## translation metadata
# Revision: $Revision$
# Translation-Priority: 2-medium
#include "head.wmi" TITLE="Tor Project: FAQ" CHARSET="UTF-8"
<div id="content" class="clearfix">
<div id="breadcrumbs">
<a href="<page index>">Home » </a>
<a href="<page docs/documentation>">Documentation » </a>
<a href="<page docs/faq>">FAQ</a>
</div>
<div id="maincol">
<!-- PUT CONTENT AFTER THIS TAG -->
<h1>Tor FAQ</h1>
<hr>
<p>General questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#WhatIsTor">What is Tor?</a></li>
<li><a href="#Torisdifferent">How is Tor different from other
proxies?</a></li>
<li><a href="#CompatibleApplications">What programs can I use with
Tor?</a></li>
<li><a href="#WhyCalledTor">Why is it called Tor?</a></li>
<li><a href="#Backdoor">Is there a backdoor in Tor?</a></li>
<li><a href="#DistributingTor">Can I distribute Tor?</a></li>
<li><a href="#SupportMail">How can I get support?</a></li>
<li><a href="#Forum">Is there a Tor forum?</a></li>
<li><a href="#WhySlow">Why is Tor so slow?</a></li>
<li><a href="#Funding">What would The Tor Project do with more
funding?</a></li>
<li><a href="#Metrics">How many people use Tor? How many relays or
exit nodes are there?</a></li>
<li><a href="#SSLcertfingerprint">What are your SSL certificate
fingerprints?</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Compilation and Installation:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#HowUninstallTor">How do I uninstall Tor?</a></li>
<li><a href="#PGPSigs">What are these "sig" files on the download
page?</a></li>
<li><a href="#GetTor">Your website is blocked in my country. How
do I download Tor?</a></li>
<li><a href="#CompileTorWindows">How do I compile Tor under
Windows?</a></li>
<li><a href="#VirusFalsePositives">Why does my Tor executable appear
to
have a virus or spyware?</a></li>
<li><a href="#LiveCD">Is there a LiveCD or other bundle that
includes Tor?</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Tor Browser Bundle:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#TBBFlash">Why can't I view videos on YouTube and other
Flash-based sites?</a></li>
<li><a href="#TBBSocksPort">I want to
run another application through the Tor launched by Tor Browser
Bundle.</a></li>
<li><a href="#TBBPolipo">I need an HTTP proxy. Where did Polipo
go?</a></li>
<li><a href="#TBBOtherExtensions">Can I install other Firefox
extensions? Which extensions should I avoid using?</a></li>
<li><a href="#TBBJavaScriptEnabled">Why is NoScript configured to
allow JavaScript by default in the Tor Browser Bundle? Isn't that
unsafe?</a></li>
<li><a href="#TBBCanIBlockJS">I'm an expert! (No, really!) Can I
configure NoScript to block JavaScript by default?</a></li>
<li><a href="#TBBOtherBrowser">I want to use Chrome/IE/Opera/etc
with Tor.</a></li>
<li><a href="#TBBCloseBrowser">I want to leave Tor Browser Bundle
running but close the browser.</a></li>
<li><a href="#GoogleCAPTCHA">Google makes me solve a CAPTCHA or
tells
me I have spyware installed.</a></li>
<li><a href="#GmailWarning">Gmail warns me that my account may have
been compromised.</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Advanced Tor usage:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#torrc">I'm supposed to "edit my torrc". What does
that mean?</a></li>
<li><a href="#Logs">How do I set up logging, or see Tor's
logs?</a></li>
<li><a href="#DoesntWork">Tor is running, but it's not working
correctly.</a></li>
<li><a href="#VidaliaPassword">Tor/Vidalia prompts for a password at
start.</a></li>
<li><a href="#ChooseEntryExit">Can I control which nodes (or
country)
are used for entry/exit?</a></li>
<li><a href="#FirewallPorts">My firewall only allows a few outgoing
ports.</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Running a Tor relay:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#RelayFlexible">How stable does my relay need to
be?</a></li>
<li><a href="#ExitPolicies">I'd run a relay, but I don't want to
deal
with abuse issues.</a></li>
<li><a href="#RelayOrBridge">Should I be a normal relay or bridge
relay?</a></li>
<li><a href="#MultipleRelays">I want to run more than one
relay.</a></li>
<li><a href="#RelayMemory">Why is my Tor relay using so much
memory?</a></li>
<li><a href="#WhyNotNamed">Why is my Tor relay not named?</a></li>
<li><a href="#RelayDonations">Can I donate for a relay rather than
run my own?</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Running a Tor hidden service:</p>
<p>Anonymity and Security:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#KeyManagement">Tell me about all the keys Tor
uses.</a></li>
<li><a href="#EntryGuards">What are Entry Guards?</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Alternate designs that we don't do (yet):</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#EverybodyARelay">You should make every Tor user be a
relay.</a></li>
<li><a href="#TransportIPnotTCP">You should transport all IP
packets,
not just TCP packets.</a></li>
<li><a href="#HideExits">You should hide the list of Tor relays,
so people can't block the exits.</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Abuse:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#Criminals">Doesn't Tor enable criminals to do bad
things?</a></li>
<li><a href="#RespondISP">How do I respond to my ISP about my exit
relay?</a></li>
</ul>
<p>For other questions not yet on this version of the FAQ, see the
<a
href="<wikifaq>">wiki FAQ</a> for now.</p>
<hr>
<a id="General"></a>
<a id="WhatIsTor"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhatIsTor">What is Tor?</a></h3>
<p>
The name "Tor" can refer to several different components.
</p>
<p>
The Tor software is a program you can run on your computer that
helps keep
you safe on the Internet. Tor protects you by bouncing your
communications
around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around
the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection
from
learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit
from learning your physical location. This set of volunteer relays
is
called the Tor network. You can read more about how Tor works on the
<a
href="<page about/overview>">overview page</a>.
</p>
<p>
The Tor Project is a non-profit (charity) organization that
maintains
and develops the Tor software.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="Torisdifferent"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#Torisdifferent">How is Tor different
from other proxies?</a></h3>
<p>
A typical proxy provider sets up a server somewhere on the Internet
and
allows you to use it to relay your traffic. This creates a simple, easy
to
maintain architecture. The users all enter and leave through the same
server.
The provider may charge for use of the proxy, or fund their costs
through
advertisements on the server. In the simplest configuration, you don't
have to
install anything. You just have to point your browser at their proxy
server.
Simple proxy providers are fine solutions if you do not want protections
for
your privacy and anonymity online and you trust the provider from doing
bad
things. Some simple proxy providers use SSL to secure your connection
to them.
This may protect you against local eavesdroppers, such as those at a
cafe with
free wifi Internet.
</p>
<p>
Simple proxy providers also create a single point of failure. The
provider
knows who you are and where you browse on the Internet. They can see
your
traffic as it passes through their server. In some cases, they can even
see
inside your
encrypted traffic as they relay it to your banking site or to ecommerce
stores.
You have to trust the provider isn't doing any number of things, such as
watching your traffic, injecting their own advertisements into your
traffic
stream, and recording your personal details.
</p>
<p>
Tor passes your traffic through at least 3 different servers before
sending
it on to the destination. Because there's a separate layer of encryption
for
each of the three relays, Tor does not modify, or even know, what you
are
sending into it. It merely relays your traffic, completely encrypted
through
the Tor network and has it pop out somewhere else in the world,
completely
intact. The Tor client is required because we assume you trust your
local
computer. The Tor client manages the encryption and the path chosen
through
the network. The relays located all over the world merely pass
encrypted
packets between themselves.</p>
<p>
<dl>
<dt>Doesn't the first server see who I am?</dt><dd>Possibly. A bad
first of
three servers can see encrypted Tor traffic coming from your computer.
It
still doesn't know who you are and what you are doing over Tor. It
merely sees
"This IP address is using Tor". Tor is not illegal anywhere in the
world, so
using Tor by itself is fine. You are still protected from this node
figuring
out who you are and where you are going on the Internet.</dd>
<dt>Can't the third server see my traffic?</dt><dd>Possibly. A bad
third
of three servers can see the traffic you sent into Tor. It won't know
who sent
this traffic. If you're using encryption, such as visiting a bank or
e-commerce website, or encrypted mail connections, etc, it will only
know the
destination. It won't be able to see the data inside the traffic
stream. You
are still protected from this node figuring out who you are and if using
encryption, what data you're sending to the destination.</dd>
</dl>
</p>
<hr>
<a id="CompatibleApplications"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#CompatibleApplications">What programs
can I use with Tor?</a></h3>
<p>
There are two pieces to "Torifying" a program: connection-level
anonymity
and application-level anonymity. Connection-level anonymity focuses
on
making sure the application's Internet connections get sent through
Tor.
This step is normally done by configuring
the program to use your Tor client as a "socks" proxy, but there are
other ways to do it too. For application-level anonymity, you need
to
make sure that the information the application sends out doesn't
hurt
your privacy. (Even if the connections are being routed through Tor,
you
still don't want to include sensitive information like your name.)
This
second step needs to be done on a program-by-program basis, which is
why we don't yet recommend very many programs for safe use with Tor.
</p>
<p>
Most of our work so far has focused on the Firefox web browser. The
bundles on the <a href="<page download/download>">download page</a>
automatically
install the <a href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton Firefox
extension</a> if you have Firefox installed. As of version 1.2.0,
Torbutton now takes care of a lot of the connection-level and
application-level worries.
</p>
<p>
There are plenty of other programs you can use with Tor,
but we haven't researched the application-level anonymity
issues on them well enough to be able to recommend a safe
configuration. Our wiki has a list of instructions for <a
href="<wiki>doc/TorifyHOWTO">Torifying
specific applications</a>. There's also a <a
href="<wiki>doc/SupportPrograms">list
of applications that help you direct your traffic through Tor</a>.
Please add to these lists and help us keep them accurate!
</p>
<hr>
<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. When we were starting the
new next-generation design and implementation of onion routing in
2001-2002, we would tell people we were working on onion routing,
and they would say "Neat. Which one?" Even if onion routing has
become a standard household term, Tor was born out of the actual <a
href="http://www.onion-router.net/">onion routing project</a> run by
the Naval Research Lab.
</p>
<p>
(It's also got a fine translation from German and Turkish.)
</p>
<p>
Note: even though it originally came from an acronym, Tor is not
spelled
"TOR". Only the first letter is capitalized. In fact, we can usually
spot people who haven't read any of our website (and have instead
learned
everything they know about Tor from news articles) by the fact that
they
spell it wrong.
</p>
<hr>
<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 — 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 <a href="<page docs/verifying-signatures>">PGP
signatures</a> 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 periodically find and fix anonymity-related bugs, so
make
sure you keep your Tor versions up-to-date.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="DistributingTor"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#DistributingTor">Can I distribute
Tor?</a></h3>
<p>
Yes.
</p>
<p>
The Tor software is <a href="https://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="<gitblob>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 <a
href="https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en">Tor
Browser</a>. This includes <a
href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all-aurora.html">Mozilla
Aurora</a> and <a href="<page projects/vidalia>">Vidalia</a>.
You will need to follow the licenses for those programs
as well. Both of them are distributed under the <a
href="https://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="<page projects/vidalia>">Vidalia page</a> and <a
href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all-aurora.html">Mozilla
Aurora</a> pages.
</p>
<p>
Also, you should make sure not to confuse your readers about what
Tor is,
who makes it, and what properties it provides (and doesn't provide).
See
our <a href="<page docs/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 — or even work — six months later.
This
is a fact of life for all security software under heavy development.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="SupportMail"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#SupportMail">How can I get
support?</a></h3>
<p>Your best bet is to first try the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Read through this <a href="<page docs/faq>">FAQ</a>.</li>
<li>Read through the <a href="<page
docs/documentation>">documentation</a>.</li>
<li>Read through the <a
href="https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk">
tor-talk
archives</a> and see if your question is already answered.</li>
<li>Join our <a href="ircs://irc.torproject.org#tor">irc channel</a>
and
state the issue and wait for help.</li>
<li>Send an email to <a
href="mailto:help@rt.torproject.org">help@rt.torproject.org</a>.</li>
<li>If all else fails, try <a href="<page about/contact>">contacting
us</a> directly.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you find your answer, please stick around on the IRC channel
or the
mailing list to help others who were once in your position.</p>
<hr>
<a id="Forum"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#Forum">Is there a Tor forum?</a></h3>
<p>Not yet, but we're working on it. Most forum software is
a disaster to maintain and keep secure, and at the same time
too many of the Tor developers are spread too thin to be able
to contribute enough to a forum.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="WhySlow"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhySlow">Why is Tor so slow?</a></h3>
<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>
<p>
For the much more in-depth answer, see <a
href="<blog>why-tor-is-slow">Roger's blog
post on the topic</a>, which includes both a detailed PDF and a
video
to go with it.
</p>
<p>
What can you do to help?
</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 projects/vidalia>">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>
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
getinvolved/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/donate>">donating a bit of
money to the
cause</a>. It adds up!
</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<a id="Funding"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#Funding">What would The Tor Project do
with more funding?</a></h3>
<p>
The Tor network's <a
href="https://metrics.torproject.org/network.html#networksize">several
thousand</a> relays push <a
href="https://metrics.torproject.org/network.html#bandwidth">over
1GB per second on average</a>. We have <a
href="https://metrics.torproject.org/users.html#direct-users">several
hundred thousand daily users</a>. 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 stability on some platforms —
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 projects/vidalia>">Vidalia GUI</a>, but much
more work
remains — 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 getinvolved/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 about/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>">donate</a>
to the project, or <a href="<page about/contact>">contact</a> our
executive
director for information on making grants or major donations.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="Metrics"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#Metrics">How many people use Tor? How
many relays or exit nodes are there?</a></h3>
<p>All this and more about measuring Tor can be found at the <a
href="https://metrics.torproject.org/">Tor Metrics Portal</a>.</p>
<hr>
<a id="SSLcertfingerprint"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#SSLcertfingerprint">What are the SSL
certificate fingerprints for Tor's various websites?</a></h3>
<p>
<pre>
*.torproject.org SSL certificate from Digicert:
The serial number is:
06:DE:97:E5:1D:C3:9D:C2:64:8D:AC:72:DD:41:01:FC
The SHA-1 fingerprint is: 1f9d306e8bfccfcb03981a71a27a9f5d1e0876ce
The SHA-256 fingerprint is:
3613d2b22a750094760c41ad19db52a4f05bdea80172e2578761ad967f7ed9aa
blog.torproject.org SSL certificate from RapidSSL:
The serial number is: 00:EF:A3
The SHA-1 fingerprint is: 50af43db8438e67f305a3257d8ef198e8c42f13f
</pre>
</p>
<hr>
<a id="HowUninstallTor"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#HowUninstallTor">How do I uninstall
Tor?</a></h3>
<p>
Tor Browser does not install itself in the classic sense of
applications. You just simply delete the folder or directory named "Tor
Browser" and it is removed from your system.
</p>
<p>
If this is not related to Tor Browser, uninstallation depends
entirely on how you installed it and which operating system you
have. If you installed a package, then hopefully your package has a
way to
uninstall itself. The Windows packages include uninstallers. The
proper way to
completely remove Tor, Vidalia, and Torbutton for Firefox on any
version of Windows is as follows:
</p>
<ol>
<li>In your taskbar, right click on Vidalia (the green onion or the
black head)
and choose exit.</li>
<li>Right click on the taskbar to bring up TaskManager. Look for
tor.exe in the
Process List. If it's running, right click and choose End
Process.</li>
<li>Click the Start button, go to Programs, go to Vidalia, choose
Uninstall.
This will remove the Vidalia bundle, which includes Tor.</li>
<li>Start Firefox. Go to the Tools menu, choose Add-ons. Select
Torbutton.
Click the Uninstall button.</li>
</ol>
<p>
If you do not follow these steps (for example by trying to uninstall
Vidalia and Tor while they are still running), you will need to
reboot and manually remove the directory "Program Files\Vidalia
Bundle".
</p>
<p>
For Mac OS X, follow the <a
href="<page docs/tor-doc-osx>#uninstall">uninstall directions</a>.
</p>
<p>
If you installed by source, I'm afraid there is no easy uninstall
method. But
on the bright side, by default it only installs into /usr/local/ and
it should
be pretty easy to notice things there.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="PGPSigs"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#PGPSigs">What are these "sig" files on
the download page?</a></h3>
<p>
These are PGP signatures, so you can verify that the file you've
downloaded is
exactly the one that we intended you to get.
</p>
<p>
Please read the <a
href="<page docs/verifying-signatures>">verifying signatures</a>
page for details.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="GetTor"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#GetTor">Your website is blocked in my
country. How do I download Tor?</a></h3>
<p>
Some government or corporate firewalls censor connections to Tor's
website. In those cases, you have three options. First, get it from
a friend — the <a href="<page projects/torbrowser>">Tor Browser
Bundle</a> fits nicely on a USB key. Second, find the <a
href="https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=tor+mirrors">google
cache</a>
for the <a href="<page getinvolved/mirrors>">Tor mirrors</a> page
and see if any of those copies of our website work for you. Third,
you can download Tor via email: log in to your Gmail account and mail
'<tt>gettor@gettor.torproject.org</tt>'. If you include the word 'help'
in the body of the email, it will reply with instructions. Note that
only a few webmail providers are supported, since they need to be able
to receive very large attachments.
</p>
<p>
Be sure to <a href="<page docs/verifying-signatures>">verify the
signature</a>
of any package you download, especially when you get it from somewhere
other than our official HTTPS website.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="CompileTorWindows"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#CompileTorWindows">How do I compile Tor
under Windows?</a></h3>
<p>
Try following the steps at <a
href="<gitblob>doc/tor-win32-mingw-creation.txt">
tor-win32-mingw-creation.txt</a>.
</p>
<p>
(Note that you don't need to compile Tor yourself in order to use
it. Most people just use the packages available on the <a
href="<page
download/download>">download page</a>.)
</p>
<hr>
<a id="VirusFalsePositives"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#VirusFalsePositives">Why does my Tor
executable appear to have a virus or spyware?</a></h3>
<p>
Sometimes, overzealous Windows virus and spyware detectors trigger
on some
parts of the Tor Windows binary. Our best guess is that these are
false
positives — after all, the anti-virus and anti-spyware
business is just a
guessing game anyway. You should contact your vendor and explain
that you have
a program that seems to be triggering false positives. Or pick a
better vendor.
</p>
<p>
In the meantime, we encourage you to not just take our word for
it. Our job is to provide the source; if you're concerned, please do
<a
href="#CompileTorWindows">recompile it yourself</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="LiveCD"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#LiveCD">Is there a LiveCD or other
bundle that includes Tor?</a></h3>
<p>
Yes. Use <a href="https://tails.boum.org/">The Amnesic Incognito
Live System</a> or <a href="<page projects/torbrowser>">the Tor
Browser
Bundle</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="TBBFlash"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#TBBFlash">Why can't I view videos on
YouTube
and other Flash-based sites?</a></h3>
<p>
YouTube and similar sites require third party browser plugins such as Flash.
Plugins operate independently from Firefox and can perform
activity on your computer that ruins your anonymity. This includes
but is not limited to: <a href="http://decloak.net">completely disregarding
proxy settings</a>, querying your <a
href="http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5162138&messageID=9618376">local
IP address</a>, and <a
href="http://epic.org/privacy/cookies/flash.html">storing their own
cookies</a>. It is possible to use a LiveCD solution such as
or <a href="https://tails.boum.org/">The Amnesic Incognito Live System</a> that creates a
secure, transparent proxy to protect you from proxy bypass, however issues
with local IP address discovery and Flash cookies still remain. </p>
<p>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/html5">YouTube offers experimental HTML5 video
support</a> for many of their videos. You can use their Advanced Search to
find HTML5 videos.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="TBBSocksPort"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#TBBSocksPort">
I want to run another application through the Tor launched by Tor
Browser Bundle.</a></h3>
<p>
Typically Tor listens for Socks connections on port 9050. TBB listens
on port 9150.
The goal is to avoid conflicting with a "system" Tor install,
so you can run a system Tor and TBB at the same time. We're <a
href="https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/3948">working on
a feature</a> where Tor will try the usual ports first and then back
off to a random choice if they're already in use.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="TBBPolipo"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#TBBPolipo">I need an HTTP proxy. Where did
Polipo go?</a></h3>
<p>
In the past, Tor bundles included an HTTP proxy like Privoxy or Polipo,
solely to work around a bug in Firefox that was finally fixed in Firefox
6. Now you don't need a separate HTTP proxy to use Tor, and in fact
leaving it out makes you safer because Torbutton has better control over
Firefox's interaction with websites.
</p>
<p>
If you are trying to use some external application with Tor, step zero
should be to <a href="<page download/download>#warning">reread the set
of warnings</a> for ways you can screw up. Step one should be to try
to use a Socks proxy rather than an http proxy — Tor runs a Socks
proxy on port 9050 on Windows, or <a href="#TBBSocksPort">see above</a>
for OSX and Linux.
</p>
<p>
If that fails, feel free to install <a
href="http://www.privoxy.org/">privoxy</a>.
However, please realize that this approach is not recommended for novice
users. Privoxy has an <a
href="http://www.privoxy.org/faq/misc.html#TOR">example
configuration</a> of Tor and Privoxy.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="TBBOtherExtensions"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#TBBOtherExtensions">Can I install other
Firefox extensions?</a></h3>
<p>
Yes. Just install them like normal. But be sure to avoid extensions like
Foxyproxy that screw up your proxy settings. Also, avoid
privacy-invasive
extensions (for example, pretty much anything with the word Toolbar in
its name).
</p>
<p>
Generally, extensions that require registration, and/or provide
additional information about websites you are visiting, should be
suspect.
</p>
<p>
Extensions you might like include
<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/953">RefControl</a> (referer spoofing),
<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/1474">SafeCache</a>,
<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623">Better Privacy</a>,
<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/1865">AdBlock Plus</a> (EasyPrivacy+EasyList),
<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/82">Cookie Culler</a>,
<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9727/">Request Policy</a> and
<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/certificate-patrol/">Certificate Patrol</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="TBBJavaScriptEnabled"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#TBBJavaScriptEnabled">Why is NoScript
configured to allow JavaScript by default in the Tor Browser Bundle?
Isn't that unsafe?</a></h3>
<p>
We configure NoScript to allow JavaScript by default in the Tor
Browser Bundle because many websites will not work with JavaScript
disabled. Most users would give up on Tor entirely if a website
they want to use requires JavaScript, because they would not know
how to allow a website to use JavaScript (or that enabling
JavaScript might make a website work).
</p>
<hr>
<a id="TBBCanIBlockJS"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#CanIBlockJS">I'm an expert! (No, really!)
Can I configure NoScript to block JavaScript by default?</a></h3>
<p>
You can configure your copies of Tor Browser Bundle however you want
to. However, we recommend that even users who know how to use
NoScript leave JavaScript enabled if possible, because a website or
exit node can easily distinguish users who disable JavaScript from
users who use Tor Browser bundle with its default settings (thus
users who disable JavaScript are less anonymous).
</p>
<p>
Disabling JavaScript by default, then allowing a few websites to run
scripts, is especially bad for your anonymity: the set of websites
which you allow to run scripts is very likely to <em>uniquely</em>
identify your browser.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="TBBOtherBrowser"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#TBBOtherBrowser">I want to use
Chrome/IE/Opera/etc with Tor.</a></h3>
<p>
Unfortunately, Torbutton only works with Firefox right now, and without
<a href="https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/en/design/">Torbutton's
extensive privacy fixes</a> there are many ways for websites or other
attackers to recognize you, track you back to your IP address, and so
on.
In short, using any browser besides Tor Browser Bundle with Tor is a
really bad idea.
</p>
<p>
We're working with the Chrome team to <a
href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/google-chrome-incognito-mode-tor-
and-fingerprinting">fix
some bugs and missing APIs in Chrome</a> so it will be possible to write
a
Torbutton for Chrome. No support for any other browser is on the
horizon.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="TBBCloseBrowser"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#TBBCloseBrowser">I want to leave Tor
Browser
Bundle running but close the browser.</a></h3>
<p>
We're working on a way to make this possible on all platforms. Please
be patient.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="GoogleCAPTCHA"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#GoogleCAPTCHA">Google makes me solve a
CAPTCHA or tells me I have spyware installed.</a></h3>
<p>
This is a known and intermittent problem; it does not mean that Google
considers Tor to be spyware.
</p>
<p>
When you use Tor, you are sending queries through exit relays that are
also
shared by thousands of other users. Tor users typically see this message
when many Tor users are querying Google in a short period of time.
Google
interprets the high volume of traffic from a single IP address (the exit
relay you happened to pick) as somebody trying to "crawl" their website,
so it slows down traffic from that IP address for a short time.
</p>
<p>
An alternate explanation is that Google tries to detect certain
kinds of spyware or viruses that send distinctive queries to Google
Search. It notes the IP addresses from which those queries are received
(not realizing that they are Tor exit relays), and tries to warn any
connections coming from those IP addresses that recent queries indicate
an infection.
</p>
<p>
To our knowledge, Google is not doing anything intentionally
specifically
to deter or block Tor use. The error message about an infected machine
should clear up again after a short time.
</p>
<p>
Torbutton 1.2.5 (released in mid 2010) detects Google captchas and can
automatically redirect you to a more Tor-friendly search engine such as
DuckDuckGo, ixquick, or Bing.
</p>
<hr />
<a id="GmailWarning"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#GmailWarning">Gmail warns me that my
account
may have been compromised.</a></h3>
<p>
Sometimes, after you've used Gmail over Tor, Google presents a
pop-up notification that your account may have been compromised.
The notification window lists a series of IP addresses and locations
throughout the world recently used to access your account.
</p>
<p>
In general this is a false alarm: Google saw a bunch of logins from
different places, as a result of running the service via Tor, and
decided
it was a good idea to confirm the account was being accessed by it's
rightful owner.
</p>
<p>
Even though this may be a biproduct of using the service via tor,
that doesn't mean you can entirely ignore the warning. It is
<i>probably</i> a false positive, but it might not be since it is
possible for someone to hijack your Google cookie.
</p>
<p>
Cookie hijacking is possible by either physical access to your computer
or by watching your network traffic. In theory only physical access
should compromise your system because Gmail and similar services
should only send the cookie over an SSL link. In practice, alas, it's <a
href="http://fscked.org/blog/fully-automated-active-https-cookie-
hijacking">
way more complex than that</a>.
</p>
<p>
And if somebody <i>did</i> steal your google cookie, they might end
up logging in from unusual places (though of course they also might
not). So the summary is that since you're using Tor, this security
measure that Google uses isn't so useful for you, because it's full of
false positives. You'll have to use other approaches, like seeing if
anything looks weird on the account, or looking at the timestamps for
recent logins and wondering if you actually logged in at those times.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="torrc"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#torrc">I'm supposed to "edit my torrc".
What does that mean?</a></h3>
<p>
Tor installs a text file called torrc that contains configuration
instructions for how your Tor program should behave. The default
configuration should work fine for most Tor users. Users of Vidalia can
make common changes through the Vidalia interface — only advanced
users should need to modify their torrc file directly.
</p>
<p>
Tor Browser Bundle users should edit your torrc through Vidalia. Open
the
Vidalia Control Panel. Choose Settings. Choose Advanced. Click the
button
labelled "Edit current torrc". Remember to make sure the checkbox for
"Save Settings." is checked. Hit the Ok button and you are done.
</p>
<p>
Otherwise, you will need to edit the file manually.
The location of your torrc file depends on the way you installed Tor:
</p>
<ul>
<li>If you installed Tor Browser Bundle, look for
<code>Data/Tor/torrc</code> inside your Tor Browser Bundle directory.
</li>
<li>On Windows, if you installed a Tor bundle with Vidalia, you can
find your torrc file in the Start menu under Programs -> Vidalia
Bundle -> Tor, or you can find it by hand in <code>\Documents and
Settings\<i>username</i>\Application Data\Vidalia\torrc</code>. If you
installed Tor without Vidalia, you can find your torrc in the Start
menu under Programs -> Tor, or manually in either <code>\Documents
and Settings\Application Data\tor\torrc</code> or <code>\Documents and
Settings\<i>username</i>\Application Data\tor\torrc</code>.
</li>
<li>On OS X, if you use Vidalia, edit
<code>~/.vidalia/torrc</code>. Otherwise, open your favorite text editor
and load <code>/Library/Tor/torrc</code>.
</li>
<li>On Unix, if you installed a pre-built package, look for
<code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> or <code>/etc/torrc</code> or consult your
package's documentation.
</li>
<li>Finally, if you installed from source, you may not have a torrc
installed yet: look in <code>/usr/local/etc/</code> and note that you
may need to manually copy <code>torrc.sample</code> to
<code>torrc</code>.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
If you use Vidalia, be sure to exit both Tor and Vidalia before you edit
your torrc file manually. Otherwise Vidalia might overwrite your
changes.
</p>
<p>
Once you've changed your torrc, you will need to restart Tor for the
changes to take effect. (For advanced users on OS X and Unix, note that
you actually only need to send Tor a HUP signal, not actually restart
it.)
</p>
<p>
For other configuration options you can use, look at the <a href="<page
docs/tor-manual>">Tor manual page</a>. Remember, all lines beginning
with # in torrc are treated as comments and have no effect on Tor's
configuration.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="Logs"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#Logs">How do I set up logging, or see Tor's
logs?</a></h3>
<p>
If you installed a Tor bundle that includes Vidalia, then Vidalia has a
window called "Message Log" that will show you Tor's log messages. Click
on "Advanced" to see more details. You can click on "Settings" to change
your log verbosity or save the messages to a file. You're all set.
</p>
<p>
If you're not using Vidalia, you'll have to go find the log files by
hand. Here are some likely places for your logs to be:
</p>
<ul>
<li>On OS X, Debian, Red Hat, etc, the logs are in /var/log/tor/
</li>
<li>On Windows, there are no default log files currently. If you enable
logs in your torrc file, they default to <code>\username\Application
Data\tor\log\</code> or <code>\Application Data\tor\log\</code>
</li>
<li>If you compiled Tor from source, by default your Tor logs to <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_streams">"stdout"</a>
at log-level notice. If you enable logs in your torrc file, they
default to <code>/usr/local/var/log/tor/</code>.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
To change your logging setup by hand, <a href="#torrc">edit your
torrc</a>
and find the section (near the top of the file) which contains the
following line:
</p>
<pre>
\## Logs go to stdout at level "notice" unless redirected by something
\## else, like one of the below lines.
</pre>
<p>
For example, if you want Tor to send complete debug, info, notice, warn,
and err level messages to a file, append the following line to the end
of the section:
</p>
<pre>
Log debug file c:/program files/tor/debug.log
</pre>
<p>
Replace <code>c:/program files/tor/debug.log</code> with a directory
and filename for your Tor log.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="DoesntWork"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#DoesntWork">I installed Tor but it's not
working.</a></h3>
<p>
Once you've got the Tor bundle up and running, the first question to
ask is whether your Tor client is able to establish a circuit.
</p>
<p>If Tor can establish a circuit, the onion icon in
Vidalia will turn green (and if you're running Tor Browser Bundle, it
will
automatically launch a browser for you). You can also check in the
Vidalia
Control Panel to make sure it says "Connected to the Tor
network!" under Status. For those not using Vidalia, check your <a
href="#Logs">Tor logs</a> for
a line saying that Tor "has successfully opened a circuit. Looks like
client functionality is working."
</p>
<p>
If Tor can't establish a circuit, here are some hints:
</p>
<ol>
<li>Are you sure Tor is running? If you're using Vidalia, you may have
to click on the onion and select "Start" to launch Tor.</li>
<li>Check your system clock. If it's more than a few hours off, Tor will
refuse to build circuits. For Microsoft Windows users, synchronize your
clock under the clock -> Internet time tab. In addition, correct the
day and date under the 'Date & Time' Tab. Also make sure your time
zone is correct.</li>
<li>Is your Internet connection <a href="#FirewallPorts">firewalled
by port</a>, or do you normally need to use a <a
href="<wikifaq>#MyInternetconnectionrequiresanHTTPorSOCKSproxy.">proxy</
a>?
</li>
<li>Are you running programs like Norton Internet Security or SELinux
that
block certain connections, even though you don't realize they do? They
could be preventing Tor from making network connections.</li>
<li>Are you in China, or behind a restrictive corporate network firewall
that blocks the public Tor relays? If so, you should learn about <a
href="<page docs/bridges>">Tor bridges</a>.</li>
<li>Check your <a href="#Logs">Tor logs</a>. Do they give you any hints
about what's going wrong?</li>
</ol>
<hr />
<a id="VidaliaPassword"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#VidaliaPassword">Tor/Vidalia prompts for a
password at start.</a></h3>
<p>
Vidalia interacts with the Tor software via Tor's "control port". The
control port lets Vidalia receive status updates from Tor, request a new
identity, configure Tor's settings, etc. Each time Vidalia starts Tor,
Vidalia sets a random password for Tor's control port to prevent other
applications from also connecting to the control port and potentially
compromising your anonymity.
</p>
<p>
Usually this process of generating and setting a random control password
happens in the background. There are three common situations, though,
where Vidalia may prompt you for a password:
</p>
<ol>
<li>You're already running Vidalia and Tor. For example, this situation
can happen if you installed the Vidalia bundle and now you're trying to
run the Tor Browser Bundle. In that case, you'll need to close the old
Vidalia and Tor before you can run this one.
</li>
<li>Vidalia crashed, but left Tor running with the last known random
password. After you restart Vidalia, it generates a new random password,
but Vidalia can't talk to Tor, because the random passwords are
different.
<br />
If the dialog that prompts you for a control password has a Reset
button,
you can click the button and Vidalia will restart Tor with a new random
control password.
<br />
If you do not see a Reset button, or if Vidalia is unable to restart
Tor for you, you can still fix the problem manually. Simply go into your
process or task manager, and terminate the Tor process. Then use Vidalia
to restart Tor and all will work again.
</li>
<li>You had previously set Tor to run as a Windows NT service. When Tor
is set to
run as a service, it starts up when the system boots. If you configured
Tor to start as a service through Vidalia, a random password was set
and saved in Tor. When you reboot, Tor starts up and uses the random
password it saved. You login and start up Vidalia. Vidalia attempts to
talk to the already running Tor. Vidalia generates a random password,
but it is different than the saved password in the Tor service.
<br />
You need to reconfigure Tor to not be a service. See the FAQ entry on
<a href="<wikifaq>#HowdoIrunmyTorrelayasanNTservice">running Tor as a
Windows NT service</a>
for more information on how to remove the Tor service.
</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<a id="ChooseEntryExit"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#ChooseEntryExit">Can I control which
nodes (or country) are used for entry/exit?</a></h3>
<p>
Yes. You can set preferred entry and exit nodes as well as
inform Tor which nodes you do not want to use.
The following options can be added to your config file <a
href="#torrc">"torrc"</a> or specified on the command line:
</p>
<dl>
<dt><tt>EntryNodes $fingerprint,$fingerprint,...</tt></dt>
<dd>A list of preferred nodes to use for the first hop in the
circuit, if possible.
</dd>
<dt><tt>ExitNodes $fingerprint,$fingerprint,...</tt></dt>
<dd>A list of preferred nodes to use for the last hop in the
circuit, if possible.
</dd>
<dt><tt>ExcludeNodes $fingerprint,$fingerprint,...</tt></dt>
<dd>A list of nodes to never use when building a circuit.
</dd>
<dt><tt>ExcludeExitNodes $fingerprint,$fingerprint,...</tt></dt>
<dd>A list of nodes to never use when picking an exit.
Nodes listed in <tt>ExcludeNodes</tt> are automatically in
this list.
</dd>
</dl>
<p>
<em>We recommend you do not use these</em>
— they are intended for testing and may disappear in future
versions.
You get the best security that Tor can provide when you leave the
route selection to Tor; overriding the entry / exit nodes can mess
up your anonymity in ways we don't understand.
</p>
<p>
Note also that not every circuit is used to deliver traffic outside of the Tor network. It is normal to see non-exit circuits (such as those used to connect to hidden services, those that do directory fetches, those used for relay reachability self-tests, and so on) that end at a non-exit node. To keep a node from being used entirely, see <tt>ExcludeNodes</tt> and <tt>StrictNodes</tt> in the <a href="<page docs/tor-manual>">manual</a>.
</p>
<p>
Instead of <tt>$fingerprint</tt> you can also specify a <a
href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2"
>2
letter ISO3166 country code</a> in curly braces (for example <tt>{de}</tt>),
or an ip address pattern (for example 255.254.0.0/8), or a node
nickname. Make sure there are no spaces between the commas and the
list items.
</p>
<p>
If you want to access a service directly through Tor's Socks
interface
(eg. using ssh via connect.c), another option is to set up an
internal mapping in your configuration file using
<tt>MapAddress</tt>.
See the manual page for details.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="FirewallPorts"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#FirewallPorts">My firewall only allows a
few outgoing ports.</a></h3>
<p>
If your firewall works by blocking ports, then you can tell Tor to only
use the ports that your firewall permits by adding "FascistFirewall 1"
to
your <a href="<page docs/faq>#torrc">torrc
configuration file</a>, or by clicking "My firewall only lets me connect
to certain ports" in Vidalia's Network Settings window.
</p>
<p>
By default, when you set this Tor assumes that your firewall allows only
port 80 and port 443 (HTTP and HTTPS respectively). You can select a
different set of ports with the FirewallPorts torrc option.
</p>
<p>
If you want to be more fine-grained with your controls, you can also
use the ReachableAddresses config options, e.g.:
</p>
<pre>
ReachableDirAddresses *:80
ReachableORAddresses *:443
</pre>
<hr>
<a id="RelayFlexible"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#RelayFlexible">How stable does my relay
need to be?</a></h3>
<p>
We aim to make setting up a Tor relay easy and convenient:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Tor has built-in support for <a
href="<wikifaq>#WhatbandwidthshapingoptionsareavailabletoTorrelays">
rate limiting</a>. Further, if you have a fast
link but want to limit the number of bytes per
day (or week or month) that you donate, check out the <a
href="<wikifaq>#HowcanIlimitthetotalamountofbandwidthusedbymyTorrelay">
hibernation
feature</a>.
</li>
<li>Each Tor relay has an <a href="#ExitPolicies">exit policy</a>
that
specifies what sort of outbound connections are allowed or refused
from
that relay. If you are uncomfortable allowing people to exit from
your
relay, you can set it up to only allow connections to other Tor
relays.
</li>
<li>It's fine if the relay goes offline sometimes. The directories
notice this quickly and stop advertising the relay. Just try to make
sure it's not too often, since connections using the relay when it
disconnects will break.
</li>
<li>We can handle relays with dynamic IPs just fine — simply
leave the Address config option blank, and Tor will try to guess.
</li>
<li>If your relay is behind a NAT and it doesn't know its public
IP (e.g. it has an IP of 192.168.x.y), you'll need to set up port
forwarding. Forwarding TCP connections is system dependent but
<a href="<wikifaq>#ImbehindaNATFirewall">this FAQ entry</a>
offers some examples on how to do this.
</li>
<li>Your relay will passively estimate and advertise its recent
bandwidth capacity, so high-bandwidth relays will attract more users
than
low-bandwidth ones. Therefore having low-bandwidth relays is useful
too.
</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<a id="RunARelayBut"></a>
<a id="ExitPolicies"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#ExitPolicies">I'd run a relay, but I
don't want to deal with abuse issues.</a></h3>
<p>
Great. That's exactly why we implemented exit policies.
</p>
<p>
Each Tor relay has an exit policy that specifies what sort of
outbound connections are allowed or refused from that relay. The
exit
policies are propagated to Tor clients via the directory, so clients
will automatically avoid picking exit relays that would refuse to
exit to their intended destination. This way each relay can decide
the services, hosts, and networks he wants to allow connections to,
based on abuse potential and his own situation. Read the FAQ entry
on
<a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#TypicalAbuses">issues you might
encounter</a>
if you use the default exit policy, and then read Mike Perry's
<a href="<blog>tips-running-exit-node-minimal-harassment">tips
for running an exit node with minimal harassment</a>.
</p>
<p>
The default exit policy allows access to many popular services
(e.g. web browsing), but <a
href="<wikifaq>#Istherealistofdefaultexitports">restricts</a>
some due to abuse potential (e.g. mail) and some since
the Tor network can't handle the load (e.g. default
file-sharing ports). You can change your exit policy
using Vidalia's "Sharing" tab, or by manually editing your
<a href="<page docs/faq>#torrc">torrc</a>
file. If you want to avoid most if not all abuse potential, set it
to
"reject *:*" (or un-check all the boxes in Vidalia). This setting
means
that your relay will be used for relaying traffic inside the Tor
network,
but not for connections to external websites or other services.
</p>
<p>
If you do allow any exit connections, make sure name resolution
works
(that is, your computer can resolve Internet addresses correctly).
If there are any resources that your computer can't reach (for
example,
you are behind a restrictive firewall or content filter), please
explicitly reject them in your exit policy — otherwise Tor
users
will be impacted too.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="RelayOrBridge"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#RelayOrBridge">Should I be a normal
relay or bridge relay?</a></h3>
<p><a href="<page docs/bridges>">Bridge relays</a> (or "bridges" for
short)
are <a href="<page docs/tor-doc-relay>">Tor relays</a> that aren't
listed in the public Tor directory.
That means that ISPs or governments trying to block access to the
Tor network can't simply block all bridges.
</p>
<p>Being a normal relay vs being a bridge relay is almost the same
configuration: it's just a matter of whether your relay is listed
publicly or not.
</p>
<p>
So bridges are useful a) for Tor users in oppressive regimes,
and b) for people who want an extra layer of security
because they're worried somebody will recognize that it's a public
Tor relay IP address they're contacting.
</p>
<p>
Several countries, including China and Iran, have found ways to
detect and block connections to Tor bridges.
<a href="<page projects/obfsproxy>">Obfsproxy</a> bridges address
this by adding another layer of obfuscation.
</p>
<p>So should you run a normal relay or bridge relay? If you have
lots
of bandwidth, you should definitely run a normal relay.
If you're willing
to <a href="#ExitPolicies">be an exit</a>, you should definitely
run a normal relay, since we need more exits. If you can't be an
exit and only have a little bit of bandwidth, be a bridge. Thanks
for volunteering!
</p>
<hr>
<a id="MultipleRelays"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#MultipleRelays">I want to run more than one
relay.</a></h3>
<p>
Great. If you want to run several relays to donate more to the network,
we're happy with that. But please don't run more than a few dozen on
the same network, since part of the goal of the Tor network is dispersal
and diversity.
</p>
<p>
If you do decide to run more than one relay, please set the "MyFamily"
config option in the <a href="#torrc">torrc</a> of each relay, listing
all the relays (comma-separated) that are under your control:
</p>
<pre>
MyFamily $fingerprint1,$fingerprint2,$fingerprint3
</pre>
<p>
where each fingerprint is the 40 character identity fingerprint (without
spaces). You can also list them by nickname, but fingerprint is safer.
Be
sure to prefix the digest strings with a dollar sign ('$') so that the
digest is not confused with a nickname in the config file.
</p>
<p>
That way clients will know to avoid using more than one of your relays
in a single circuit. You should set MyFamily if you have administrative
control of the computers or of their network, even if they're not all in
the same geographic location.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="RelayMemory"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#RelayMemory">Why is my Tor relay using
so much memory?</a></h3>
<p>If your Tor relay is using more memory than you'd like, here are
some
tips for reducing its footprint:
</p>
<ol>
<li>If you're on Linux, you may be encountering memory fragmentation
bugs in glibc's malloc implementation. That is, when Tor releases
memory
back to the system, the pieces of memory are fragmented so they're
hard
to reuse. The Tor tarball ships with OpenBSD's malloc
implementation,
which doesn't have as many fragmentation bugs (but the tradeoff is
higher
CPU load). You can tell Tor to use this malloc implementation
instead:
<tt>./configure --enable-openbsd-malloc</tt></li>
<li>If you're running a fast relay, meaning you have many TLS
connections
open, you are probably losing a lot of memory to OpenSSL's internal
buffers (38KB+ per socket). We've patched OpenSSL to <a
href="https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2008-June/001519.
html">release
unused buffer memory more aggressively</a>. If you update to OpenSSL
1.0.0 or newer, Tor's build process will automatically recognize and
use
this feature.</li>
<li>If you're running on Solaris, OpenBSD, NetBSD, or
old FreeBSD, Tor is probably forking separate processes
rather than using threads. Consider switching to a <a
href="<wikifaq>#WhydoesntmyWindowsorotherOSTorrelayrunwell">better
operating system</a>.</li>
<li>If you still can't handle the memory load, consider reducing the
amount of bandwidth your relay advertises. Advertising less
bandwidth
means you will attract fewer users, so your relay shouldn't grow
as large. See the <tt>MaxAdvertisedBandwidth</tt> option in the man
page.</li>
</ol>
<p>
All of this said, fast Tor relays do use a lot of ram. It is not
unusual
for a fast exit relay to use 500-1000 MB of memory.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="WhyNotNamed"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhyNotNamed">Why is my Tor relay not
named?</a></h3>
<p>
We currently use these metrics to determine if your relay should be
named:<br>
</p>
<ul>
<li>The name is not currently mapped to a different key. Existing
mappings
are removed after 6 months of inactivity from a relay.</li>
<li>The relay must have been around for at least two weeks.</li>
<li>No other router may have wanted the same name in the past
month.</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<a id="RelayDonations"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#RelayDonations">Can I donate for a
relay rather than run my own?</a></h3>
<p>
Sure! We recommend two non-profit charities that are happy to turn
your donations into better speed and anonymity for the Tor network:
</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.torservers.net/">torservers.net</a>
is a German charitable non-profit that runs a wide variety of
exit relays. They also like donations of bandwidth from ISPs.</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisebridge_Tor">Noisebridge</a>
is a US-based 501(c)(3) non-profit that collects donations and turns
them into more exit relay capacity.</li>
</ul>
<p>
These organizations are not the same as <a href="<page
donate/donate>">The Tor Project, Inc</a>, but we consider that a
good thing. They're both run by nice people who are part of the
Tor community.
</p>
<p>
Note that there can be a tradeoff here between anonymity and
performance. The Tor network's anonymity comes in part from
diversity,
so if you are in a position to run your own relay, you will be
improving Tor's anonymity more than by donating. At the same time
though, economies
of scale for bandwidth mean that combining many small donations into
several larger relays is more efficient at improving network
performance. Improving anonymity and improving performance are both
worthwhile goals, so however you can help is great!
</p>
<hr>
<a id="KeyManagement"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#KeyManagement">Tell me about all the
keys Tor uses.</a></h3>
<p>
Tor uses a variety of different keys, with three goals in mind: 1)
encryption to ensure privacy of data within the Tor network, 2)
authentication so clients know they're
talking to the relays they meant to talk to, and 3) signatures to
make
sure all clients know the same set of relays.
</p>
<p>
<b>Encryption</b>: first, all connections in Tor use TLS link
encryption,
so observers can't look inside to see which circuit a given cell is
intended for. Further, the Tor client establishes an ephemeral
encryption
key with each relay in the circuit; these extra layers of encryption
mean that only the exit relay can read
the cells. Both sides discard the circuit key when the circuit ends,
so logging traffic and then breaking into the relay to discover the
key
won't work.
</p>
<p>
<b>Authentication</b>:
Every Tor relay has a public decryption key called the "onion key".
Each relay rotates its onion key once a week.
When the Tor client establishes circuits, at each step it <a
href="<svnprojects>design-paper/tor-design.html#subsec:circuits">demands
that the Tor relay prove knowledge of its onion key</a>. That way
the first node in the path can't just spoof the rest of the path.
Because the Tor client chooses the path, it can make sure to get
Tor's "distributed trust" property: no single relay in the path can
know about both the client and what the client is doing.
</p>
<p>
<b>Coordination</b>:
How do clients know what the relays are, and how do they know that
they
have the right keys for them? Each relay has a long-term public
signing
key called the "identity key". Each directory authority additionally
has a
"directory signing key". The directory authorities <a
href="<specblob>dir-spec.txt">provide a signed list</a>
of all the known relays, and in that list are a set of certificates
from
each relay (self-signed by their identity key) specifying their
keys,
locations, exit policies, and so on. So unless the adversary can
control
a majority of the directory authorities (as of 2012 there are 8
directory authorities), he can't trick the Tor client into using
other Tor relays.
</p>
<p>
How do clients know what the directory authorities are? The Tor
software
comes with a built-in list of location and public key for each
directory
authority. So the only way to trick users into using a fake Tor
network
is to give them a specially modified version of the software.
</p>
<p>
How do users know they've got the right software? When we distribute
the source code or a package, we digitally sign it with <a
href="http://www.gnupg.org/">GNU Privacy Guard</a>. See the <a
href="<page docs/verifying-signatures>">instructions
on how to check Tor's signatures</a>.
</p>
<p>
In order to be certain that it's really signed by us, you need to
have
met us in person and gotten a copy of our GPG key fingerprint, or
you
need to know somebody who has. If you're concerned about an attack
on
this level, we recommend you get involved with the security
community
and start meeting people.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="EntryGuards"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#EntryGuards">What are Entry
Guards?</a></h3>
<p>
Tor (like all current practical low-latency anonymity designs) fails
when the attacker can see both ends of the communications channel. For
example, suppose the attacker controls or watches the Tor relay you
choose
to enter the network, and also controls or watches the website you
visit. In
this case, the research community knows no practical low-latency design
that can reliably stop the attacker from correlating volume and timing
information on the two sides.
</p>
<p>
So, what should we do? Suppose the attacker controls, or can observe,
<i>C</i> relays. Suppose there are <i>N</i> relays total. If you select
new entry and exit relays each time you use the network, the attacker
will be able to correlate all traffic you send with probability
<i>(c/n)<sup>2</sup></i>. But profiling is, for most users, as bad
as being traced all the time: they want to do something often without
an attacker noticing, and the attacker noticing once is as bad as the
attacker noticing more often. Thus, choosing many random entries and
exits
gives the user no chance of escaping profiling by this kind of attacker.
</p>
<p>
The solution is "entry guards": each Tor client selects a few relays at
random
to use as entry points, and uses only those relays for her first hop. If
those relays are not controlled or observed, the attacker can't win,
ever, and the user is secure. If those relays <i>are</i> observed or
controlled by the attacker, the attacker sees a larger <i>fraction</i>
of the user's traffic — but still the user is no more profiled
than
before. Thus, the user has some chance (on the order of <i>(n-c)/n</i>)
of avoiding profiling, whereas she had none before.
</p>
<p>
You can read more at <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#wright02">An
Analysis of the Degradation of Anonymous Protocols</a>, <a
href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#wright03">Defending Anonymous
Communication Against Passive Logging Attacks</a>, and especially
<a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#hs-attack06">Locating Hidden
Servers</a>.
</p>
<p>
Restricting your entry nodes may also help against attackers who want
to run a few Tor nodes and easily enumerate all of the Tor user IP
addresses. (Even though they can't learn what destinations the users
are talking to, they still might be able to do bad things with just a
list of users.) However, that feature won't really become useful until
we move to a "directory guard" design as well.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="EverybodyARelay"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#EverybodyARelay">You should make every
Tor user be a relay.</a></h3>
<p>
Requiring every Tor user to be a relay would help with scaling the
network to handle all our users, and <a
href="<wikifaq>#DoIgetbetteranonymityifIrunarelay">running a Tor
relay may help your anonymity</a>. However, many Tor users cannot be
good
relays — for example, some Tor clients operate from behind
restrictive
firewalls, connect via modem, or otherwise aren't in a position
where they
can relay traffic. Providing service to these clients is a critical
part of providing effective anonymity for everyone, since many Tor
users
are subject to these or similar constraints and including these
clients
increases the size of the anonymity set.
</p>
<p>
That said, we do want to encourage Tor users to run relays, so what
we
really want to do is simplify the process of setting up and
maintaining
a relay. We've made a lot of progress with easy configuration in the
past
few years: Vidalia has an easy relay configuration interface, and
supports
uPnP too. Tor is good at automatically detecting whether it's
reachable and
how much bandwidth it can offer.
</p>
<p>
There are five steps we need to address before we can do this
though:
</p>
<p>
First, we need to make Tor stable as a relay on all common
operating systems. The main remaining platform is Windows,
and we're mostly there. See Section 4.1 of <a
href="https://www.torproject.org/press/2008-12-19-roadmap-press-release"
>our
development roadmap</a>.
</p>
<p>
Second, we still need to get better at automatically estimating
the right amount of bandwidth to allow. See item #7 on the
<a href="<page getinvolved/volunteer>#Research">research section of
the
volunteer page</a>: "Tor doesn't work very well when relays
have asymmetric bandwidth (e.g. cable or DSL)". It might be that <a
href="<page docs/faq>#TransportIPnotTCP">switching
to UDP transport</a> is the simplest answer here — which alas
is
not a very simple answer at all.
</p>
<p>
Third, we need to work on scalability, both of the network (how to
stop requiring that all Tor relays be able to connect to all Tor
relays) and of the directory (how to stop requiring that all Tor
users know about all Tor relays). Changes like this can have large
impact on potential and actual anonymity. See Section 5 of the <a
href="<svnprojects>design-paper/challenges.pdf">Challenges</a> paper
for details. Again, UDP transport would help here.
</p>
<p>
Fourth, we need to better understand the risks from
letting the attacker send traffic through your relay while
you're also initiating your own anonymized traffic. <a
href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#back01">Three</a> <a
href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">different</a>
<a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#torta05">research</a> papers
describe ways to identify the relays in a circuit by running traffic
through candidate relays and looking for dips in the traffic while
the
circuit is active. These clogging attacks are not that scary in the
Tor
context so long as relays are never clients too. But if we're trying
to
encourage more clients to turn on relay functionality too (whether
as
<a href="<page docs/bridges>">bridge relays</a> or as normal
relays), then
we need to understand this threat better and learn how to mitigate
it.
</p>
<p>
Fifth, we might need some sort of incentive scheme to encourage
people
to relay traffic for others, and/or to become exit nodes. Here are
our
<a href="<blog>two-incentive-designs-tor">current
thoughts on Tor incentives</a>.
</p>
<p>
Please help on all of these!
</p>
<hr>
<a id="TransportIPnotTCP"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#TransportIPnotTCP">You should transport all
IP packets, not just TCP packets.</a></h3>
<p>
This would be handy, because it would make Tor better able to handle
new protocols like VoIP, it could solve the whole need to socksify
applications, and it would solve the fact that exit relays need to
allocate a lot of file descriptors to hold open all the exit
connections.
</p>
<p>
We're heading in this direction: see <a
href="https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/1855">this trac
ticket</a> for directions we should investigate. Some of the hard
problems are:
</p>
<ol>
<li>IP packets reveal OS characteristics. We would still need to do
IP-level packet normalization, to stop things like TCP fingerprinting
attacks. Given the diversity and complexity of TCP stacks, along with <a
href="<wikifaq>#DoesTorresistremotephysicaldevicefingerprinting">device
fingerprinting attacks</a>, it looks like our best bet is shipping our
own user-space TCP stack.
</li>
<li>Application-level streams still need scrubbing. We will still need
user-side applications like Torbutton. So it won't become just a matter
of capturing packets and anonymizing them at the IP layer.
</li>
<li>Certain protocols will still leak information. For example, we must
rewrite DNS requests so they are delivered to an unlinkable DNS server
rather than the DNS server at a user's ISP; thus, we must understand
the protocols we are transporting.
</li>
<li><a
href="http://crypto.stanford.edu/~nagendra/projects/dtls/dtls.html">DTLS
</a>
(datagram TLS) basically has no users, and IPsec sure is big. Once we've
picked a transport mechanism, we need to design a new end-to-end Tor
protocol for avoiding tagging attacks and other potential anonymity and
integrity issues now that we allow drops, resends, et cetera.
</li>
<li>Exit policies for arbitrary IP packets mean building a secure
IDS. Our node operators tell us that exit policies are one of the main
reasons they're willing to run Tor. Adding an Intrusion Detection System
to handle exit policies would increase the security complexity of Tor,
and would likely not work anyway, as evidenced by the entire field of
IDS
and counter-IDS papers. Many potential abuse issues are resolved by the
fact that Tor only transports valid TCP streams (as opposed to arbitrary
IP including malformed packets and IP floods), so exit policies become
even <i>more</i> important as we become able to transport IP packets. We
also need to compactly describe exit policies in the Tor directory,
so clients can predict which nodes will allow their packets to exit
—
and clients need to predict all the packets they will want to send in
a session before picking their exit node!
</li>
<li>The Tor-internal name spaces would need to be redesigned. We support
hidden service ".onion" addresses by intercepting the addresses when
they are passed to the Tor client. Doing so at the IP level will require
a more complex interface between Tor and the local DNS resolver.
</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<a id="HideExits"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#HideExits">You should hide the list of Tor
relays, so people can't block the exits.</a></h3>
<p>
There are a few reasons we don't:
</p>
<ol>
<li>We can't help but make the information available, since Tor clients
need to use it to pick their paths. So if the "blockers" want it, they
can get it anyway. Further, even if we didn't tell clients about the
list of relays directly, somebody could still make a lot of connections
through Tor to a test site and build a list of the addresses they see.
</li>
<li>If people want to block us, we believe that they should be allowed
to
do so. Obviously, we would prefer for everybody to allow Tor users to
connect to them, but people have the right to decide who their services
should allow connections from, and if they want to block anonymous
users,
they can.
</li>
<li>Being blockable also has tactical advantages: it may be a persuasive
response to website maintainers who feel threatened by Tor. Giving them
the option may inspire them to <a href="<page docs/faq-abuse>#Bans">stop
and think</a> about whether they really want to eliminate private access
to their system, and if not, what other options they might have. The
time they might otherwise have spent blocking Tor, they may instead
spend rethinking their overall approach to privacy and anonymity.
</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<a id="Criminals"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#Criminals">Doesn't Tor enable criminals
to do bad things?</a></h3>
<p>
For the answer to this question and others, please see our <a
href="<page docs/faq-abuse>">Tor Abuse FAQ</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<a id="RespondISP"></a>
<h3><a class="anchor" href="#RespondISP">How do I respond to my ISP
about my exit relay?</a></h3>
<p>
A collection of templates for successfully responding to ISPs is <a
href="<wiki>doc/TorAbuseTemplates">collected
here</a>.
</p>
<hr>
</div>
<!-- END MAINCOL -->
<div id = "sidecol">
#include "side.wmi"
#include "info.wmi"
</div>
<!-- END SIDECOL -->
</div>
<!-- END CONTENT -->
#include <foot.wmi>