{"id":1686,"date":"2013-04-22T09:55:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T13:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?p=1686"},"modified":"2020-02-26T10:38:27","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T15:38:27","slug":"what-is-tor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/what-is-tor\/1686\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Tor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The privacy and censorship conscious among us are certainly familiar with Tor.<\/p>\n

\"tor\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Short for \u201cThe Onion Router,\u201d Tor is a free tool that keeps a user\u2019s Web browsing<\/span><\/a> <\/span>private and anonymous. Beyond those with personal privacy or censorship concerns, Tor has been a valuable tool for those in oppressed parts of the world helping activists and others reach parts of the Internet they otherwise would not be able to.<\/p>\n

Tor is available as a free download for your PC; it also stands for the Tor network, which is made up of voluntary Tor users worldwide. It\u2019s through this network where Tor users\u2019 Internet traffic is directed in order to conceal the user\u2019s location.<\/p>\n

In parts of the world where surveillance<\/span><\/a><\/span> is conducted over the Internet or by analyzing network traffic, Tor is an important piece of software to preserve anonymity online.<\/p>\n

Tor organizers point to a number of use cases for the software and network, including reaching sites or services online that are blocked by local Internet service providers, keeping sensitive communication anonymous\u2013for example between crisis counselors and patients in the medical community, between journalists and their sources, or non-governmental organization (NGO) volunteers wishing to preserve their anonymity in countries hostile to their cause.<\/p>\n

Tor\u2019s strength is in its numbers, the organization said. \u201cThe variety of people who use Tor is actually part of what makes it so secure. Tor hides you among the others users on the network, so the more populous and diverse the user base for Tor is, the more your anonymity will be protected,\u201d the Tor website says.<\/p>\n

Tor hides you among the others users on the network, so the more populous and diverse the user base for Tor is, the more your anonymity will be protected.<\/div>\n

Tor Maintains Anonymity, Safety<\/b><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in parts of the world where surveillance via traffic analysis of source and destination is the norm, then Tor can maintain not only your privacy and anonymity, but your safety. \u00a0Rather than examine the content of an email message or Web pages, analyzing header information is of much more value to someone analyzing traffic. For example, headers will reveal source location, time sent and much more about a message of a browsing session, all of which can be seen by the recipient or anyone intercepting the packets in question. More sophisticated tracking methods can even render encryption rather ineffective because scrambling message content, for example, doesn\u2019t change header information.<\/p>\n

Tor remedies that problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is similar to using a twisty, hard-to-follow route in order to throw off somebody who is tailing you \u2014 and then periodically erasing your footprints,\u201d according to the Tor website. \u201cInstead of taking a direct route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random pathway through several relays that cover your tracks so no observer at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it\u2019s going.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Tor How-To<\/b><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how Tor works:<\/p>\n