What do you think of Tor

www.torproject.org

If used with ssl sites only. What do you think of it's abilities in comparison to some of the commercial offerings.

Thanks in advance

 

Welcome to the forums Wazhere,

Tor has been very extensively discussed here and the normal advice would be to do a forum search. Unfortunately, 3-letter words aren't accepted (if you're reading this, LowWaterMark, would you please consider making an exception for search terms like "Tor" and "JAP"?) so you need to search on related items.

However Google does not have this limitation so happy reading...

 

i think it is great if you are just needing it for occaisonal web surfing with ssl. go for it.

 

Re: All about Tor privacy

Im currently using Tor and Privoxy its actually the Vidalia bundle complete with the Tor button in Win xp. I have configured my Firefox Browser to use the Proxy server and port recommended. When I test my Privoxy and Tor using the Tor.org test script it states that I am using the Tor network successfully. I wanted to make sure my privacy is trustworthy and valid so I used Traceroute from MagorGeeks.com which I configured to route through the proxy I was given. But the actual Traceroute IP list still includes my ISP. It sounds mad but I am actually trying to acheive greater privacy because I heard recently that my ISP spys on on all of its customers, this is very unacceptable. Is there a better route trace program, is Traceroute telling me lies or is Tor unable to really divert my traffic away from my ISP.

 

Re: All about Tor privacy

That is what should happen - Privoxy will pass browser traffic (HTTP/HTTPS) via Tor. Traceroute (and Ping) use a low-level protocol (ICMP) which Tor does not handle (nor does it need to since it won't contain any private data - ICMP is used principally for reporting network errors).

Visiting sites like Leader Network Tools, ShowMyIP and BrowserSpy will help confirm that your original IP address is being hidden from sites you visit and let you check what information your browser is showing to websites. Note that if you choose to run a port scan from a website, it is the Tor node that you are connecting through that will be scanned (not your PC) and it will show open ports (if it didn't have open ports, you wouldn't be able to connect to it).

Use a packet sniffer if you want to check that traffic exiting your PC is being encrypted (see this thread for a few examples).

 

I maybe wrong and if so someone correct me on this let's say your isp gave you 192.192.2.2 as your ip. and that is what they use to connect you to the www. now this 192.192.2.2 is your id to them and is used to rout traffic from and too the www. now they must have this 192.192.2.2 to for fill what you type in the search bar.and if you connect to a proxy server they would still see that you connected to the proxy server at X they may not know where all you have gone but they still see where you have connected to a proxy server. and seeing how any and all things has to be dragged threw there (ISP) sys would it not stand to reason they could still spy on a person if they really wanted to?

 

With Tor, all your ISP will see is encrypted traffic going to an address which they can identify as a Tor entry node. They have no way of seeing what sites you visit, just as the sites you visit should (as long as you set things up properly) have no idea of your ISP-assigned IP address.

"Normal" proxy servers (which you access just by changing your browser settings) do not encrypt traffic, so your ISP can certainly see what you are doing, as if you were using no proxy at all. They serve only to disguise (in many cases poorly) your real IP address from the sites you visit.

Proxies using encryption (HTTPS/SSL, SSH, etc which include most commercial anonymity services) that use only a single server, can hide your activity from your ISP, but it is still visible to those running the proxy service (i.e. you are placing your trust in them instead of your ISP).

 

Tor seems to work well ok for my browsing needs....sometimes, at least.
All of a sudden it will start NOT connecting (tor message concerns scrubbed port 80) which is repeated over and over again....usually rebooting gets it back on again........I have no ans. as to y it happens.

Likewise, (see my name) I have not been able to figure out how to get privoxy-tor-proximitron to work together, despite reading every post till my eyes crossed!
oh well, a rookie is a rookie etc
cheers