the Tor project is to deploy a public testbed for
experimenting with design trade-offs, to teach us how best to provide
privacy online. We welcome research into the security of Tor and related
anonymity systems, and want to hear about any vulnerabilities you find.
</p>

<p>
Tor is an important piece of building more safety, privacy, and anonymity
online, but it is not a complete solution.
And remember that this is development code&mdash;it's not a good idea to rely
on the current Tor network if you really need strong anonymity.
</p>

<p>
Currently, Tor development is supported by the <a
href="http://www.eff.org/">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>.
Tor was initially designed and developed as part of the U.S. Naval Research
Laboratory's <a href="http://www.onion-router.net/">Onion Routing</a>
program with support from <a href="http://www.onr.navy.mil/">ONR</a>
and <a href="http://www.darpa.mil/">DARPA</a>.
</p>

<p>
The or-announce mailing list is a low volume list for announcements of
new releases. You can <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/announce/">read
the archives or subscribe</a>.
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