https://restoreprivacy.com/tor/
Is Tor Trustworthy and Safe?
December 14, 2021 By Sven Taylor — [246]48 Comments
[247]Tor safe[248]Tor safe
There is a lot of misinformation being promoted in various privacy circles
about Tor. This article will examine some facts about Tor and assess
whether it is the infallible privacy tool it’s made out to be by some.
There is a growing chorus of people who blindly recommend Tor to anyone
looking for online anonymity. This recommendation often ignores mountains
of evidence suggesting that Tor is not the “privacy tool” it’s made
out to be.
No privacy tool is above criticism or scrutiny, and each has pros and
cons. Unfortunately, Tor has garnered a cult-like following in recent
years among people who pretend it's infallible. Honest criticism of Tor is
often met with accusations of "FUD" and ad-hominem attacks, so as not to
disrupt the collective [249]Groupthink.
Never mind the fact that the Tor network is a popular hangout for
[250]pedophiles and [251]drug dealers – along with the law enforcement
these types attract. Today, Tor is being marketed as some kind of
grass-roots privacy tool that will protect you against government
surveillance and various bad actors.
According to Roger Dingledine (Tor co-founder) and other key Tor
developers, getting people (outside the US government) to widely adopt Tor
is very important for the US government’s ability to use Tor for its own
purposes. In this goal, they have largely succeeded with Tor being widely
promoted in various privacy circles by people who don't know any better.
But is Tor really a secure and trustworthy privacy tool?
Here are the facts.
1. Tor is compromised (and not anonymous)
That governments can de-anonymize Tor users is another well-known point
that's been acknowledged for years.
In 2013 the Washington Post broke an article citing reports that US
government agencies had figured out how to de-anonymize Tor users on a
"wide scale". From the [252]Washington Post:
Since 2006, according to [253]a 49-page research paper titled simply
“Tor,” the agency has worked on several methods that, if successful,
would allow the NSA to uncloak anonymous traffic on a “wide scale”
— effectively by watching communications as they enter and exit the
Tor system, rather than trying to follow them inside. One type of
attack, for example, would identify users by minute differences in the
clock times on their computers.
There are also reports of government agencies cooperating with researchers
to "break" or somehow [254]exploit Tor to de-anonymize users:
Then in July, a much anticipated talk at the Black Hat hacking
conference was [255]abruptly canceled. Alexander Volynkin and Michael
McCord, academics from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), promised to
reveal how a $3,000 piece of kit could unmask the IP addresses of Tor
hidden services as well as their users.
Its description bore a startling resemblance to the attack the Tor
Project had documented earlier that month. Volynkin and McCord's method
would deanonymize Tor users through the use of recently disclosed
vulnerabilities and a "handful of powerful servers." On top of this, the
pair claimed they had tested attacks in the wild.
For $3,000 worth of hardware, this team from Carnegie Mellon could
effectively "unmask" Tor users. And this was in 2015.
In 2016, a court case brought more information to light about how the US
federal government hired software engineers to effectively crack Tor and
de-anonymize users.
[256]Tor is not anonymous[257]Tor is not anonymous
ARS Technica also [258]discussed this case in February 2016 where they
noted:
A federal judge in Washington has now [259]confirmed what has
been [260]strongly suspected: that Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
researchers at its Software Engineering Institute were [261]hired by the
federal government to do research into breaking Tor in 2014.
The following year, in 2017, more evidence came forward showing how the
FBI can see what you're up to on Tor.
There are also researchers who [262]devised attacks allowing them to
de-anonymize 81% of Tor users in the wild. This [263]article came out in
2014, before the Carnegie Mellon research was carried out.
[264]Tor attack NSA[265]Tor attack NSA
And there's more...
2017 court case proves FBI can de-anonymize Tor users
The means by which the FBI is able to de-anonymize Tor users and discover
their real IP address remains classified information. In a 2017 court
case, the FBI refused to divulge how it was able to do this, which
ultimately led to child abusers on the Tor network going free. From the
[266]Tech Times:
In this case, the FBI managed to breach the anonymity Tor promises and
the means used to collect the evidence from the dark web make up a
sensitive matter. The technique is valuable to the FBI, so the
government would rather compromise this case rather than release the
source code it used.
"The government must now choose between disclosure of classified
information and dismissal of its indictment," federal prosecutor Annette
Hayes said in a court filing on Friday.
The cat is out of the bag. The FBI (and presumably other government
agencies) has proven to be fully capable of de-anonymizing Tor users. Most
Tor promoters simply ignore these different cases and the obvious
implications.
2. Tor developers are cooperating with US government agencies
Some Tor users may be surprised to know the extent to which Tor developers
are working directly with US government agencies. After all, Tor is often
promoted as a grass-roots privacy effort to help you stay "anonymous"
against Big Brother.
One journalist was able to clarify this cooperation through FOIA requests,
which revealed many interesting exchanges.
Here is one email correspondence in which Roger Dingledine discusses
cooperation with the DOJ (Department of Justice) and FBI (Federal Bureau
of Investigation), while also referencing "backdoors" being installed.
[267]fbi tor browser[268]fbi tor browser
You can see more details from this correspondence [269]here.
In another exchange below, Tor developer Steven Murdoch discovered a
vulnerability with the way Tor was handling TLS encryption. This
vulnerability made it easier to de-anonymize Tor users, and as such, it
would be valuable to government agencies. Knowing the problems this could
cause, Steven suggested keeping the document internal,
...it might be a good to delay the release of anything like `this attack
is bad; I hope nobody realizes it before we fix it'.
Eight days later, based on the emails below, Roger Dingledine alerted two
government agents about this vulnerability:
[270]is tor safe[271]is tor safe
While there is disagreement as to the seriousness of these issues, one
thing remains clear.
Tor developers are closely working with the US government.
The journalist who collected the FOIA documents also [272]suggests that,
"Tor privately tips off the federal government to security vulnerabilities
before alerting the public."
Whether or not you agree with the ultimate conclusion of this researcher,
the facts remain for anyone who wants to acknowledge them. The big issue
is the close cooperation between Tor developers and US government
agencies.
You can see numerous exchanges between Tor developers and US government
agencies [273]here. ([274]Backup copy of documents.)
And if you really want to dive in, check out the [275]full FOIA cache
here.
3. When you use Tor, you stand out like a glow stick
Meet Eldo Kim. He was the Harvard student who assumed Tor would make him
"anonymous" when sending bomb threats.
[276]eldo kim[277]eldo kim
Kim didn't realize that when he connected to Tor on the university
network, he would stand out like a f***ing glow stick.
The FBI and the network admins at Harvard were able to easily pinpoint Kim
because he was using Tor around the time the bomb threat email was sent
through the Tor network. From the [278]criminal complaint:
Harvard University was able to determine that, in the several hours
leading up to the receipt of the e-mail messages described above, ELDO
KIM accessed TOR using Harvard’s wireless network.
[279]Case closed.
Eldo Kim is just one of many, many examples of people who have bought into
the lie that Tor provides blanket online anonymity - and later paid the
price.
Had Kim used a bridge or VPN before accessing the Tor network, he probably
would have gotten away with it (we'll discuss this more below).
4. Anybody can operate Tor nodes and collect your data and IP address
Many proponents of Tor argue that its decentralized nature is a benefit.
While there are indeed advantages to decentralization, there are also some
major risks. Namely, that anybody can operate the Tor nodes through which
your traffic is being routed.
There have been numerous examples of people setting up Tor nodes to
collect data from gullible Tor users who thought they would be safe and
secure.
Take for example Dan Egerstad, a 22-year-old Swedish hacker. Egerstad set
up a few Tor nodes around the world and [280]collected vast amounts of
private data in just a few months:
In time, Egerstad gained access to 1000 high-value email accounts. He
would later post 100 sets of sensitive email logins and passwords on the
internet for criminals, spies or just curious teenagers to use to snoop
on inter-governmental, NGO and high-value corporate email.
The question on everybody's lips was: how did he do it? The answer came
more than a week later and was somewhat anti-climactic. The 22-year-old
Swedish security consultant had merely installed free, open-source
software - called Tor - on five computers in data centres around the
globe and monitored it. Ironically, Tor is designed to prevent
intelligence agencies, corporations and computer hackers from
determining the virtual - and physical - location of the people who use
it.
People think they're protected just because they use Tor. Not only do
they think it's encrypted, but they also think `no one can find me'.
To not assume government agencies are doing this right now would be
extremely naive.
Commenting on this case, security consultant Sam Stover [281]emphasized
the risks of someone snooping traffic through Tor nodes:
Domestic, or international . . . if you want to do intelligence
gathering, there's definitely data to be had there. (When using Tor) you
have no idea if some guy in China is watching all your traffic, or some
guy in Germany, or a guy in Illinois. You don't know.
In fact, that is exactly how Wikileaks got started. The founders simply
setup Tor nodes to siphon off more than a million private documents.
According to [282]Wired:
WikiLeaks, the controversial whistleblowing site that exposes secrets of
governments and corporations, bootstrapped itself with a cache of
documents obtained through an internet eavesdropping operation by one of
its activists, according to a new profile of the organization's founder.
The activist siphoned more than a million documents as they traveled
across the internet through Tor, also known as "The Onion Router," a
sophisticated privacy tool that lets users navigate and send documents
through the internet anonymously.
Are governments running Tor nodes for bulk data collection?
Egerstad also suggests Tor nodes may be controlled by powerful agencies
(governments) with vast resources:
In addition to hackers using Tor to hide their origins, it's plausible
that intelligence services had set up rogue exit nodes to sniff data
from the Tor network.
"If you actually look in to where these Tor nodes are hosted and how big
they are, some of these nodes cost thousands of dollars each month just
to host because they're using lots of bandwidth, they're heavy-duty
servers and so on," Egerstad says. "Who would pay for this and be
anonymous?"
Back in 2014, government agencies seized a number of different Tor relays
in what is known as "Operation Onymous". From the [283]Tor Project blog:
Over the last few days, we received and read reports saying that several
Tor relays were seized by government officials. We do not know why the
systems were seized, nor do we know anything about the methods of
investigation which were used. Specifically, there are reports that
three systems of Torservers.net disappeared and there is another report
by an independent relay operator.
Commenting on this case, [284]ARS Technica noted in 2014:
On July 4, the Tor Project identified a group of Tor relays that were
actively trying to break the anonymity of users by making changes to the
Tor protocol headers associated with their traffic over the network.
The rogue relays were set up on January 30, 2014—just two weeks after
Blake Benthall allegedly announced he had taken control of Silk Road 2.0
and shortly after the Homeland Security undercover officer who
infiltrated Silk Road 2.0 began getting paid to be a site administrator.
The relays not only could have de-anonymized some users, but they also
“probably tried to learn who published hidden service descriptors,
which would allow the attackers to learn the location of that hidden
service,” Tor project leader Roger Dingledine [285]wrote in a July 30
blog post.
This issue continues to gain attention. In this [286]Gizmodo article from
2021, we find the same problems. Bad actors can and do operate Tor nodes.
Additional reading: [287]A mysterious threat actor is running hundreds of
malicious Tor relays
No quality control!
The fundamental issue here is there is no real quality control mechanism
for vetting Tor relay operators. Not only is there no authentication
mechanism for setting up relays, but the operators themselves can also
remain anonymous.
Assuming that some Tor nodes are data collection tools, it would also be
safe to assume that many different governments are involved in data
collection, such as the Chinese, Russian, and US governments.
See also: [288]Tor network exit nodes found to be sniffing passing traffic
5. Malicious Tor nodes do exist
If government-controlled Tor nodes weren't bad enough, you also have to
consider malicious Tor nodes.
In 2016 a group of researchers presented a paper titled "[289]HOnions:
Towards Detection and Identification of Misbehaving Tor HSDirs", which
described how they identified 110 malicious Tor relays:
Over the last decade privacy infrastructures such as Tor proved to be
very successful and widely used. However, Tor remains a practical system
with a variety of limitations and open to abuse. Tor’s security and
anonymity is based on the assumption that the large majority of the its
relays are honest and do not misbehave. Particularly the privacy of the
hidden services is dependent on the honest operation of Hidden Services
Directories (HSDirs). In this work we introduce, the concept of honey
onions (HOnions), a framework to detect and identify misbehaving and
snooping HSDirs. After the deployment of our system and based on our
experimental results during the period of 72 days, we detect and
identify at least 110 such snooping relays. Furthermore, we reveal that
more than half of them were hosted on cloud infrastructure and delayed
the use of the learned information to prevent easy traceback.
When conspiracy "theory" becomes conspiracy fact.
The malicious HSDirs identified by the team were mostly located in the
United States, Germany, France, United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
Just a few months after the HSDir issue broke, a different researcher
identified a malicious Tor node injecting malware into file downloads.
[290]tor malware[291]tor malware
According to [292]ITProPortal:
Authorities are advising all users of the Tor network to check their
computers for malware after it emerged that a Russian hacker has been
using the network to spread a powerful virus. The malware is spread by a
compromised node in the Tor network.
...It has emerged that one of these exit nodes had been modified to
alter any program downloaded over the network. This allowed the attacker
to put his own executable code in such programs, and potentially take
control of victims' computers.
Due to the altered node, any Windows executable downloaded over the
network was wrapped in malware, and worryingly even files downloaded
over Windows Update were affected.
Use at your own risk.
[293]tor network not safe[294]tor network not safe
See also:
[295]OnionDuke APT Malware Distributed Via Malicious Tor Exit Node
6. No warrant necessary to spy on Tor users
Another interesting case highlighting the flaws of Tor comes form 2016
when the FBI was able to infiltrate Tor to bust another pedophile group.
[296]tor hacked[297]tor hacked
According to [298]Tech Times:
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can still spy on users
who use the Tor browser to remain anonymous on the web.
Senior U.S. District Court Judge Henry Coke Morgan, Jr. has ruled that
the FBI does not need a warrant to hack into a U.S. citizen's computer
system. The ruling by the district judge relates to FBI sting called
Operation Pacifier, which targeted a child pornography site called
PlayPen on the Dark web.
The accused used Tor to access these websites. The federal agency, with
the help of hacking tools on computers in Greece, Denmark, Chile and the
U.S., was able to catch 1,500 pedophiles during the operation.
While it's great to see these types of criminals getting shut down, this
case also highlights the severe vulnerabilities of Tor as a privacy tool
that can be trusted by journalists, political dissidents, whistleblowers,
etc.
The judge in this case [299]officially ruled that Tor users lack "a
reasonable expectation of privacy" in hiding their IP address and
identity. This essentially opens the door to any US government agency
being able to spy on Tor users without obtaining a warrant or going
through any legal channels.
This, of course, is a serious concern when you consider that journalists,
activists, and whistleblowers are encouraged to use Tor to hide from
government agencies and mass surveillance.
Now let's put this all into context by looking at the history of Tor and
it's funding.
7. Tor was created by the US government (and not for your "right to privacy")
If you think Tor was created for "privacy rights" or some other
noble-sounding cause, then you would be mistaken. The quote below, from
the co-founder of Tor, speaks volumes.
I forgot to mention earlier, probably something that will make you look
at me in a new light. I contract for the United States Government to
build anonymity technology for them and deploy it. They don’t think of
it as anonymity technology, though we use that term. They think of it as
security technology. They need these technologies so that they can
research people they're interested in, so that they can have anonymous
tip lines, so that they can buy things from people without other
countries figuring out what they are buying, how much they are buying
and where it is going, that sort of thing.
— Roger Dingledine, co-founder of Tor, [300]2004 speech
This quote alone should convince any rational person to never use the Tor
network, unless of course you want to be rubbing shoulders with government
spooks on the Dark Web.
The history of Tor goes back to the 1990s when the Office of Naval
Research and DARPA were working to create an online anonymity network in
Washington, DC. This network was called "onion routing" and bounced
traffic across different nodes before exiting to the final destination.
In 2002, the Alpha version of Tor was developed and released by Paul
Syverson (Office of Naval Research), as well as [301]Roger Dingledine and
Nick Mathewson, who were both on contract with DARPA. This three-person
team, working for the US government, developed Tor into what it is today.
The quote above was taken from a [302]2004 speech by Roger Dingledine,
which you can also [303]listen to here.
After Tor was developed and released for public use, it was eventually
spun off as its own non-profit organization, with [304]guidance coming
from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):
At the very end of 2004, with Tor technology finally ready for
deployment, the US Navy [305]cut most of its Tor funding, released it
under an open source license and, oddly, the project was [306]handed
over to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) remains one of the biggest
promoters of Tor today, which is not surprising given EFF's deep ties to
the project.
8. Tor is funded by the US government
It's no secret that Tor is funded by various US government agencies.
The key question is whether US government funding negatively affects Tor's
independence and trustworthiness as a privacy tool.
Some journalists have closely [307]examined the financial relationship
between Tor and the US government:
Tor had always maintained that it was funded by a “variety of
sources” and was not beholden to any one interest group. But I
crunched the numbers and found that the exact opposite was true: In any
given year, Tor drew between 90 to 100 percent of its budget via
contracts and grants coming from three military-intel branches of the
federal government: the Pentagon, the State Department and an old school
CIA spinoff organization called the BBG.
Put simply: the financial data showed that Tor wasn’t the
indie-grassroots anti-state org that it claimed to be. It was a military
contractor. It even had its own official military contractor reference
number from the government.
Here are some of the different government funding sources for the Tor
Project over the years:
Broadcasting Board of Governors:
"Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) [now called [308]U.S. Agency for
Global Media], a federal agency that was spun off from the CIA and today
oversees America’s foreign broadcasting operations, funded Tor to the
tune of $6.1 million in the years from 2007 through 2015." ([309]source)
State Department:
"The [310]State Department funded Tor to the tune of $3.3 million, mostly
through its regime change arm — State Dept's "Democracy, Human
Rights and Labor" division." ([311]source)
The Pentagon:
"From 2011 through 2013, the Pentagon funded Tor to the tune of $2.2
million, through a U.S. Department of Defense / Navy contract — passed
through a defense contractor called SRI International." ([312]source)
The grant is [313]called: “Basic and Applied Research and Development in
Areas Relating to the Navy Command, Control, Communications, Computers,
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.”
We can also see what the Tor project has to say about the matter.
When soliciting funds in 2005, Tor claimed that donors would be able to
[314]"influence" the direction of the project:
We are now actively looking for new contracts and funding. Sponsors of
Tor get personal attention, better support, publicity (if they want it),
and get to influence the direction of our research and development!
There you have it. Tor claims donors influence the direction of research
and development - a fact that the Tor team even admits.
Do you really think the US government would invest millions of dollars
into a tool that stifled its power?
9. When you use Tor, you help the US government do spooky stuff
The United States government can’t simply run an anonymity system for
everybody and then use it themselves only. Because then every time a
connection came from it people would say, “Oh, it’s another CIA
agent looking at my website,” if those are the only people using the
network. So you need to have other people using the network so they
blend together.
—Roger Dingledine, co-founder of the Tor Network, [315]2004 speech
The implications of this statement are quite serious.
When you use Tor, you are literally helping the US government. Your
traffic helps to conceal CIA agents who are also using Tor, as Dingledine
and journalists are pointing out.
Tor is fundamentally a [316]tool for the US government, and it remains so
today:
Tor’s original — and current — purpose is to cloak the online
identity of government agents and informants while they are in the
field: gathering intelligence, setting up sting operations, giving human
intelligence assets a way to report back to their handlers — that kind
of thing. This information is out there, but it's not very well known,
and it's certainly not emphasized by those who promote it.
You will never hear Tor promoters discuss how important it is for the US
government to get others on the the Tor network. This remains a taboo
topic that Tor advocates simply avoid.
The Tor Project's [317]website also discusses how Tor is actively used by
government agencies for different purposes:
A branch of the U.S. Navy uses Tor for open source intelligence
gathering, and one of its teams used Tor while deployed in the Middle
East recently. Law enforcement uses Tor for visiting or surveilling web
sites without leaving government IP addresses in their web logs, and for
security during sting operations.
Michael Reed, another early developer of Tor, explained how it has always
been a [318]tool for US government military and intelligence operations:
The original *QUESTION* posed that led to the invention of Onion Routing
was, "Can we build a system that allows for bi-directional
communications over the Internet where the source and destination cannot
be determined by a mid-point?" The *PURPOSE* was for DoD / Intelligence
usage (open source intelligence gathering, covering of forward deployed
assets, whatever). Not helping dissidents in repressive countries. Not
assisting criminals in covering their electronic tracks. Not helping
bit-torrent users avoid MPAA/RIAA prosecution. Not giving a 10 year old
a way to bypass an anti-porn filter. Of course, we knew those would be
other unavoidable uses for the technology, but that was immaterial to
the problem at hand we were trying to solve (and if those uses were
going to give us more cover traffic to better hide what we wanted to use
the network for, all the better...I once told a flag officer that much
to his chagrin).
Here's another early Tor developer who spilled the beans. Tor was never
meant for "dissidents in repressive countries" or helping various privacy
activists fighting for human rights, which is how Tor is promoted today.
Just as Roger Dingledine asserted in the opening quote to this section,
Paul Syverson (Tor co-founder) also emphasized the importance of getting
other people to use Tor, thereby helping government agents perform their
work and [319]not stand out as the only Tor users:
If you have a system that’s only a Navy system, anything popping out
of it is obviously from the Navy. You need to have a network that
carries traffic for other people as well.
Tor is branded by many different individuals and groups as a grassroots
project to protect people from government surveillance. In reality,
however, it is a tool for government agents who are literally using it for
military and intelligence operations (including spying on those who think
they are "anonymous" on Tor).
Tor's utility for the military-surveillance apparatus is [320]explained
well in the following quote:
Tor was created not to protect the public from government surveillance,
but rather, to cloak the online identity of intelligence agents as they
snooped on areas of interest. But in order to do that, Tor had to be
released to the public and used by as diverse a group of people as
possible: activists, dissidents, journalists, paranoiacs, kiddie porn
scum, criminals and even would-be terrorists — the bigger and weirder
the crowd, the easier it would be for agents to mix in and hide in plain
sight.
According to these Tor developers and co-founders, when you use Tor you
are helping US government agents in doing whatever they do on the Tor
network. Why would anyone who advocates for privacy and human rights want
to do that?
10. IP address leaks when using Tor
Another recurring problem with Tor is IP address leaks - a serious issue
that will de-anonymize Tor users, even if the leak is brief.
In November 2017 a flaw was discovered that exposed the real IP address of
Tor users if they clicked on a local file-based address, such as file://.,
rather than http:// or https://.
[321]is tor safe[322]is tor safe
This issue illustrates a larger problem with Tor: it only encrypts traffic
through the Tor browser, thereby leaving all other (non-Tor browser)
traffic exposed.
Unlike a VPN that encrypts all traffic on your operating system, the Tor
network only works through a browser configured for Tor. (See the
`[323]what is a VPN` guide for an overview.)
This design leaves Tor users vulnerable to leaks which will expose their
identity in many different situations:
* Tor offers no protection when torrenting and will leak the user's IP
address with torrent clients.
* Tor may leak IP addresses when accessing files, such as PDFs or other
documents, which will likely bypass proxy settings.
* Windows users are [324]also vulnerable to different types of leaks
that will expose the user's real IP address.
[325]windows tor[326]windows tor
It's important to note, however, that oftentimes de-anonymization is due
to user error or misconfiguration. Therefore blame does not lie with Tor
itself, but rather with people not using Tor correctly.
Dan Eggerstad emphasized this issue as well when he [327]stated:
People think they're protected just because they use Tor. Not only do
they think it's encrypted, but they also think `no one can find me'. But
if you've configured your computer wrong, which probably more than 50
per cent of the people using Tor have, you can still find the person
(on) the other side.
Once again, non-technical users would be better off using a [328]good VPN
service that provides system-wide traffic encryption and an effective kill
switch to block all traffic if the VPN connection drops.
11. Using Tor can make you a target
As we saw above with the bomb threat hoax, Eldo Kim was targeted because
he was on the Tor network when the bomb threat was sent.
Other security experts also warn about Tor users being [329]targeted
merely for using Tor.
In addition, most really repressive places actually look for Tor and
target those people. VPNs are used to watch Netflix and Hulu, but Tor
has only one use case – to evade the authorities. There is no cover.
(This is assuming it is being used to evade even in a country incapable
of breaking Tor anonymity.)
In many ways Tor can be riskier than a VPN:
1. VPNs are (typically) not actively malicious
2. VPNs provide good cover that Tor simply cannot – “I was using it
to watch Hulu videos” is much better than – “I was just trying
to buy illegal drugs online”
As we've pointed out here before, VPNs are more widely used than Tor - and
for various (legitimate) reasons, such as streaming [330]Netflix with a
VPN.
So maybe you still need (or want?) to use Tor. How can you do so with more
safety?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to (more) safely use Tor
Given that Tor is compromised and bad actors can see the real IP address
of Tor users, it would be wise to take extra precautions. This includes
hiding your real IP address before accessing the Tor network.
To hide your IP address when accessing Tor, simply connect to a VPN
server (through a VPN client on your computer) and then access Tor as
normal (such as through the Tor browser). This will add a layer of
encryption between your computer and the Tor network, with the VPN
server's IP address replacing your real IP address.
Note: There are different ways to combine VPNs and Tor. I am only
recommending the following setup: You > VPN > Tor > Internet (also called
"Tor over VPN" or "Onion over VPN").
[331]Tor vs VPN[332]Tor vs VPN
With this setup, even if a malicious actor was running a Tor server and
logging all connecting IP addresses, your real IP address would remain
hidden behind the VPN server (assuming you are using a good VPN with no
leaks).
Here are the benefits of routing your traffic through a secure VPN before
the Tor network:
1. Your real IP address remains hidden from the Tor network (Tor cannot
see who you are)
2. Your internet provider (ISP) or network admin will not be able to see
you are using Tor (because your traffic is being encrypted through a
VPN server).
3. You won't stand out as much from other users because VPNs are more
popular than Tor.
4. You are distributing trust between Tor and a VPN. The VPN could see
your IP address and Tor could see your traffic (sites you visit), but
neither would have both your IP address and browsing activities.
For anyone distrustful of VPNs, there are a handful of [333]verified no
logs VPN services that have been proven to be truly "no logs".
You can sign up for a VPN with a [334]secure anonymous email account (not
connected to your identity). For the truly paranoid, you can also pay with
Bitcoin or any other anonymous payment method. Most VPNs do not require
any name for registration, only a valid email address for account
credentials. Using a VPN in a safe offshore jurisdiction (outside the
[335]14 Eyes) may also be good, depending on your threat model.
For those seeking the highest levels of anonymity, you can chain multiple
VPNs through Linux virtual machines (using Virtualbox, which is FOSS). You
could also use VPN1 on your router, VPN2 on your computer, and then access
the regular internet (or the Tor network) through two layers of encryption
via two separate VPN services. This allows you to distribute trust across
different VPN services and ensure neither VPN could have both your
incoming IP address and traffic. This is discussed more in my guide on
[336]multi-hop VPN services.
Note: The claim that "VPN is fully, 100%, a single point/entity that you
must trust" is false. This claim comes from [337]this Tor promoter who
coincidently [338]works for the US government's Naval Research Lab.
When you chain VPNs, you can distribute trust across different VPN
services and different jurisdictions around the world, all paid for
anonymously and not linked to your identity. With Tor alone, you put all
your trust in The Onion Router...
Tor Project agrees on the benefits of adding VPN
The Tor Project also agrees on the benefits of correctly using a VPN with
Tor, as I recommend above. Here are a few quotes from the Tor Project
about the [339]benefits of using a VPN before Tor ([340]archived):
1. "might prevent your ISP etc from seeing that you're using Tor"
2. Routing Tor through a VPN "can be a fine idea assuming your VPN
provider's network is in fact sufficiently safer than your own
network." [A verified no logs VPN is a lot safer than an internet
provider that has your name, date of birth, payment details, and is
collecting your data and [341]sharing it with surveillance agencies,
such as the case with [342]US internet providers.]
3. "Another advantage here is that it prevents Tor from seeing who you
are behind the VPN. So if somebody does manage to break Tor and learn
the IP address your traffic is coming from, ... then you'll be better
off."
While I generally agree with the points above, unfortunately, the Tor
Project also stated some incorrect information in the beginning of their
article as follows, "Most VPN/SSH provider log, there is a money trail, if
you can't pay really anonymously."
These points are incorrect.
* "Most VPN/SSH provider log" - This is simply not true. There are many
[343]no logs VPN services and also a small number of VPNs that are
verified to be no logs, having undergone third-party audits, server
seizures, or court subpoenas for user data.
* "there is a money trail" - This is a huge misconception that is
promoted by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. A
“money trail” has no bearing on the effectiveness or encryption of
a VPN. VPNs are not illegal and are becoming mainstream privacy tools.
If an adversary knows you have a subscription with a specific VPN
service, this has zero bearing on the effectiveness of your VPN. Even
if the adversary has your username and password, this still has no
bearing on the effectiveness or encryption of the VPN (it just means
your adversary can use the VPN for free). VPN encryption is dynamic
and negotiated new with each connection. And if you are worried about
“money trails” then pay anonymously.
* “can’t pay really anonymously” - This is again false, perhaps
blatant lying to scare people away from VPNs. Most VPNs offer
anonymous payment options, such as gift cards or Bitcoin, with no name
required. You only need a valid email, and you can easily setup an
anonymous/burner email for this purpose that’s not connected to your
identity. Done.
Note: While there have been various cases proving the FBI can easily
de-anonymize Tor users, there has never been any court cases (that I've
seen) proving the FBI (or any government agency) can de-anonymize VPN
users, assuming there's good encryption with no leaks. Instead, we have
seen a few isolated cases where the FBI pressured VPNs to log user data
and provide this to authorities to identify a specific user, such as with
the [344]IPVanish logging case in the US.
Tor vulnerabilities and VPNs
There are other attacks that the Tor Project [345]admits will de-anonymize
Tor users ([346]archived):
As mentioned above, it is possible for an observer who can view both you
and either the destination website or your Tor exit node to correlate
timings of your traffic as it enters the Tor network and also as it
exits. Tor does not defend against such a threat model.
Once again, a VPN can help to mitigate the risk of de-anonymization by
hiding your source IP address before accessing the guard node in the Tor
circuit.
Can exit nodes [347]eavesdrop on communications? From the Tor Project:
Yes, the guy running the exit node can read the bytes that come in and
out there. Tor anonymizes the origin of your traffic, and it makes sure
to encrypt everything inside the Tor network, but it does not magically
encrypt all traffic throughout the Internet.
However, a VPN can not do anything about a bad Tor exit node eavesdropping
on your traffic, although it will help hide who you are (but your traffic
can also give you away).
I discuss these points more in my [348]VPN vs Tor comparison.
Conclusion on Tor
No privacy tool is above criticism.
Just like with Tor, I have also pointed out numerous problems with VPNs,
including VPNs that were caught [349]lying about logs, VPN [350]scams, and
dangerous [351]free VPN services. All privacy tools come with pros and
cons. Selecting the best tool for the job all boils down to your threat
model and unique needs.
Unfortunately, for many in the privacy community, Tor is now considered to
be an infallible tool for blanket anonymity, and to question this dogma
means you are "spreading FUD". This is pathetic.
In closing, for regular users seeking more security and online anonymity,
I'd simply avoid Tor altogether. A VPN will offer system-wide encryption,
much faster speeds, and user-friendly clients for various devices and
operating systems. This will also prevent your ISP from seeing what you're
up to online.
Additionally, VPNs are more mainstream and there are many legitimate (and
legal!) reasons for using them. Compared to Tor, you definitely won't
stand out as much with a VPN.
For those who still want to access the Tor network, doing so through a
reliable VPN service will add an extra layer of protection while hiding
your real IP address.
Further Reading:
[352]Tor and its Discontents: Problems with Tor Usage as Panacea
[353]Users Get Routed: Traffic Correlation on Tor by Realistic Adversaries
[354]Tor network exit nodes found to be sniffing passing traffic
[355]On the Effectiveness of Traffic Analysis Against Anonymity Networks
Using Flow Records
[356]Judge confirms what many suspected: Feds hired CMU to break Tor
About Sven Taylor
Sven Taylor is the founder of RestorePrivacy. With a passion for digital
privacy and online freedom, he created this website to provide you with
honest, useful, and up-to-date information about online privacy, security,
and related topics. His focus is on privacy research, writing guides,
testing privacy tools, and website admin.
Reader Interactions
Comments
1. Alvaro
[357]January 18, 2022
I've always been critical of Tor since its inception. The ability to
access Onion sites sounds cool and all but most of those links are
dead, Tor is selfdom rarely used by free speech activists to access
legitimate websites. Nor is it practical since most sites are
protected by Cloudflare and require Javascript to load sites up. On
top of that its slow, and as Sven mentioned, you can be monitored or
compromised by bad actors at any given moment since you don't know
whose operating the Tor servers.
Tor simply can't compete with VPNS at the moment. It might be a
slightly better option than using free VPNS but that's not saying
much. Paid VPN providers with the right audits done on them is simply
the way to go. They might not be a 100% bulletproof requiring privacy,
and speed but HTTPS already has you takened care of since your
VPN/Internet Service Provider cannot see your individual activities
beyond the Home URL you are in.
Solid article by Sven Taylor. Hope more see it to wake themselves up
from the lies promoted by the Tor team.
[358]Reply
2. Patriot
[359]January 11, 2022
My Timeline: (I'll be shocked if this is not instantly deleted or even
makes it here)
- I met once a year with several others I networked around the world
with to basically prove each other wrong and ultimately learned from
each other. Most were from Europe, with several Oxford grads who wrote
compilers for Borland, two from the US and one from Australia.
- Two years before 9/11, a businessman and friend who we all knew
wanted us guys to work for a new startup to collect data about
companies that they would then sell. The businessman said to me, "It
is a great opportunity and it will make you a rich man in a few
years." The guy in charge at the new company had architected what the
Police use. When interviewed, they led me around and showed me a large
data center in the building and I noticed the provider was Southern
Bell. I asked and they said they use so much bandwidth the phone
company decided to just move the central office of the area there.
That didn't make sense to me. They made a peculiar comment that they
liked it that I was a military pilot and they liked pilots, which also
made no sense. I saw three guys dumping traffic and asked what they
were doing. The answer was, "Defending against hackers trying to get
at our information.". What also didn't make sense is what they said I
would be doing was too simple to hire someone like me for. It would be
like watching paint dry for me. One of the guys they had already hired
said, "I'm looking forward to working with you. Isn't this amazing for
only 4 months old?" Exactly what I was thinking. While the guy
courting me was very wealthy, he was not this wealthy. This didn't
make sense. For $60 I could buy CD's from Microsoft with a lot of
business information and there is Dunn&Bradstreet. I had a great job
as CIO of a Tier-1 Automotive supplier, paid well, great family area,
could do what I wanted, set my own hours, and I had weekends off
except during major upgrades of my own doing. I refused. Some time
later, I started receiving peculiar phone calls from attorneys asking
me vague questions and insisting I knew a lot more than I did. I
relayed that to the guy who wanted me to work with them and I never
heard from him again.
- A few years after 9/11 I'm in a conversation with a guy I knew who
had worked directly for the guy who was on the board that courted me.
He had closer ties personally with the guys but was not one of us. I
mentioned the reason I refused was things didn't make sense and also
the peculiar calls from attorneys. At that point he told me it was a
front company for the government to monitor people's conversations.
This was 2+ years before the Patriot Act. I also learned that they
perform drone strikes from down there, which might be why the strange
comment about me having been a military pilot. The story from him was
the peculiar calls were because the guy in charge turned out to be a
crook. Of the guys hired, the guy from Australia and the girl from
Germany found out their goals were the same and both left. They got
married and still got to stay in the US and are now citizens. As I
recall from the last conversation, baby #11 was on the way, and they
were homeschooling. They both work as contractors for the guy telling
me all of this stuff. The remainder immediately ended up at
LexisNexis, which is noteworthy, because if you need an accident
report, this is where the police send you, and is the brain child of
the guy I would have been working for. I know the character of the one
who left with the girl from Germany and another in the group who was
also a pastor, which might make sense of the move to LexisNexis. They
were there for a long time but no longer there and seem to be bought
and sold as a group in which they are each shareholders, of which I'm
guessing the businessman is among them. The place that wanted to hire
me has since morphed into an organization for healthcare support,
which fits perfectly with what had been the businessman's main money
maker.
- As you might imagine, the Snowden saga is a different read for me.
On the one hand I understand the government's interest to protect its
citizens. On the other hand, when Snowden was hired, he would have had
to have been sworn to secrecy before knowing the scope of what it
entailed. The verdict of what he did afterward can swap in your mind
daily. If you read the official story of the Julian Assange case, and
what they claim to be his maladies, it doesn't add up. Both could
release extremely damaging information to national security but AFAIK
neither has yet.
- Days ago I decided to test my VPN that had been recently purchased
by Kape Technlogies like my last one was. I picked a far away country
and determined it was actually exiting a server in New York. I
published several places on YouTube how to duplicate what I had done
and it is deleted immediately.
- Today, I hate technology and am getting out of it and will plead
ignorance. I wished I'd never gotten into it. My concern is not that
they are collecting everything, it is you cannot trust those entrusted
to safeguard us and work for the good of its citizens. Some examples
are the IRS targeting certain groups by not only denying their rights,
they gave their customer lists to their competition who are their
supporters, and then pled the 5th. Then there was the Trump
investigation fiasco where we saw attempted entrapment and obtaining
telephone records with no warrant of any kind, which were never
presented, so apparently worked against the narrative. Assange's
comments at his hearing are worth noting, "I don't understand how this
is equitable. This superpower had 10 years to prepare for this case
and I can't access my writings. It's very difficult where I am to do
anything but these people have unlimited resources. They are saying
journalists and whistleblowers are enemies of the people. They have
unfair advantages dealing with documents. They know the interior of my
life with my psychologist. They steal my children's DNA. (which was
proven) This is not equitable what is happening here." Others have
plea bargained under these circumstances even when innocent because
there was no prospect that justice would prevail.
[360]Reply
3. Per
[361]January 11, 2022
I'm a bit confused. If people can so easily be identified when using
Tor, why would any goverment agent use it? It's not like other
goverments wont know of US' usage of Tor for agency purposes and would
of course put resources into unmasking them, finding security holes
etc. Wouldn't this place them at the same risk as anyone else using
Tor?
[362]Reply
4. Publius
[363]December 27, 2021
Thank you for writing this, Sven! Eye opening for me. So, is there ANY
benefit at all to using TOR over VPN? As opposed to just using (for
example) SurfShark MultiHop with the Brave browser? Seems Tor over VPN
doesn't offer any benefit for anonymity, security or privacy. In fact,
if VPN can't help with malicious TOR exit nodes, then you're worse off
with TOR over VPN? As opposed to just VPN with MultiHop and a browser
like Brave?
Thanks so much for this work!
[364]Reply
* Sven Taylor
[365]December 28, 2021
"VPN with MultiHop and a browser like Brave"
Yep, I would concur that is the best solution and it is what I
also use. And of course, if you need to use the Tor network for
some reason, such as reading ransomware blogs, then you can
easily open a "New private window with Tor" in the Brave browser,
with your VPN running in the background.
[366]Reply
* Publius
[367]December 28, 2021
Awesome, thanks!!