September 26th, 2005
Forget Google’s VPN and Try Tor
By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
There’s been a lot of fury and curiosity around Google’s new secure VPN option. You can download it and see for yourself. (it is supposed to be for San Francisco residents only, but people as far away as London have reported being able to use it.) The question no one can seem to agree on is how secure it really is. While the jury is still out, there is an interesting product from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) called Tor. It’s free and available for downloading.
Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system
Tor is a toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want to improve their safety and security on the Internet. Using Tor can help you anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications that use the TCP protocol. Tor also provides a platform on which software developers can build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features.Your traffic is safer when you use Tor, because communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers, called onion routers. Instead of taking a direct route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random pathway through several servers that cover your tracks so no observer at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it’s going. This makes it hard for recipients, observers, and even the onion routers themselves to figure out who and where you are. Tor’s technology aims to provide Internet users with protection against “traffic analysis,” a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Source: tor.eff.org
We say: Privacy nuts love Tor. Surf from your bunker or your home office and no one is the wiser. Alice Adds: Isn’t it weird that in the example picture they use the name “Alice” as the computer looking for privacy? Eerie!
David Johnston says:
The problem I have with Tor is that it’s a little tricky to configure for most people and some websites block the IP’s of known “servers” on the Tor network because of abuse.
September 26th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
David Johnston says:
By the way, for some reason the story is published 3 times.
September 26th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Alice says:
Thanks David - I caught the error - it published three times when I changed to a larger graphic. Maybe we can get you to do a side by side test? Tor vs. Google VPN?
September 26th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Tommy Thomas says:
To bad the destination wasn’t Bill.
September 26th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
David Johnston says:
I did the comparison. It’s an interesting article for those of you interested in these different technologies. Read it here: http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/1877
September 26th, 2005 at 3:34 pm
Bassam says:
FYI: In computer security, it’s common to use the name Alice and Bob as the originator and destination of communication. Not sure why though. It might just be alphabetical (from A to B).
September 26th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Geek News Central says:
GNC-2005-09-27 #103
Quick show with lots of tantalizing articles tonight. Were almost going to have to start doing a separate show to…
September 27th, 2005 at 2:22 am
Will says:
It’s an interesting article for those of you interested in these different technologies
January 19th, 2006 at 9:29 am
www.verstecken.net says:
The anonymizing network Tor divided to countries…
englische Übersetzung
This text was translated from german into english. Native Speakers, please help me by reporting grammar mistakes.
The anonymizing network Tor divided to countries
The anonymizing network tor continues to grow. It grew from…
October 6th, 2007 at 2:45 pm