Anyone use TOR

[Elmer Gantry]

Just watched a docu on TOR.Are there any members using it,if so what are the pro's and con's.I am an internet illiterate.

[RichCor]

It's just another alternative to private browsing among a dozen other alternatives to private browsing. Though TOR does have the dubious distinction of being a connection to the 'dark web' or darknet of web services that can't be accessed directly from a normal Internet connection.

If you are an Internet Illiterate it would be best to stay away from using or associating with TOR until you understand all the issues.

Using TOR is sort of like conducting your Internet business while wearing a trenchcoat out in front of a brothel or a drug shop, never knowing who is watching.

[Chicog]

Tor isn't as anonymous as people think, the feds have been intercepting Tor traffic for a long time.

[Farma]

When I'm away working outside Thailand I find TOR a good free alternative to using a paid VPN.

I'm not into looking at dodgy websites but it does allow me to check and order lotto tickets from home when my lotto website doesn't like the normal web address I am using.

It's a little bit slower to download but when searching for info on say my family tree it comes up with a lot more results than I would normally find using google.

[96tehtarp]

It's just another alternative to private browsing among a dozen other alternatives to private browsing. Though TOR does have the dubious distinction of being a connection to the 'dark web' or darknet of web services that can't be accessed directly from a normal Internet connection.

If you are an Internet Illiterate it would be best to stay away from using or associating with TOR until you understand all the issues.

Using TOR is sort of like conducting your Internet business while wearing a trenchcoat out in front of a brothel or a drug shop, never knowing who is watching.

Yep, it's really just a glorified chain of socks proxies. If you don't know how to use it then it can't help you. I sometimes find it useful to bypass 3BB web servers/proxies when they are incredibly slow.

[Chicog]

It's just another alternative to private browsing among a dozen other alternatives to private browsing. Though TOR does have the dubious distinction of being a connection to the 'dark web' or darknet of web services that can't be accessed directly from a normal Internet connection.

If you are an Internet Illiterate it would be best to stay away from using or associating with TOR until you understand all the issues.

Using TOR is sort of like conducting your Internet business while wearing a trenchcoat out in front of a brothel or a drug shop, never knowing who is watching.

Yep, it's really just a glorified chain of socks proxies. If you don't know how to use it then it can't help you. I sometimes find it useful to bypass 3BB web servers/proxies when they are incredibly slow.

Zenmate is by far a simpler solution. It's how I get my bets on.

[Thaimaishoe]

It's just another alternative to private browsing among a dozen other alternatives to private browsing. Though TOR does have the dubious distinction of being a connection to the 'dark web' or darknet of web services that can't be accessed directly from a normal Internet connection.

If you are an Internet Illiterate it would be best to stay away from using or associating with TOR until you understand all the issues.

Using TOR is sort of like conducting your Internet business while wearing a trenchcoat out in front of a brothel or a drug shop, never knowing who is watching.

Yep, it's really just a glorified chain of socks proxies. If you don't know how to use it then it can't help you. I sometimes find it useful to bypass 3BB web servers/proxies when they are incredibly slow.

Zenmate is by far a simpler solution. It's how I get my bets on.

From what I can see Zenmate is just a VPN for your browser. Certainly good enough for your purpose, until the authorities feel like cracking down on gambling. Going through a company leaves you and them open to secret warrants (the party being served is not allowed to disclose they have recieved it! Can anyone say prior restraint? ) And being a privacy/encryption company you can safely assume they have long ago been served with a notice from the NSA/GCHQ to include a back door (if in the US/UK, if based outside, then the "Special Technology" they employ to encrypt your traffic, has been cracked)

Even if you are not all that paranoid, the company can freely read every bit you send over the link... obviously they are doing the decryption, and are in reciept of every packet in your connection to them (the payload should still be encrypted if you connect over https of course). TOR on the otherhand, routes each packet through a different path and they emerge onto the wider internet through a random array of hundreds of Gateways after bouncing around the TOR network, each bounce is encrypted so the computer recieving the packet only knows what computer it got that packet from - and the payload remains encrypted all the way to the gateway, which will only see the payload for that one packet (which again remains encrypted is the connection is https).

TOR and VPN's like Zenmate aim to solve different problems. TOR is for anonymity and provides privacy as a follow on benefit, VPN's aim for privacy and provide a modicum of anonymity as a side effect. But that anonymity is illusory, the company knows who you are and can be forced to reveal it, as well as providing an unencrypted stream of your connection to the authorities.

[Brit_Doggie]

Yes to TOR if you need the darkside of the www, i myself have used it but it a tad slow for me.so instead i ask a thai for what i need and generally get what i require,and faster rofl.

[Brit_Doggie]

Yes to TOR if you need the darkside of the www, i myself have used it but it a tad slow for me.so instead i ask a thai for what i need and generally get what i require,and faster rofl.

[bartender100]

When I'm away working outside Thailand I find TOR a good free alternative to using a paid VPN.

I'm not into looking at dodgy websites but it does allow me to check and order lotto tickets from home when my lotto website doesn't like the normal web address I am using.

It's a little bit slower to download but when searching for info on say my family tree it comes up with a lot more results than I would normally find using google.

How do you know what IP address TOR will throw at you? UK lottery for instance will not let you log in if it thinks your outside the UK. TOR could give you virtually any countries IP.

Better to spend $5 a month on a good VPN which will give you a constant same IP address IMHO

[Farma]

When I'm away working outside Thailand I find TOR a good free alternative to using a paid VPN.

I'm not into looking at dodgy websites but it does allow me to check and order lotto tickets from home when my lotto website doesn't like the normal web address I am using.

It's a little bit slower to download but when searching for info on say my family tree it comes up with a lot more results than I would normally find using google.

How do you know what IP address TOR will throw at you? UK lottery for instance will not let you log in if it thinks your outside the UK. TOR could give you virtually any countries IP.

Better to spend $5 a month on a good VPN which will give you a constant same IP address IMHO

I only use it when working in the middle east where they don't seem to like people logging on to lotto sites. I know you Brits have problems logging on from outside the UK but i'm not a Brit and not with UK lotto.

I've tried browsers like penquin which worked for a while but no longer does.

My lotto website will let me log on with onspeed but won't allow me to purchase. I was using a VPN but can't justify the $5.85 a month when I only use it for logging onto the lotto site for a few minutes every couple of weeks. I have no problems when using TOR .

[Chicog]

It's just another alternative to private browsing among a dozen other alternatives to private browsing. Though TOR does have the dubious distinction of being a connection to the 'dark web' or darknet of web services that can't be accessed directly from a normal Internet connection.

If you are an Internet Illiterate it would be best to stay away from using or associating with TOR until you understand all the issues.

Using TOR is sort of like conducting your Internet business while wearing a trenchcoat out in front of a brothel or a drug shop, never knowing who is watching.

Yep, it's really just a glorified chain of socks proxies. If you don't know how to use it then it can't help you. I sometimes find it useful to bypass 3BB web servers/proxies when they are incredibly slow.

Zenmate is by far a simpler solution. It's how I get my bets on.

From what I can see Zenmate is just a VPN for your browser. Certainly good enough for your purpose, until the authorities feel like cracking down on gambling. Going through a company leaves you and them open to secret warrants (the party being served is not allowed to disclose they have recieved it! Can anyone say prior restraint? ) And being a privacy/encryption company you can safely assume they have long ago been served with a notice from the NSA/GCHQ to include a back door (if in the US/UK, if based outside, then the "Special Technology" they employ to encrypt your traffic, has been cracked)

Even if you are not all that paranoid, the company can freely read every bit you send over the link... obviously they are doing the decryption, and are in reciept of every packet in your connection to them (the payload should still be encrypted if you connect over https of course). TOR on the otherhand, routes each packet through a different path and they emerge onto the wider internet through a random array of hundreds of Gateways after bouncing around the TOR network, each bounce is encrypted so the computer recieving the packet only knows what computer it got that packet from - and the payload remains encrypted all the way to the gateway, which will only see the payload for that one packet (which again remains encrypted is the connection is https).

TOR and VPN's like Zenmate aim to solve different problems. TOR is for anonymity and provides privacy as a follow on benefit, VPN's aim for privacy and provide a modicum of anonymity as a side effect. But that anonymity is illusory, the company knows who you are and can be forced to reveal it, as well as providing an unencrypted stream of your connection to the authorities.

As I said above, Tor has long since been compromised by the Feds. I doubt they are too worried once they seem me using a tool like Zenmate to look at William Hill and the Daily Mail.

However, I'm sure they would be more interested in why people choose to use a tool often used by paedophiles, drug dealers and terrorists.

[Thaimaishoe]

As I said above, Tor has long since been compromised by the Feds. I doubt they are too worried once they seem me using a tool like Zenmate to look at William Hill and the Daily Mail.

However, I'm sure they would be more interested in why people choose to use a tool often used by paedophiles, drug dealers and terrorists.

Depends on what you mean by compromised. If you mean something along the lines of "Made it their bitch", they are not even close to that - though they are working very very hard to do so. They discovered a weakness in the TOR browser, and used that to compromise some traffic from people using the broken browser. On the back of that, they took down a couple of sites - the silk road being the most famous. They also took over the running of another site and used that info to bust still more users. The browser is fixed now though.

They have not destroyed the basis of the network. The replacements for the Silk Road are numerous and much larger than SR ever was. If they had broken the network, I would expect to hear lots of activity surrounding arrested site admins, and large quantities of users being busted. Yet the news seems to contain no reports of such. So are the NSA/GCHQ playing possum, monitoring the network for terrorist activity letting the paedos and drug bags go on their merry way. I don't think so, but if they are which is worse, a network that facilitates the exchange of kiddie porn and drugs, or a Gov. agency that allows it to continue?

And besides, we are talking about a network that is substantially opaic to two of the most talented, well funded, and extremely dedicated government agencies with access to every byte that moves between computers or phones anywhere in the world. TOR is still pretty damn secure.

It is dismaying to me that the nefarious uses to which the TOR network is put, are all that get any play. Especially since some of us are living the dream that TOR was designed thwart. Specifically government control of communication and information. So Chineese dissidents could communicate with the outside world, both directions, so journalists otherwise subject to censorship could report what is happening. These activities, which we see right here on TV, with posts being removed and posters being warned for saying the wrong things, are what TOR is intended to circumvent.

[Chicog]

As I said above, Tor has long since been compromised by the Feds. I doubt they are too worried once they seem me using a tool like Zenmate to look at William Hill and the Daily Mail.

However, I'm sure they would be more interested in why people choose to use a tool often used by paedophiles, drug dealers and terrorists.

Depends on what you mean by compromised.

I mean compromised. And this is just one attack they know about.

The Tor encryption service is a high-profile bastion of computer security, but the project appears to have been compromised earlier this year. Today, the Tor Project blog announced that an unknown party likely managed to gather information about people who were looking up hidden services — websites that users can operate and visit anonymously, like Silk Road — and could theoretically have compromised other parts of the network.

Anyone who used Tor between early February and July 4th of 2014 "should assume they were affected" by the attack, says the Tor team.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/30/5951479/tor-says-unknown-attackers-compromised-hidden-services

And here's another one.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28162273

Edited September 6, 2014 by Chicog

[Elmer Gantry]

As I said above, Tor has long since been compromised by the Feds. I doubt they are too worried once they seem me using a tool like Zenmate to look at William Hill and the Daily Mail.

However, I'm sure they would be more interested in why people choose to use a tool often used by paedophiles, drug dealers and terrorists.

Depends on what you mean by compromised. If you mean something along the lines of "Made it their bitch", they are not even close to that - though they are working very very hard to do so. They discovered a weakness in the TOR browser, and used that to compromise some traffic from people using the broken browser. On the back of that, they took down a couple of sites - the silk road being the most famous. They also took over the running of another site and used that info to bust still more users. The browser is fixed now though.

They have not destroyed the basis of the network. The replacements for the Silk Road are numerous and much larger than SR ever was. If they had broken the network, I would expect to hear lots of activity surrounding arrested site admins, and large quantities of users being busted. Yet the news seems to contain no reports of such. So are the NSA/GCHQ playing possum, monitoring the network for terrorist activity letting the paedos and drug bags go on their merry way. I don't think so, but if they are which is worse, a network that facilitates the exchange of kiddie porn and drugs, or a Gov. agency that allows it to continue?

And besides, we are talking about a network that is substantially opaic to two of the most talented, well funded, and extremely dedicated government agencies with access to every byte that moves between computers or phones anywhere in the world. TOR is still pretty damn secure.

It is dismaying to me that the nefarious uses to which the TOR network is put, are all that get any play. Especially since some of us are living the dream that TOR was designed thwart. Specifically government control of communication and information. So Chineese dissidents could communicate with the outside world, both directions, so journalists otherwise subject to censorship could report what is happening. These activities, which we see right here on TV, with posts being removed and posters being warned for saying the wrong things, are what TOR is intended to circumvent.

Thanks for the response,helps me understand a bit better.I had never heard of TOR until the other day when I came across a BBC Horizon programe which was very enlightening for an IT dummie like myself.

[infinity11]

way too slow for my connection

[aarn]

using TOR or truecrypt - wouldn't this be like waving a red flag at NSA? AA

[MJCM]

using TOR or truecrypt - wouldn't this be like waving a red flag at NSA? AA

I wonder how you use Truecrypt to surf the Internet

[Thaimaishoe]

As I said above, Tor has long since been compromised by the Feds. I doubt they are too worried once they seem me using a tool like Zenmate to look at William Hill and the Daily Mail.

However, I'm sure they would be more interested in why people choose to use a tool often used by paedophiles, drug dealers and terrorists.

Depends on what you mean by compromised.

I mean compromised. And this is just one attack they know about.

The Tor encryption service is a high-profile bastion of computer security, but the project appears to have been compromised earlier this year. Today, the Tor Project blog announced that an unknown party likely managed to gather information about people who were looking up hidden services — websites that users can operate and visit anonymously, like Silk Road — and could theoretically have compromised other parts of the network.

Anyone who used Tor between early February and July 4th of 2014 "should assume they were affected" by the attack, says the Tor team.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/30/5951479/tor-says-unknown-attackers-compromised-hidden-services

And here's another one.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28162273

Again, as I said, the powers that be are working terribly hard to crack the nut, however this looks to be little more than an attack. An unsucessful attack, if the metric of success is identifying users. Furthermore it was not an attack against TOR traffic in general, it seemed to rely on the traffic originating and terminating within the TOR network, ie the "Dark web". For general traffic routing through and out of the network, ie what it is designed for in the first place, this would give them nothing - the last sentence of the quote above is a poorly edited report of what the Tor team actually said (and that's the fault of the source of the quote, with strategically placed quote marks, not yours). And again, there is no spate of arrests, no high profile take downs ect. If they got anything, they are not using it.

All that said, playing against the NSA is a fools game. They have unlimmited resources, very talented people, and access to litterally every bit traversing the internet. And since they are storing much of the encrypted traffic (probably EVERY bit of Tor traffic) in hopes of decrypting it in the future, if you use tor for something illegal, you have to hope it is not just secure now (which obviously Chicog thinks is already not the case) but secure until the NSA has to erase its records of your traffic due to lack of space, or you die before they can decrypt it.

I choose not to play, thanks!

I'll just stick with my VPN which keeps me out of the cross hairs of the copyright mafiaa. Speaking of whom... Football is back! Whoo hoo!!

Edited September 7, 2014 by Thaimaishoe

[Thaimaishoe]

using TOR or truecrypt - wouldn't this be like waving a red flag at NSA? AA

Yes. And your IP has been flagged for making a post talking about it.