An unknown threat actor managed to control more than 27% of the entire Tor network exit capacity in early February 2021, a new study on the dark web infrastructure revealed.

"The entity attacking Tor users is actively exploiting tor users since over a year and expanded the scale of their attacks to a new record level," an independent security researcher who goes by the name nusenu said in a write-up published on Sunday. "The average exit fraction this entity controlled was above 14% throughout the past 12 months."

It's the latest in a series of efforts undertaken to bring to light malicious Tor activity perpetrated by the actor since December 2019. The attacks, which are said to have begun in January 2020, were first documented and exposed by the same researcher in August 2020.

Tor is open-source software for enabling anonymous communication on the Internet. It obfuscates the source and destination of a web request by directing network traffic through a series of relays in order to mask a user's IP address and location and usage from surveillance or traffic analysis. While middle relays typically take care of receiving traffic on the network and passing it along, an exit relay is the final node that Tor traffic passes through before it reaches its destination.

Exit nodes on the Tor network have been subverted in the past to inject malware such as OnionDuke, but this is the first time a single unidentified actor has managed to control such a large fraction of Tor exit nodes.

The hacking entity maintained 380 malicious Tor exit relays at its peak in August 2020, before the Tor directory authorities intervened to cull the nodes from the network, following which the activity once again crested early this year, with the attacker attempting to add over 1,000 exit relays in the first week of May. All the malicious Tor exit relays detected during the second wave of the attacks have since been removed.

The main purpose of the attack, according to nusenu, is to carry out "person-in-the-middle" attacks on Tor users by manipulating traffic as it flows through its network of exit relays. Specifically, the attacker appears to perform what's called SSL stripping to downgrade traffic heading to Bitcoin mixer services from HTTPS to HTTP in an attempt to replace bitcoin addresses and redirect transactions to their wallets instead of the user-provided bitcoin address.

"If a user visited the HTTP version (i.e. the unencrypted, unauthenticated version) of one of these sites, they would prevent the site from redirecting the user to the HTTPS version (i.e. the encrypted, authenticated version) of the site," the maintainers of Tor Project explained last August. "If the user didn't notice that they hadn't ended up on the HTTPS version of the site (no lock icon in the browser) and proceeded to send or receive sensitive information, this information could be intercepted by the attacker."

To mitigate such attacks, the Tor Project outlined a number of recommendations, including urging website administrators to enable HTTPS by default and deploy .onion sites to avoid exit nodes, adding it's working on a "comprehensive fix" to disable plain HTTP in Tor Browser.

"The risk of being the target of malicious activity routed through Tor is unique to each organization," the U.S. Cybersecurity Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in an advisory in July 2020. "An organization should determine its individual risk by assessing the likelihood that a threat actor will target its systems or data and the probability of the threat actor's success given current mitigations and controls."

"Organizations should evaluate their mitigation decisions against threats to their organization from advanced persistent threats (APTs), moderately sophisticated attackers, and low-skilled individual hackers, all of whom have leveraged Tor to carry out reconnaissance and attacks in the past," the agency added.

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Over 25% Of Tor Exit Relays Spied On Users' Dark Web Activities - The Hacker News

A teenage paedophile tried to "cover his tracks" after downloading child rape photos at his parents' home.

Jordan Mitchell, then 19, used specialist computer software in an attempt to keep his sick obsession a secret.

He also deleted the disturbing pictures of toddlers and infants being sexually abused after he had viewed them.

But he failed to hide his identity completely and when police raided his home they found 427 indecent images.

Liverpool Crown Court heard police received intelligence that an IP address traced to Mitchell's home was being used to download indecent images.

Derek Jones, prosecuting, said as a result officers raided Mitchell's family's address in Darmonds Green Avenue, Anfield on June 24 last year.

Mr Jones said: "He was in with his parents and the defendant indicated to the police that he knew why they were there."

Officers seized an iPhone and a desktop computer from his bedroom, with the majority of the illegal files being recovered from his mobile.

Mr Jones said: "The defendant was using what he now confirms in his interview was Tor browser to cover his tracks - a VPN.

"He was clearly accessing indecent images on websites, looking at the images and deleting them."

Tor browser software provides access to the 'Dark Web' and can also be used to hide online or other computer activity.

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Mr Jones said no record of online searches he had made were present on the devices.

However, he said it could be seen that the then teenager had visited websites with names referring to "Lolita" and "jail bait".

He had 36 Category A - the most serious category showing child rape - 140 Category B and 251 Category C indecent images of children.

Mr Jones said the photos showed children "some as young as between two and four, five to six, six to seven".

The prosecutor said: "He was interviewed by the police and full admissions were made by him to downloading the images.

"He accepted that he used Tor browser to try and cover his tracks when he was looking at these websites."

Mr Jones said sentencing guidelines suggested a starting point of 12 months' custody, with a sentencing range of 26 weeks to three years in custody, for the Category A files.

Mitchell, now 20, who has no previous convictions, admitted four counts of possessing indecent images of children.

Jeremy Hawthorn, defending, said his client entered his guilty plea at the earliest opportunity before magistrates.

Liverpool's courts are some of the busiest in the UK, with a huge variety of cases being heard each week.

To get a behind the scenes look at how they work and the moments that don't make our stories, subscribe to our free weekly Echo Court Files newsletter, written by court reporters Neil Docking and Lauren Wise.

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He said Mitchell had "cooperated at all stages", from assisting police when he was arrested to attending a voluntary interview and court when summoned, then taking part in a probation interview by phone, which he said was "potentially the most difficult because you're talking to someone you don't know about something very embarrassing".

Mr Hawthorn said Mitchell had "limited work history" but hoped to become a car mechanic after two years' studying at college in Bootle.

The lawyer added: "He's also a reasonably experienced but self-taught guitar player."

Mr Hawthorn said a pre-sentence report "expressed reservations" about some of Mitchell's attitudes.

He said: "The court will hope whatever attitude problems Mr Mitchell has are ones that are capable of being challenged and rehabilitated."

Mr Hawthorn said the Probation Service recommended Mitchell take part in a Horizon sex offenders treatment programme and added that Mitchell had already "taken steps to use the internet a little bit less compulsively and to make himself more useful around the house, which his mother is doing up".

Judge Anil Murray said the young age of the children pictured was an aggravating feature of the case but in mitigation Mitchell was of previous good character, made admissions, tried to change his lifestyle and hadn't offended since.

He said: "The pre-sentence report says you're remorseful and you show victim empathy. It's thought you're a medium risk of committing further sexual offences but you're unlikely to cause serious sexual harm."

The judge said as he was considered to be "a prospect for rehabilitation" and had no history of failing to comply with court orders, he could suspend his eight-month prison sentence for two years.

He ordered Mitchell to carry out the Horizon programme and a 60-day Rehabilitation Activity Requirement.

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Mitchell must also sign on the Sex Offenders Register and comply with a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years.

Judge Murray reserved any breaches of the orders to himself and said if he saw Mitchell again, he would likely send him to jail.

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Paedophile teenager tried to 'cover his tracks' but failed - Liverpool Echo

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As OK! reported, Josh was arrested on Thursday, April 29, and was detained without bail. During his arraignment hearing one day later, his attorney pleaded not guilty to two federal charges of receipt and possession of child pornography. He was released on Thursday, May 6, and is awaiting his July 6 trial. His pretrial is set for July 1.

On Saturday, May 8, Joy-Anna took to her Instagram Story, on behalf of her and Austin, to issue a statement regarding the troubling charges brought against her brother. While keeping their message vague, the couple said they are trying to process the recent controversy and condemned any form of child abuse.

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Source: Joy Forsyth/Instagram; Washington County Sheriff/MEGA

"The recent accusations brought against Josh sadden us to our core," their statement read. "We have not wanted to be hasty in making any statements while trying to process the news ourselves. We are especially heartbroken by the reality that there are children in the world being harmed and exploited."

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"We ask for prayer for all those involved," Joy-Anna and Austin concluded, "and it is our continued prayer that the truth comes to light."

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Josh was released from Washington County Detention Center in Fayetteville, Ark., last week after his virtual detention hearing on Wednesday, May 5. At the time, Judge Christy Comstock granted his bail but refused to allow him to return in his family home, where his six minor children live. In the meantime, Josh's family friends, pastor LaCount Reber and Maria Reber, agreed to house him until his trial next month.

The 19 Kids and Counting star also cannot be around other children and will be monitored by a GPS. However, Josh will be allowed to visit his children as long as his wife, Anna who is pregnant with the couple's seventh child is present.

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As OK! reported, Anna announced the couple's seventh bun in the oven days before Josh was arrested in connection to a May 2019 Homeland Security raid on his Arkansas car dealership as part of an "ongoing federal investigation."

During his detention hearing last week, Homeland Security Investigations special agent Gerald Faulkner alleged that Josh downloaded files depicting child sex abuse on May 14, 15 and 16 of 2019, which were allegedly flagged and traced back to his IP address on a computer from his car dealership.

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During the raid and before Josh knew what the agents were investigating he allegedly asked: "What is this about? Has someone been downloading child pornography?" When asked about the content of children reportedly ages 5-10 allegedly found during the federal investigation, Josh responded: "I'd rather not answer that question," Faulkner claimed.

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The investigators also uncovered a program, Covenant Eyes, that was installed onto his computer, which would alert his wife when objectionable content was being searched for. However, the site was apparently unable to detect Josh's internet usage after he installed a password-protected network on his computer, the agent said during the virtual hearing.

Josh reportedly admitted that he had a TOR browser on his computer, allowing him to access the dark web (which is used for child pornography, Faulkner explained). There was reportedly no evidence that it was him who downloaded the browser.

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The 33-year-old faces up to 20 years behind bars and $250,000 in fines on each count if convicted.

Josh was previously under fire in 2015 when a 2006 police report was released, revealing he had been investigated as a teen for molesting five underage girls. His sistersJill, 29, andJessa, 28, reportedlystepped forward as two of the victims.

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Joy-Anna Duggar & Husband Austin Forsyth Break Silence On Brother Josh Duggar's Child Pornography Arrest: The Accusations 'Sadden Us To Our Core'...

You are being watched.

Everything you do online is being captured, stored and analysed in order to determine your personality, preferences, and predict your behaviour.

In this special 3-part Information Age series, we look at the ways your online activity is being tracked and some of the steps you can take to control your personal data.

Part I: Browsers, trackers, and cookies

The first step in taking back control of your data is learning more about who is looking at what and when.

Lets start with cookies.

These small packets of data are stored locally on your device and get passed between web applications for all sorts of good reasons like authentication.

Remember Netscape? It patented the cookie in 1995 as a method and apparatus for transferring state information between a server computer system and a client computer system after employee Lou Montulii invented the process.

Cookies were an important solution to early web problems such as the ability to make shopping carts that keep a persistent list of chosen items during a browsing session and remain an integral part of internet use to this day.

Cookies created by the website you are actually visiting are known as first party cookies.

These are useful for things like keeping you logged in, remembering your site preferences, and shopping.

The problem with cookies comes when third parties like advertisers use them to gather data on people without their express knowledge or consent.

Digital advertisers have long used cookies to make ads on websites relevant to you. Cookies are the reason you get haunted by shoe ads in the week after shopping around for a new pair of Nikes.

Suppose your favourite online store is ReallyCheapThings.com.au. When you landed on the site in search of bargain Nikes, not only did ReallyCheapThings.com.au create cookies on your computer, but so did its advertising partners.

These third-party cookies get passed around and analysed so that when you visit another site such as a blog or news website its advertising partners cross-reference your cookies and bombard you with ads for shoes.

Clearing cookies

Because cookies are stored locally, you can see this in action.

First clear your browser cookies but beware! This will log you out of most sites.

On Google Chrome, these settings can be found at this link or by clicking the three vertical dots in the browsers top right corner, navigating down to Settings, and selecting Privacy and Security.

After you have cleared your cookies, make sure Allow all cookies is enabled.

Heres what an empty cookies folder looks like in Chrome:

And heres what that cookies folder looks like after 10 minutes of day-to-day browsing with third party cookies enabled:

Thankfully you now have more options for controlling who uses your cookies.

Google Chrome has an option to disable third-party cookies in the Privacy and Security section of browser settings, as does Microsoft Edge.

In fact, Google is planning to phase out third-party cookies in favour of its Privacy Sandbox a system that logs browser activity and lumps users into large groups for advertising, rather targeting individual interests.

Regulators are already looking into whether the tech giants proposals will inherently favour its own ads services over other companies.

Fingerprinters and trackers

Third party cookies are only part of the way your everyday internet browsing is used to monitor you and sell advertisements.

Many web pages incorporate other forms of tracking and fingerprinting technologies designed to identify users based unique features such as their device, location, and software configuration.

By combining different metrics, services can follow you around the internet without needing cookies.

Tools like the browser extension uBlock Origin block trackers disabling the code of known tracking processes from web pages before they load.

An open source extension, uBlock Origin leverages community-updated public lists of web processes that it filters out and makes your browsing a little more private.

To help its users understand and debug the extension, uBlock Origin features a unified logger you can use to better see behind what founder Raymond Hill calls the privacy-invading apparatus that enters your web browser on most sites.

View the uBlock Origin logger by opening the uBlock Origin extension and clicking the small window above the version number.

With this window open you can see things like the Google Analytics scripts sitting behind the Information Age front page that we use in order to know things like how many people visit individual stories each week.

Click on an article and you will see uBlock Origin filter trackers that are part of other features on Information Age like social media sharing buttons and comment moderation service Disqus which those platforms use to track their users across the web.

Head to a monetised news site like News.com.au or The Guardian and uBlock Origins logger will show you various scripts and beacons used to track their readers and deliver advertising campaigns.

While not expressly designed as an ad-blocker, uBlock Origin does also tend to remove ads as an added bonus.

Privacy browsers

Since uBlock Origin is maintained by one person who refuses to receive donations, theres no way of knowing how long it will remain as a useful blocking tool.

Thankfully, there are all-in-one privacy-focused browsers that disable known trackers and third-party cookies by default.

Mozilla Firefox is arguably the most well-established privacy browser.

Owned and operated by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, Firefox is designed as a simple way to let people access the internet without having their data mined.

Another slightly more complex privacy-focused browser is the Tor Browser which is also run by a non-profit, the Tor Project.

Like Firefox, Tor keeps third-party cookies away and blocks common tracking processes but it also aims to limit fingerprinting by making all Tor users appear exactly the same, regardless of location, hardware, or software configuration.

It also natively supports the Tor network that uses different relays to hide obfuscate traffic. More on that next week.

Finally theres Brave a browser that cookies, ad tracking, can run on the Tor network, and also features an alternative economic model for the internet.

Brave blocks native advertisements and lets users opt-in to receive advertisements in the form of occasional pop-ups.

As a reward for viewing ads, users receive Brave Attention Tokens which they can pay forward to participating content producers, trade into crypto or fiat currencies, or hold in their wallets.

In Part II: Metadata, VPNs and Tor.

The rest is here:

Browsers, trackers, and cookies - ACS

Your application for unemployment benefits has been approved, stated the letter from the Illinois unemployment bureau a few weeks back. That was perplexing, since I never applied and wasnt unemployed. So I immediately told my (part-time) employer and the state unemployment agency.

Turns out somebody had stolen my personal information again. [Insert grimace emoji here.]

I wasnt alone. Fraudulent jobless claims are a rampant scam across the country that accelerated during the COVID crisis as jobless benefits increased. More than a third of a million people in my state alone were also victims of the scam, including several people I knew. Although national tallies are still under way, the unemployment fraud is massive: California estimates more than $11 billion was stolen. All told, tens of millions of people couldve been scammed in this way.

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Since this was the third time Id been a victim of identity theft and fraud, I was steamed and wanted to know how thieves kept getting my information and conducted their grifting. If I knew where they got my information, maybe I could change some of my online behavior or take better precautions. I spent a lot of time on the phone giving my state unemployment agency my details. They were so swamped, it took them weeks to get back to me after I left a voicemail reporting the fraud.

I realized I would have to take matters into my own hands. This led to a month-long odyssey that included interviews with security experts and law enforcement officials and some frightening insights about the modern thieves market called the dark web. It was also a dispiriting trek as I was reminded how helpless we can be in the face of global technology that makes life easier for both the law abiding and the criminal.

I dont consider myself an easy mark, although Im certainly not an expert on cybersecurity. As a financial reporter and experienced identity theft victim, I take almost every precaution. My credit files with the three major credit reporting firms have been frozen for more than a year (triggered by an unrelated scam). I use a search engine that doesnt track or store queries. I regularly sweep my computer for viruses and I send all financial information via secure fax instead of vulnerable email. My spam filters are pretty diligent. I even leave my fax machine hooked up to my only landline to frustrate frequent robo-callers. I dont even open video links sent by friends. Still, like any online consumer, once I pass personal information to a third party, I cant bring it back.

This caution helps protect me from the efforts of cybercriminals to exploit the growing number of workers online by increasing their attacks through phishing (stealing information through email inquiries).

Unfortunately, we are not the only ones in possession of our key pieces of information, from our date of birth and Social Security numbers to banking and credit card numbers. Like most people who do nearly all of their work, shopping and communications on the web or through email, I know I compromise my privacy on a daily basis. Every time I do an online transaction, search or register on a Web site, some entity on the other end has my important personal information. Information is valuable currency these days; my data is used to market me more stuff every time I log on. In most cases, I had to trust that vendors cybersecurity systems were robust. I try to be careful, but I know I really have no control over my data once it leaves my keyboard and flows into cyberspace.

Data breaches, instances where digital information is stolen by outside actors, are at an all-time high. Last year, more than 737 million data files were ripped off, according to hacked.com, which described last years digital pilferage as a digital pandemic. With millions working remotely on their computers during the pandemic, the FBI recorded a 400% increase of cybercrime reports. The recent mega-hack of corporate and government systems, suspected to be conducted by Russian intelligence operatives, is a case in point.

Sometimes hackers want to mess up or shut down government or corporate systems or just want to see if they can break in. Its a challenge. Its their version of triathlons. But the vast majority of breaches are pure theft thats where the money is to quote bank robber Willie Sutton. The Verizon 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report, which analyzed more than 32,000 security incidents across the globe, found that 86% of the data breaches were for financial gain up from 71% in 2019. Government and corporate and other data-rich systems like health care databases are prime targets. Lately theyve been raiding school districts and municipal systems.

Thieves probably snagged the identifying details used to file my bogus unemployment claim from one such data breach. I know from sorry experience how they do it. But tracking down who stole the data and getting it back is not easy. It helps to know where your information was stolen from: Data breaches are usually made public, although there are tens of thousands of them. The range of systems being compromised is vast from Target to the giant credit file company Equifax. A West African fraud ring, for example, reportedly used data stolen in the Experian breach to steal more identities.

According to Edward Garb, a security researcher at Atlas VPN, a digital privacy company, finding out the company that breached your data is the easy part. Now, you need to explore the dark web to find a vendor who sells records from that data breach. This might or might not be possible.

My next step was clear: I had to scour the dark web to try and retrieve and remove my information. But this was almost impossible.

The dark web is a section of the Internet thats not accessible through conventional search engines. Its a subterranean level of the Internet, something akin to a series of unlabeled subbasements. You have to know exactly where youre going, although even then its not neatly indexed like the surface web. Sites on the darknet mostly have a .onion suffix, instead of .com, .net, or .org on the regular web.

You cant simply browse the darknet. Garb adds. You have to know what you are looking for. You must know the address of the website you want to access, or at least a place where you can find those addresses. To do so, people turn to Reddit or closed forums on the surface web. Probably the most famous place is Redditsdarknet subforum, with more than 146,000 users.

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Complicating matters, I learned that having a dark web address only gets you to the front door; you need to be invited to a dark web site, which is accessible by specialized software such as theTOR browser, also known as an onion router, which makes searchers anonymous as they explore deeper layers of the web.

Not surprisingly, TOR, originally designed to hide the identities of government agents, was developed by the same Pentagon agency that developed the Internet (DARPA).

If the government designed and built the Internet and its wayward cousin the dark web, why cant law enforcement agencies shut it down or at least grab a few major perpetrators? I put this question toJoe Koletar, a fraud expert and former Army intelligence officer. He also served for the FBI for 25 years.

FBI has a lot of horsepower devoted to the digital world, Koletar said. But [the dark web is] distributed like a virus. There are too many small players. Any attempt to attack it, changes it.

Koletar said that, like a lot of digital criminality, dark web data crooks are often paid inbitcoin, a digital currency. Bitcoin is a terrorist, blackmailer or crooks dream, Koletar adds. It cant be traced and isnt anchored in anything.

Further frustrating law enforcement efforts to crack down on dark web stolen-data marketplaces is that the darknet is a grouping of websites that are not run by one entity. Communication occurs in private messaging and most users use the TOR browser together with a virtual private network (VPN) service, which makes them completely untraceable, even to their Internet service provider or other third parties, Garb adds.

In short, it is hard to track down the criminals because the users IP address is hidden and changed, browsing data is encrypted, and they send and accept payments with bitcoins. The main idea of the darknet was obfuscating important information and identities, which it does extremely well, but cybercriminals found that it is a perfect place for them to trade illegal goods and services.

When I prepared to search for my stolen information on the dark web, I asked a close friend who manages cybersecurity for a large company where I could look for the identity robbers who used my name to apply for jobless benefits.

He made some helpful suggestions I should use TOR on a spare computer and set up a VPN to ensure privacy. He also warned me against the hunting expedition.

Be extra careful, because as a known author, once you publish you are a target, he advised.That made me rather squeamish since I didnt want to become bait for a cyberattack. I do nearly all of my work online and my articles and email are posted in countless locations. Even though I have two backup computers, they are on the same network. If I wasnt fully able to cloak my IP address the signature for my network I would be roadkill for any hacker. So I demurred on going any deeper with a dark web dive. I was way out of my league.

So much for my data search and rescue mission. Instead, I searchedhttps://haveibeenpwned.com/to see if my email had been pawned. The site, which provides imprecise information on data breaches where your informationmayhave been stolen, confirmed that my email address was lifted. Of the 17 data breaches identified, one stood out: It was a site hit by a massive hack in 2014 (Forbes.com). All told, though, there was little more to do, since my email couldve been in no less than 10 billion data files, the site noted. I also received notification from my browser security that some 200 passwords had been compromised on sites I visited.

My search left me feeling disappointed and exposed protecting my identity and identifying the criminals seemed an impossible task. I was also confused.

About a week receiving the unemployment letter from my state, a debit card with my first weeks benefits arrived in the mail (which I shredded). It seemed puzzling. If you would go to the trouble of stealing a benefit with a card loaded with money, wouldnt you send it to another address? But I was told its likely this set of thieves was just using me to probe the state computer system for weaknesses.

Once again, I was just a pawn in someone elses game.

View original post here:

I fought the dark web and the dark web won | News | albanyherald.com - The Albany Herald

Visiting the dark web isnt as difficult as you might think. But only relying on Tor to do that isnt smart. On its own, its just not very secure, which is why you pair it up with a VPN. But how do you know what are the best VPNs for the dark web?

Well, its simple well tell you all about them you in this article. Well also include a step-by-step guide showing you how to use the VPN to surf the dark web, and answer some FAQs.

Not all VPNs support Tor traffic or offer secure features. To save you time, we ran some tests and found the best five VPNs for the dark web:

Editor's Pick

Servers 3000+

Countries 94

Parallel Connections 5

Live Chat Yes

What we really like about ExpressVPN is that all its servers support Tor traffic. You wont see this mentioned in their marketing copy, but we confirmed it with their support reps.

Another reason we consider ExpressVPN the best VPN to access the dark web is because of its proprietary Lightway protocol. Its not really a big secret that VPNs can slow down your speeds, and that Tor is very slow too. So it helps to have a speedy protocol like Lightway on your side. Dont expect lighting-fast speeds when using Tor, but theyll still be better than what other VPNs offer. Plus, it takes you a fraction of a second to connect to a VPN server.

Other than that, ExpressVPN has top-notch security thanks to its powerful encryption, zero-log policy, and kill switch (called Network Lock) which protects you from traffic leaks. Whats more, ExpressVPNs servers are RAM-only, meaning any stored data is wiped with every reboot. Also, they dont write any data to the hard drive, meaning you get more privacy.

And if you ever have any questions or issues, ExpressVPNs support team is just a live chat message away (theyre available 24/7). Best of all you buy with zero risk since ExpressVPN has a no-questions asked 30-day refund policy.

Want to find out more about this provider? Check out the full ExpressVPN review.

Servers 5,500+

Countries 59

Parallel Connections 6

Live Chat Yes

All of NordVPNs servers support Tor traffic, but this provider has a special category of servers optimized just for Tor. Theyre called Tor over VPN servers. When you use them, you dont need to connect to a regular server and use Tor to browse .onion sites. Instead, you can do that directly in your browser (Opera, Chrome, or Firefox)!

Their iOS app also has a Dark Web Monitor. Its a feature that alerts users if their login credentials were exposed on the dark web.

The speeds are relatively smooth thanks to NordVPNs modified version of WireGuard (NordLynx). Also, your data should be 100% safe since this provider uses strong encryption, doesnt store any logs, has a kill switch, and uses diskless servers (RAM-only).

Whats more, NordVPN has a cool security feature called CyberSec. It works like an ad blocker, but it also blocks connections to malicious domains. We reached out to them, and they confirmed that CyberSec can also block malicious .onion sites.

And like ExpressVPN, you also get 24/7 live chat support (with really friendly reps) and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

To find out more about NordVPN, please read our review.

Servers 6,700+

Countries 90

Parallel Connections 7

Live Chat Yes

CyberGhost VPN supports Tor traffic on all its servers. But if you want to get top-notch privacy, you can use specific servers that are fully optimized to secure it: the NoSpy servers. Not only do they support Tor traffic, but theyre also under CyberGhost VPNs complete control. Only their staff has access to them. These servers are also based in Romania, a country with no laws that enforce data gathering.

Furthermore, the NoSpy servers are particularly fast thanks to extended bandwidth and a dedicated uplink.

Besides that, its worth mentioning that CyberGhost VPNs servers are RAM-only (much better privacy). Also, this provider has a kill switch, a feature that blocks ads and malicious domains, and reliable encryption. Oh, and they dont keep any logs either.

To wrap things up, we should also say that CyberGhost VPN has professional 24/7 live chat support, and a very generous 45-day money-back guarantee (only available for long-term subscriptions, though).

If youd like to read more about this provider, just follow this link.

Servers 475+

Countries 42

Parallel Connections 5

Rating 7.8/10

ProtonVPN is committed to being fully transparent, and it shows. Theyre one of the few providers to have open-sourced all their apps. So if you dont trust their privacy claims (zero logs), you can check them out for yourself.

ProtonVPN also has an interesting Tor integration. It works similar to NordVPNs Onion servers. You connect to a Tor VPN server, and you can use .onion sites on regular web browsers.

Other great features include strong privacy, Secure Core (protection against DDoS attacks), NetShield (DNS that protects you from ads and malware), a kill switch, FDE (full-disk encryption) and physical servers in a former Swiss army fallout shelter thats 1,000 meters (roughly 3,280 feet) underground.

Like other VPNs, ProtonVPN has a 30-day refund policy. Unfortunately, they dont offer live chat support.

If youd like to find out more about ProtonVPN, heres our hands-on review.

Servers 3200+

Countries 65

Parallel Connections

Live Chat Yes

All of Surfsharks servers support Tor traffic. Other than that, they offer more or less the same privacy features like all the other VPNs on this list: a kill switch, ad-blocking and protection from malicious domains (CleanWeb), reliable encryption, and a zero-log policy.

But what makes Surfshark stand out is their support for unlimited parallel connections. Most VPN providers offer only up to five or seven simultaneous connections. Surfshark says no thanks to that, and lets you use their service on as many devices as you want!

So, this is a great pick if you for some reason need to browse Tor sites with a VPN on tons of devices at the same time. Or if you want to save money by sharing the VPN subscription with your friends and family (without always having to wait for someone else to log out of the account before you can use it).

Support-wise, Surfsharks reps are available through live chat round-the-clock. This provider also has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Interested in finding out more about Surfshark? Check out our in-depth review then.

AstrillVPN has great and convenient Tor integration like NordVPN and ProtonVPN. Basically, as long as you use AstrillVPN, you can browse .onion sites in any browser you want. No need to install and use the Tor browser anymore!

AstrillVPN also has its own protocols: OpenWeb and Stealth VPN. This provider developed both of them with online censorship in mind (specifically how to bypass it). OpenWeb is particular interesting because its connectionless, so it takes little time to connect to a server.

AstrilVPN also has a kill switch, strong encryption, and doesnt keep any logs. So why isnt it on the main list with the other VPNs?

Well, despite its great Tor support, AstrillVPN has some noticeable drawbacks:

If youd like to take a closer look at AstrillVPN, please read our review.

We already have a lengthy article that discusses how to stay safe on the dark web. Besides making sure Tors privacy and security settings are enabled and using a VPN, heres what else you could do:

Here are some answers to the most common questions we saw people asking about Tor and using VPNs with it. If you have more questions, no problem just leave them in the comments, and well try to answer them ASAP.

You can, but you have to be careful which one you use. Definitely dont pick a random free VPN you find on the Google Play store. It could expose you to malware or log your traffic.

To find a reliable free VPN, please use our guide. Just keep in mind free VPNs come with limitations slower speeds, less servers, and bandwidth caps. Tor over VPN browsing will already be slow, so the slowdowns caused by free VPNs could be a problem.

This can be a bit tricky. The best thing you can do is ask on Reddit. Subreddits like r/TOR and r/onions are your best friends. Just post a question asking about .onion sites. Alternatively, google list of Tor sites or something like that, and you should find plenty of helpful resources.

For example, this guide tells you about different ways to find .onion domains. And this GitHub link has a very long list of Tor sites.

This method isnt as secure as using Tor over VPNs. If you connect to Tor and then to a VPN, youll mainly rely on Tor for security.

While Tor isnt a bad privacy tool, its not ideal either. Before your traffic reaches the VPN server, it passes through one last Tor server. If a malicious actor is running it (anyone can do that), they could expose your traffic to malware or just log it (it wont be encrypted when it leaves the Tor server).

Tor also had issues with leaked IPs in the past. And theres also the fact that the US government might have created Tor (it probably did since it funds it), and that the CIA uses it. Not great for your privacy, to be honest.

If you use Tor over VPN, youll be much safer. Even if Tor leaks your IP or some exit server eavesdrops on your traffic, that wont compromise your privacy since the VPN will hide your IP and encrypt your traffic.

No at least as far as we know. We havent heard of any countries outright making the dark web illegal.

However, what you do one the dark web can be illegal depending where you live. For example, its definitely illegal to buy illicit drugs and weapons over the dark web. Or take part in online forums that involve death threats, doxxing, and hate speech.

These two terms are often used interchangeably, but thats not very accurate. The dark net is not the deep web. Its just a part of it. Heres what we mean:

VPNs can slow down your speeds, but its usually not by a lot (provided your original speeds arent too slow). But the main issue is Tor its very slow. On average, we get around 2-4 Mbps.

Why?

Because there are way too few Tor servers (over 6,000) for how many users there are (a little over two million). Plus, Tor encrypts and decrypts your data at least three times.

We used Ookla Speedtest, a US server from ExpressVPN, and the providers proprietary Lightway protocol (which is very fast) to see what kinds of speeds wed get using Tor. For reference, the tester is from Romania, and has around 500 Mbps speeds.

We cant say we expected something else.

Using a nearby server (Hungary) improved our speeds a bit, but not by much. They jumped from 7-8 Mbps to 11-12 Mbps. Pages did load a bit faster, though.

Of course, not all VPNs have a fast proprietary protocol like Lightway. And most of you will probably want to use OpenVPN. So we ran a few speed tests using OpenVPN over UDP with ExpressVPN and the other providers on this list. These were our average speeds:

Scroll to the left Scroll to the right

Yeah, not looking too good. Bottom line dont use Tor over VPN connections to watch videos or download large files. Just stick to reading articles and browsing sites.

There are ways to speed up your VPN speeds, but we cant say how efficient they are when using Tor. Heres our guide if youd like to try them.

See the original post:

The Top 5 Best VPNs for the Dark Web in 2021 Browse Tor Sites While Staying 100% Safe! - TechNadu

Mozilla has announced that it will work alongside Google, Microsoft and Apple to help protect the privacy of internet users in Kazakhstan.

The country's internet service providers (ISPs) recently informed their customers that they would have to install a government-issued root certificate on all of their devices in order to continue accessing internet services.

However, when a user installs the certificate, they are choosing to trust a Certificate Authority (CA) that enables the government to intercept and decrypt network communications sent from their web browser.

If this sound familiar that is because ISPs in Kazakhstan tried the exact same thing last year and at the time, the Firefox maker said the move directly contradicts Principle 4 of the Mozilla Manifesto which states: Individuals' security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.

To protect the privacy of internet users in Kazakhstan, Mozilla, Apple, Google and Microsoft have all agreed to block the use of the government's root CA certificate in their respective browsers.

This means that the certificate will not be trusted by Firefox even if a user has it installed on their devices. When attempting to access a website that responds with the certificate, Firefox users will now see an error message stating that the certificate should not be trusted.

In a new blog post explaining its policy regarding the certificate, Mozilla urged users in Kazakhstan to look into VPN services or the Tor Browser to access the web without restrictions.

The company also encouraged users that have installed the government root certificate to remove it from their devices and to immediately change the passwords to their online accounts. This can easily be done by using Firefox's built-in password manager.

See the rest here:

Mozilla teams up with Google, Microsoft and more to protect internet users - TechRadar

With malware and bloatware becoming an increasing problem on Android, it is more important than ever to ensure that the apps youre downloading are not a threat to you or your device. Google removes many adware and spyware apps from the Play Store from time to time, but what about some of the most popular apps that arent outright malware per se, but can be major privacy nightmares nonetheless? Here, we tell you about the 10 most dangerous Android apps that you should stay away from if you value your privacy.

Google Play is a great place for discovering wonderful new apps, but its important to be cautious before downloading new apps because of potential security consequences. Even older and well-established apps can prove to be privacy nightmares if youre not careful. Some apps can collect the data from your phone and share your personal information with third-party advertisers for money. Which is why, weve come up with a list of the 10 most dangerous Android apps you should delete from your phone right now.

Developed by UCWeb, a subsidiary of Chinese tech giant, Alibaba, UC browser is one of the most downloaded web browsers on Android. However, cybersecurity analysts say that it does not adequately protect its data transmissions, which can leave your personal data at risk of being intercepted by hackers and intelligence agencies. According to researchers, the browser uses weak cryptography, and sometimes no encryption at all, when it transmits keystrokes over the web. This makes it a dangerous, unsecured app that should be deleted from your phone ASAP.

Alternatives: Mozilla Firefox (Free), Google Chrome (Free), DuckDuckGo Browser (Free). Privacy-conscious users should also check out Firefox Focus (Free) the open source privacy-focused browser that uses Private or incognito mode by default. Theres also the Tor Browser (Free) if youre an advanced user and know what youre doing.

The worlds most popular crowdsourced caller-ID software, Truecaller is one of the most notorious apps on both Android and iOS. It uploads your entire contact list, including names, phone numbers, email IDs, and even location info of some users, onto its servers. While it helps the app better identify the people calling you, it is a privacy nightmare for your contacts who didnt sign-up to have their info on third-party servers.

Its also bad for the users themselves as it uploads their IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) number, which is unique to each handset and can be used to positively ID anybody.

Alternative: Almost all popular caller ID apps will upload your contact list to their servers. So for most users, its best to stick to the stock phonebook app on their devices.

CLEANit claims to be a junk file cleaner that has millions of downloads on the Play Store. The app not only needs a ton of permissions, it also advertises services that are frivolous in modern Android devices with powerful hardware. In fact, some of them can even be detrimental to your phone.

For example, clearing the cache will only slow down your phone when it needs to be rebuilt, while killing background apps does not make any real-world impact on battery-life. Unless of course, these apps are playing music or scanning for files in the background, in which case, you dont want to kill them anyways.

Alternatives: Greenify (Free), CCleaner (Free)

Note: If you have a relatively new Android phone, you should skip these cleaner and optimizer apps entirely. They do not help improve your phones speed and often create complications by changing core settings, etc. That said, if you must use such apps, you should stick to the two mentioned above.

Dolphin browser is yet another wildly-popular third-party browser app that promises a lot but delivers very little. It is a flash-supporting browser that is a tracking nightmare and should be uninstalled immediately. According to multiple reports over the years, not only does Dolphin save your incognito mode browsing sessions, but also reveals your original IP address even while using a VPN. It also comes with a bunch of additional features, like video players and speed boosters that only add to the bloat.

Alternatives: Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, DuckDuckGo Browser (see [1] above for download links)

An app with over 14 million installs, Virus Cleaner Antivirus Free and Phone Cleaner from Super Cleaner Studio is exactly whats wrong with the Android eco-system. It comes with a ton of ads, many of which are for services and brands of questionable repute. Whats more, it promises to be an efficient security master, phone junk cleaner, WIFI security, super speed booster, battery saver, CPU cooler and notification cleaner, none of which can actually be achieved to any perceivable degree by any software. Personally, Id skip any app that promises to be a CPU cooler.

Alternatives: Avast (Free), AVG (Free), Kaspersky (Free).

Note: Its best to skip the category entirely, as the best anti-virus tool on Android is Google Play Protect, which is enabled by default on all Android phones.

With over 100 million installs, SuperVPN is one of the most used VPN apps on Android. However, cybersecurity analysts earlier this year claimed that the app includes critical vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to carry out MitM (Man-in-the-Middle) attacks, potentially stealing personal info, including credit card details, photos and private chats. According to reports, criminals can also exploit the vulnerabilities to hijack a users connection to malicious websites that could further endanger user privacy and security.

Alternatives: Express VPN (Free), Nord VPN (Free), SurfShark (Free). You can also take a look at our detailed list of the best VPN apps on Android.

Funded by Kremlin, Russia Today (RT) is the official mouthpiece of the Russian government. The network offers news channels, blogs and multiple mobile apps in English, aimed at western audiences. In spite of its claims of being a quality journalistic endeavor, its often used as a propaganda outlet for the Vladimir Putin government and, has been cited by western security agencies, like the CIA and MI6, as a major source of disinformation on US politics and Brexit. Its a news app thats best avoided if you dont want to be bombarded with fake news.

Alternatives: CNN (Free), BBC (Free)

Yet another cleaner app that simply had to be on our list because of how popular it is. Super Clean by Magical Dev has registered more than 26 million installs on the Play Store, but like most other cleaner apps, it does precious little by way of actually speeding up your phone. As with other apps in its category, it promises to optimize battery usage, clean junk files and boost memory, none of which requires a third-party app. In any case, most Android vendors bundle a security/cleaner app with their phones, which should do the job more often than not.

Alternatives: Greenify and CCleaner (See [3] above for download links).

Note: As mentioned earlier, cleaner or speed booster apps do more to harm your phone than help it. To truly boost your phones speed, uninstall apps that you arent using and remove multimedia files to a fast, Class 10/U3/V90 card if your phone supports microSD. Else, transfer them over to your PC or USB drive to regain space on your phone.

The penultimate app on our list is Fildo, which was once an illegal music downloading app disguised as a local music player. The app has since discontinued the music downloading functionality after coming under the scanner, and has now reoriented as a music management app.

However, were skeptical about apps that promise something and do something else. It also reportedly has ties to a controversial Chinese entertainment company, Netease, which should be yet another red flag for users. Its best that you shift to a different app for your music playing needs.

Alternatives: VLC (Free), AIMP (Free), Poweramp (Free)

Last, but not least, theres S.M.T.H. It is actually a cool little game app, but is harmful to your phone in ways that you might not have expected. The app uses a smartphones built-in sensors to measure how high you can throw your phone. Yup, you need to throw your phone high in the air for the game to even work.

The app got a lot of attention when it was first released almost a decade ago. To be honest, the game can be good fun, but numerous devices have breathed their last because of this app for obvious reasons. You can install it at your own risk, but dont say we didnt warn you!

For the above list, we only picked apps that are currently available on the Play Store. However, there are hundreds more apps that have been banished from the Play Store for click fraud, illegal data mining, disruptive ads and more. Those include Clean Master, DU Battery Saver, ES File Explorer, Quick Pic Gallery and a whole host of other software, many of which are from the notorious Chinese developer, Cheetah Mobile.

Many of these are still available for download as APKs from various sites and third-party Android app stores. So if youre unsure about the background of a particular app or its developer, its best to avoid downloading it on your device.

Its sometimes difficult to tell good apps from malicious ones. However, the one tell-tale sign that should always raise concern is the number of unnecessary permissions an app asks for. Does a flashlight app need your location permission? Does a cleaning app require camera and/or microphone access?

Is a photo-editing app asking for phone or SMS permissions? If they are, its best to steer clear of such software. While asking for additional permissions isnt a definitive indication of a dangerous app, you should always do your research before installing them on your phone.

As a rule of thumb, its best to steer clear of cleaners, anti-viruses, RAM boosters etc., because they hardly offer any real-world performance improvements in most cases. Other apps one should be careful about are weather apps and scanner apps that can potentially collect sensitive location information and personally identifiable data from your phones.

And yes, many emoji apps and photo filter/editor apps are nothing more than glorified adware, if not worse. All said and done, its best to avoid apps that ask for a ton of permissions for things that are unrelated to their advertised functionality.

In spite of persistent efforts from Google, you can find thousands of risky apps on the Play Store, including malware, adware, spyware and bloatware. However, the aforementioned ones are among the most widely-used dangerous apps on Android, which is why they have made their way to our list. So if you have any of the above most dangerous Android apps on your phone, do uninstall it now and download an alternative instead.

Read the rest here:

10 Most Dangerous Android Apps You Should Not Install on Your Phone - Beebom

A former bank worker caught with thousands of sexually explicit images of children told garda that he believed the images were of adults posing as children, a court has heard.

Robert Traynor (54) with an address in Crumlin, Dublin city pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of 1,938 images and 183 videos of child pornography on February 2nd, 2018. He also admitted production of 1,650 computer-generated images on September 22, 2014, contrary to the 1998 child trafficking pornography act.

Detective Garda Thomas Burke told Elva Duffy BL, prosecuting, that as part of an ongoing garda operation into online child exploitation, a computer address was linked to the possession of child pornography images and videos in an online peer to peer network.

Traynor's home was linked to this computer through his internet provider Eir and gardai went to the house in February 2018. Under caution Traynor told gardai that he had downloaded erotic material but said he believed the images and videos were of adults posing as children.

The court heard Traynor had searched for the images using the Tor browser, which allows users to hide their location.

An external disk drive seized by gardai was found to contain 65 video files and hundreds of images, the court heard. These images showed girls aged between six and 12 posing for the camera where they were sexually exposed.

Over 2,000 computer generated images found in an encrypted folder depicted young girls using sex toys or lying next to naked males.

Traynor told garda after his arrest that the images were skirting the boundaries but were not child pornography, saying he believed they were actors posing as children.

Dt Gda Burke told Judge Pauline Codd that this was clearly not the case and that they are quite obviously children. He said some of the cartoon images depicted the girls much smaller in size and height than the males, saying it's clear they are young children.

Micheal Hourigan BL, defending, told the court that his client had a good employment history and had previously worked in IT for a bank.

He said as a result of a health condition in his youth he became sexually isolated and his sexual development stifled. He has engaged with therapy since the offending came to light and has displayed progress in developing insight into the reasons behind his offending, counsel said.

Noting the absence of any previous offending Judge Codd ordered a probation report and adjourned sentence to March 12th next year.

Read this article:

Man believed explicit images were of adults posing as children, court hears - BreakingNews.ie

A former police officer who downloaded child abuse videos while still serving was jailed for a year yesterday.

Derek Kennedy, from Dundee, was also placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years after being caught with thousands of sickening images.

Detectives discovered nearly 5,000 images and more than 18 hours of graphic video footage when they carried out a raid on their ex-colleagues home.

Kennedy, who was serving with Police Scotland when he started downloading illicit material in 2016, initially claimed he had done so by accident.

Analysis of his devices showed he had filed them in specific folders and installed special equipment to try to hide the material.

He told officers something in the back of my mind made me keep them when they found a number of the depraved pictures on his mobile phone.

At first he denied having a sexual interest in the material but was later found to have stored and backed up a large haul of images and videos over three years.

Kennedy, 34, admitted downloading the material at his home in Butters Road, Dundee, between August 10 2016 and July 16 last year.

Fiscal depute Eilidh Robertson told Dundee Sheriff Court: He has no previous convictions and is currently unemployed.

On August 29 2019 the police carried out a search at the accuseds home and seized a mobile telephone. Indecent images of children were recovered during preliminary analysis.

He was arrested and taken to police HQ in Dundee. He admitted he had downloaded indecent images of children, but had not done it intentionally and couldnt understand why he kept them.

He said something in the back of my mind made me keep them.

She said two laptops and the phone were seized and Kennedy was found to have moved the collection into various folders on the devices.

There was evidence he had copied some from one laptop to another and had also copied some on the phone into a specific folder.

Peer-to-peer file sharing software had been used to search and download indecent images of children. He had privacy tools on one laptop and was using the Tor browser to enable anonymity.

Ms Robertson told the court Kennedy was caught with 4,707 indecent images and 1,118 videos featuring children from infant age up to 15.

The images featured both males and females but mainly females. The videos had 18 hours, six minutes and 40 seconds total run time.

The bulk of the material was defined as Category A the most serious.

Solicitor Theo Finlay, defending, said: He has had a history of mental health difficulties.

View post:

Dundee man downloaded child abuse images and videos while serving as a police officer - The Courier

Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. It also enables software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features. Tor provides the foundation for a range of applications that allow organizations and individuals to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy.

Note: You can also download the latest beta version, Tor Browser 10 Alpha 7 here.

Individuals use Tor to keep websites from tracking them and their family members, or to connect to news sites, instant messaging services, or the like when these are blocked by their local Internet providers. Tor's hidden services let users publish web sites and other services without needing to reveal the location of the site. Individuals also use Tor for socially sensitive communication: chat rooms and web forums for rape and abuse survivors, or people with illnesses.

Journalists use Tor to communicate more safely with whistleblowers and dissidents. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use Tor to allow their workers to connect to their home website while they're in a foreign country, without notifying everybody nearby that they're working with that organization.

Groups such as Indymedia recommend Tor for safeguarding their members' online privacy and security. Activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recommend Tor as a mechanism for maintaining civil liberties online. Corporations use Tor as a safe way to conduct competitive analysis, and to protect sensitive procurement patterns from eavesdroppers. They also use it to replace traditional VPNs, which reveal the exact amount and timing of communication. Which locations have employees working late? Which locations have employees consulting job-hunting websites? Which research divisions are communicating with the company's patent lawyers?

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.

Welcome Screen

Our old screen had way too much information for the users, leading many of them to spend great time confused about what to do. Some users at the paper experiment spent up to 40min confused about what they needed to be doing here. Besides simplifying the screen and the message, to make it easier for the user to know if they need to configure anything or not, we also did a 'brand refresh' bringing our logo to the launcher.

Censorship circumvention configuration

This is one of the most important steps for a user who is trying to connect to Tor while their network is censoring Tor. We also worked really hard to make sure the UI text would make it easy for the user to understand what a bridge is for and how to configure to use one. Another update was a little tip we added at the drop-down menu (as you can see below) for which bridge to use in countries that have very sophisticated censorship methods.

Proxy help information

The proxy settings at our Tor Launcher configuration wizard is an important feature for users who are under a network that demands such configuration. But it can also lead to a lot of confusion if the user has no idea what a proxy is. Since it is a very important feature for users, we decided to keep it in the main configuration screen and introduced a help prompt with an explanation of when someone would need such configuration.

As part of our work with the UX team, we will also be coordinating user testing of this new UI to continue iterating and make sure we are always improving our users' experience. We are also planning a series of improvements not only for the Tor Launcher flow but for the whole browser experience (once you are connected to Tor) including a new user onboarding flow. And last but not least we are streamlining both our mobile and desktop experience: Tor Browser 7.5 adapted the security slider design we did for mobile bringing the improved user experience to the desktop as well.

Other

What's New:

Windows + OS X + Linux

Windows

Build System

Read the rest here:

Tor Browser 10.0.1 Download - TechSpot

Tor Browser is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. Download the Tor desktop app to experience real private browsing without tracking, surveillance, or censorship. It also enables software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features. Tor Browser for PC provides the foundation for a range of applications that allow organizations and individuals to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy.

Features and Highlights

BLOCK TRACKERSTor Browser isolates each website you visit so third-party trackers and ads can't follow you. Any cookies automatically clear when you're done browsing. So will your browsing history.

DEFEND AGAINST SURVEILLANCEThe app prevents someone from watching your connection from knowing what websites you visit. All anyone monitoring your browsing habits can see is that you're using Tor.

RESIST FINGERPRINTINGThe browser aims to make all users look the same, making it difficult for you to be fingerprinted based on your browser and device information.

MULTI-LAYERED ENCRYPTIONYour traffic is relayed and encrypted three times as it passes over the Tor network. The network is comprised of thousands of volunteer-run servers known as Tor relays.

BROWSE FREELYWith Tor Browser, you are free to access sites your home network may have blocked.

Also Available: Download Tor Browser for Mac

See the article here:

Tor Browser Download (2020 Latest) for Windows 10, 8, 7

Tor is an "onion-routing" network that protects your privacy online.

If you're new to internet privacy and security, you've still probably already read references to something called Tor -- a widely hailed piece of internet-connected software with its own internet browser. Tor is embraced by privacy aficionados for its reliable encryption and its history of covering users' internet tracks.

At first glance, the terminology around Tor can seem intimidating and alien. Don't worry, though. It's simpler than it seems.

Here's everything you need to know about Tor.

Read more: The best VPN service for 2020

Back in the mid-'90s, when the US Navy was looking into ways to securely communicate sensitive intelligence information, a mathematician and two computer scientists emerged from the Naval Research Lab with something called "onion routing." It was a new kind of technology that would protect your internet traffic with layers of privacy. By 2003, The Onion Routing project, acronymed Tor, was in the hands of the public, where its vast network of users -- the engine enabling Tor -- has since continued to grow.

Today, thousands of volunteers all over the world are connecting their computers to the internet to create the Tor network by becoming "nodes" or "relays" for your internet traffic.

At a basic level, Tor is a type of internet-connected network with its own internet browser. Once you connect to the internet with the Tor browser, your internet traffic is stripped of its first layer of identifying information as it enters the Tor network, and is then sent bouncing through those relay nodes, which serve to encrypt and privatize your data, layer by layer -- like an onion. Finally, your traffic hits an exit node and leaves the Tor network for the open web.

Once you're in the Tor network, it's nearly impossible for others to track your traffic's manic pinballing path across the globe. And once you leave the Tor network via an exit node, the website you view (assuming it has HTTPS in front of its address) isn't sure which part of the world you're hailing from, offering you more privacy and protection.

Read more: The best antivirus protection of 2020 for Windows 10

Normal web browsing is easy with Tor. Head to the official site and download the Tor browser. Follow the installation instructions as you would with any other program. When you open Tor for the first time, the program will ask you to either configure your connection (if you're in a country where Tor has been banned, like China or Saudi Arabia) or simply connect. Once you click connect, Tor may take a few minutes to find a set of relays to connect you through.

But once you're in, you can use Tor just as you would any other browser. You'll also be prompted to review your Tor browser security settings. If you're aiming for maximum privacy, I'd advise leaving the settings on their default selections.

If you start experiencing slower-than-normal speeds, you can nudge Tor into action by checking for a quicker connection path to the website you're trying to view. In the top right corner of the Tor browser, click the three-line menu icon and select New Tor Circuit for this Site.

The privacy-focused Brave browser also has an option to route traffic through Tor when inside a private window.

Read more:Best iPhone VPNs of 2020

Now playing: Watch this: Brave browser gets more private with Tor

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Because Tor is a volunteer-run network, speed can often be an issue. As your traffic moves from node to node, you're likely to notice more speed loss than you would, for instance, with most commercial virtual private networks. This becomes particularly noticeable if you try to watch streaming Netflix content over Tor or make voice-over-IP phone calls or video calls with an app like Zoom. Tor technology isn't necessarily built to provide seamless audio-video experiences.

Speaking of videos, there are also limits to the amount of privacy Tor can offer you if you enable certain browser media plugins like Flash. Likewise, your browser's JavaScript plug-in -- which enables you to view a lot of websites' embedded media -- can still leak your IP address information. Torrenting files with Tor also exposes you to privacy risks. Because of these risks, Tor's privacy settings have these kinds of plug-ins disabled by default.

If you're just looking to do general, daily internet perusal using a browser that will better hide your traffic from spying eyes, Tor probably isn't the best choice due to its slow speeds and incompatibility with most embedded media. But if you're concerned enough about privacy around a particular topic of internet research (and you don't have a VPN), Tor is probably the best choice for you.

In some cases, yes. Most of the time, however, it takes some know-how to be able to configure your VPN's connection to work in harmony with Tor. If you don't get it right, you can risk making both Tor and your VPN ineffective when it comes to protecting your privacy. We recommend getting familiar with both types of software before marrying the two.

On the plus side, however, a successful combination of the two can be useful. While Tor protects your internet traffic, your VPN can be set to encrypt the internet traffic of any other applications running on your device in the background.

To investigate VPNs further, check out our beginner-friendly guide to all the VPN terms you need to know and our directory of the best VPNs of 2020.

Now playing: Watch this: Top 5 reasons to use a VPN

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See original here:

What is Tor? Your guide to using the private browser - CNET

Need to hire an assassin, buy some contraband, view illegal porn, or just bypass government, corporate, or identity thief snooping? Tor is your answer. Tor, which stands for "The Onion Router" is not a product, but a protocol that lets you hide your Web browsing as though it were obscured by the many layers of an onion. The most common way to view the so-called Dark Web that comprises Tor sites is by using the Tor Browser, a modded version of Mozilla Firefox. Using this Web browser also hides your location, IP address, and other identifying data from regular websites. Accessing Tor has long been beyond the ability of the average user. Tor Browser manages to simplify the process of protecting your identity onlinebut at the price of performance.

What Is Tor?If you're thinking that Tor comes from a sketchy group of hackers, know that its core technology was developed by the U.S. Naval Research Lab and D.A.R.P.A.. The Tor Project non-profit receives sizeable donations from various federal entities such as The National Science Foundation. The Tor Project has a page listing many examples of legitimate types of Tor users, such as political dissidents in countries with tight control over the Internet and individuals concerned about personal privacy.

Tor won't encrypt your datafor that, you'll need a Virtual Private Network (VPN). Instead, Tor routes your Internet traffic through a series of intermediary nodes. This makes it very difficult for government snoops or aggressive advertisers to track you online. Using Tor affords far more privacy than other browsers' private (or Incognito) modes, since it obscures your IP address so that you can't be tracked with it. Standard browsers' private browsing modes discard your cached pages and browsing history after your browsing session. Even Firefox's new, enhanced private browsing mode doesn't hide your identifiable IP address from the sites you visit, though it does prevent them tracking you based on cookies.

Starting UpConnecting to the Tor network entails more than just installing a browser and firing up websites. You need to install support code, but luckily, the free Tor Browser bundle streamlines the process. Installers are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Tor Project recommends installing the browser on a USB drive for more anonymity and portability; the drive needs to have 80MB free space.

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We tested a standard Windows installer, with choices to create desktop icons and run the browser immediately. The browser itself is a heavily modified version of Firefox 38.5 (as of this writing), and includes several security plug-ins as well as security tweaks such as not caching any website data. For a full rundown of the PCMag Editors' Choice browser's many features, read our full review of Firefox.

Before merrily browsing along anonymously, you need to inform Tor about your Web connection. If your Internet connection is censored, you configure one way, if not, you can connect directly to the network. Since we live in a free society and work for benevolent corporate overlords, we connected directly for testing. After connecting to the Tor relay system (a dialog with a progress bar appears at this stage), the browser launches, and you see the Tor project's page.

InterfaceThe browser's home page includes a plea for financial support to the project, a search box using the anonymized Disconnect.me search, and a Test Tor Network Settings link. Hitting the latter loads a page that indicates whether you're successfully anonymized. We recommend taking this step. The page even shows your apparent IP addressapparent because it's by no means your actual IP address. We verified this by opening Microsoft Edge and checking our actual IP address on Web search sites. The two addresses couldn't have been more different, because the Tor Browser reports the IP address of a Tor node.

The browser interface is identical with Firefox, except with some necessary add-ons installed. NoScript, a commonly used Firefox add-on, is preinstalled and can be used to block most non-HTML content on the Web. The green onion button to the left of the address bar is the Torbutton add-on. It lets you see your Tor network settings, but also the circuit you're using: Our circuit started in Germany and passed through two different addresses in the Netherlands before reaching the good old Internet. If that doesn't suit you, you can request a new circuit, either for the current session or for the current site. This was one of our favorite features.

One thing we really like about the Tor Browser is how it makes existing security and privacy tools easier to use. NoScript, for example, can be a harsh mistress, who can be difficult to configure, and can break websites. But a security panel in the Torbutton presents you with a simple security slide. At the lowest, default setting, all browser features are enabled. At the highest setting, all JavaScript and even some image types are blocked, among other settings. This makes it easy to raise or lower the level of protection you need, without having to muck around in multiple settings windows.

Everything you do in the browser is tested for anonymity: When we tried full-screening the browser window, a message told us that that could provide sites a way to track us, and recommended leaving the window at the default size. And the project's site specifically states that using Tor alone doesn't guarantee anonymity, but rather that you have to abide by safe browsing guidelines: don't use BitTorrent, don't install additional browser add-ons, don't open documents or media while online. The recommendation to only visit secure HTTPS sites is optionally enforced by a plug-in called HTTPS Everywhere.

Even if you follow these recommendations, though, someone could detect the simple fact that you're using Tor, unless you set it up to use a Tor bridge relay. Those are not listed in the Tor directory, so hackers (and governments) would have more trouble finding them.

One thing we noticed while browsing the standard Web through Tor was the need to enter a CAPTCHA to access many sites. This is because your cloaked URL looks suspicious to website security services such as CloudFlare, used by millions of sites to protect themselves. It's just one more price you pay for anonymity.

We also had trouble finding the correct version of websites we wished to visit. Directing the Tor Browser to PCMag.com, for example, took us to the Netherlands localization of our website. We could not find any way to direct us back to the main URL, which lets you access the U.S. site.

The Dark WebYou can use Tor to anonymize browsing to standard websites, of course, but there's a whole hidden network of sites that don't appear on the standard Web at all, and are only visible if you're using a Tor connection. You can read all about it in our feature, Inside the Dark Web. If you use a standard search engine, even one anonymized by Disconnect.me, you just see standard websites. By the way, you may improve your privacy by switching to an anonymous search provider such as DuckDuckGo or Startpage.com. DuckDuckGo even offers a hidden search version, and Sinbad Search is only available through Tor. Ahmia is another search engine, on the open Web, for finding hidden Tor sites, with the twist of only showing sites that are on the up-and-up.

Tor hidden sites have URLs that end in .onion, preceded by 16 alphanumeric characters. You can find directories of these hidden sites with categories resembling the good old days of Yahoo. There's even a Tor Links Directory page (on the regular Web) that's a directory of these directories. There are many chat and message boards, but you even find directories of things like lossless audio files, video game hacks, and financial services such as anonymous bitcoin, and even a Tor version of Facebook. Many onion sites are very slow or completely downkeep in mind that they're not run by deep-pocketed Web companies. Very often we clicked an onion link only to be greeted with an "Unable to Connect" error. Sinbad helpfully displays a red "Offline on last crawl" bullet to let you know that a site is probably nonfunctional.

Speed and CompatibilityWebpage loading time under Tor is typically far slower than browsing with a standard Internet connection. It's really not possible to state definitively by how much your browsing will be slowed down if you use Tor, because it depends on the particular relay servers your traffic is being routed through. And this can change every time for every browsing session. As a very rough rule of thumb, however, PCMag.com took 11.3 seconds to load in Firefox and 28.7 seconds in the Tor Browser, at the same time, over the same FiOS connection on the open Web. Your mileage, of course, will vary.

As for browser benchmarks, the results hew to Firefox's own performance, with near-leading performance on all the major JavaScript tests, JetStream and Octane, for example. On our test laptop, the Tor Browser scored 20,195 on Octane, compared with 22,297 for standard Firefoxnot a huge difference. The Tor network routing is a far more significant factor in browsing performance than browser JavaScript speed. That is, unless you've blocked all JavaScript.

Keep in mind, though, that the Tor Browser is based on the Firefox Extended Support Release versions, which updates less frequently so that large organizations have time to maintain their custom code. That means you don't get quite the latest in Firefox performance and features, but security updates are delivered at the same time as new main versions.

There's a similar story when it comes to standards compatibility: On the HTML5Test.com site, which quantifies the number of new Web standards supported by a browser, the Tor Browser gets a score of 412, compared with 468 for the latest Firefox version. You may run into incompatible sites, though. For example, none of the Internet speed connection test sites performed correctly in the Tor Browser.

Tor, Browser of ThunderWith the near complete lack of privacy on today's Web, Tor is becoming more and more necessary. It lets you browse the Web knowing that all those tracking services aren't watching your every move. Most of us have experienced how an ad follows you from site to site, just because you clicked on, or searched for a product or service once. All that goes away.

Of course, you pay a price of extra setup and slower performance with the Tor Browser, but it's less onerous than you may think. And the included support for fine-grain privacy and security protection is excellent. If you take your online privacy seriously, you owe it to yourself to check out the Tor Browser. For standard, full-speed Web browsing, however, check out PCMag Editors' Choice Web browser, Firefox.

More here:

Tor Browser Review | PCMag

Dear Lifehacker,I've been hearing a lot about Tor these days (with a shoutout on House of Cards!), but I'm not entirely sure what it does or why I'd ever use it. What exactly does Tor do?

Sincerely,Frank Overwood

Dear FO,We've talked a lot about Tor over the years because it's the easiest way to browse the web anonymously, but it's not always clear why that matters or why you'd need to use it. Let's take a look at what Tor does, who uses it, and perhaps most importantly, what Tor doesn't do.

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Tor is short for The Onion Router (thus the logo) and was initially a worldwide network of servers developed with the U.S. Navy that enabled people to browse the internet anonymously. Now, it's a non-profit organization whose main purpose is the research and development of online privacy tools.

The Tor network disguises your identity by moving your traffic across different Tor servers, and encrypting that traffic so it isn't traced back to you. Anyone who tries would see traffic coming from random nodes on the Tor network, rather than your computer. (For a more in-depth explanation, check out this post from our sister blog, Gizmodo).

To access this network, you just need to download the Tor browser. Everything you do in the browser goes through the Tor network and doesn't need any setup or configuration from you. That said, since your data goes through a lot of relays, it's slow, so you'll experience a much more sluggish internet than usual when you're using Tor.

If you want to be anonymoussay, if you live under a dictatorship, you're a journalist in an oppressive country, or a hacker looking to stay hidden from the governmentTor is one of the easiest ways to anonymize your traffic, and it's free. It's far from perfect, though (we'll get to that in a moment).

On a more general level, Tor is useful for anyone who wants to keep their internet activities out of the hands of advertisers, ISPs, and web sites. That includes people getting around censorship restrictions in their country, police officers looking to hide their IP address, or anyone else who doesn't want their browsing habits linked to them.

Tor's technology isn't just about browsing anonymously. It can also host web sites through its hidden services that are only accessible by other Tor users. It's on one of these hidden service sites that something like The Silk Road exists to traffic drugs. Tor's hosting capabilities tend to pop up in police reports for things like child pornography and arms trading, too.

So is it something that everyday users need? Probably not, at least not yet. But it's become popular because of its usefulness in many of these more specific situations.

Tor is handy, but it's far from perfect. Don't think just because you're using Tor that you're perfectly anonymous. Someone like the NSA can tell if you're a Tor user and that makes them more likely to target you. With a enough work, the government can figure out who you are. Motherboard points to a recent FBI bust that shows how this might work:

The FBI's big child porn bust this summer also raised some suspicion from privacy advocates over how easy it is for the Feds to infiltrate Tor. The FBI managed to crack the anonymous network by injecting malware into the browser, in order to identify what it called "the "largest child porn facilitator on the planet." In the process, the malware revealed the IP addresses of hundreds of users.

Furthermore, anonymity is not the same as security. It's hard to hack into the Tor network, but the browser is a different story. As we found at least year, the NSA can get into your browser a lot easier than it can the network and once it does, it gets access to everything else. So, "man in the middle" style attacks on Tor are still possible with help of internet service providers. Tor responded to these possible attacks with these comments:

The good news is that they went for a browser exploit, meaning there's no indication they can break the Tor protocol or do traffic analysis on the Tor network. Infecting the laptop, phone, or desktop is still the easiest way to learn about the human behind the keyboard.

Tor still helps here: you can target individuals with browser exploits, but if you attack too many users, somebody's going to notice. So even if the NSA aims to surveil everyone, everywhere, they have to be a lot more selective about which Tor users they spy on.

Just using Tor isn't enough to keep you safe in all cases. Browser exploits, large-scale surveillance, and general user security are all challenging topics for the average internet user. These attacks make it clear that we, the broader internet community, need to keep working on better security for browsers and other internet-facing applications.

As the How-To Geek points out, you still need to use HTTPS whenever possible to protect yourself from man-in-the-middle style attacks. Likewise, Tor's only as strong as its browser, which has had security flaws before, so it's worth making sure you always have the newest version.

As we mentioned above, if you're an average user looking at cat GIFs and browsing Facebook, you probably don't need to worry about the government spying on your activity, and Tor is just going to slow down your connection. It's more likely that you need to secure your internet rather than anonymize it, say, when you're using public Wi-Fi. In that case, you'd want to make sure you're using HTTPS on all sites that support it, and possibly even use a VPN to encrypt all your traffic when you're away from home.

If you want to stay anonymous because you're downloading large files and don't want people to see what you're downloadingsay, on BitTorrentTor is not a good solution. It won't keep you anonymous, and you'll slow down everyone else's traffic for no reason. In this case, you'd want a proxy or a VPN instead.

In other cases where you want to stay anonymous, Tor will do the trick, and it'll do it freely and easily. But we recommend considering a VPN tooas long as you use a VPN dedicated to anonymity that doesn't keep logs of your traffic, it can provide quite a few advantages over Tor (though you'll usually have to pay some money).

Most importantly, remember: nothing is 100% anonymous or secure, whether you're using Tor, a VPN, or anything else. If you think you need something along these lines, think about what exactly you're doing and what you need to protecthalf the battle is picking the right tool for the job.

Good Luck,Lifehacker

Read the original here:

What Is Tor and Should I Use It? - Lifehacker

Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. It also enables software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features. Tor provides the foundation for a range of applications that allow organizations and individuals to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy.

Note: You can also download the latest beta version, Tor Browser 10 Alpha 7 here.

Individuals use Tor to keep websites from tracking them and their family members, or to connect to news sites, instant messaging services, or the like when these are blocked by their local Internet providers. Tor's hidden services let users publish web sites and other services without needing to reveal the location of the site. Individuals also use Tor for socially sensitive communication: chat rooms and web forums for rape and abuse survivors, or people with illnesses.

Journalists use Tor to communicate more safely with whistleblowers and dissidents. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use Tor to allow their workers to connect to their home website while they're in a foreign country, without notifying everybody nearby that they're working with that organization.

Groups such as Indymedia recommend Tor for safeguarding their members' online privacy and security. Activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recommend Tor as a mechanism for maintaining civil liberties online. Corporations use Tor as a safe way to conduct competitive analysis, and to protect sensitive procurement patterns from eavesdroppers. They also use it to replace traditional VPNs, which reveal the exact amount and timing of communication. Which locations have employees working late? Which locations have employees consulting job-hunting websites? Which research divisions are communicating with the company's patent lawyers?

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.

Welcome Screen

Our old screen had way too much information for the users, leading many of them to spend great time confused about what to do. Some users at the paper experiment spent up to 40min confused about what they needed to be doing here. Besides simplifying the screen and the message, to make it easier for the user to know if they need to configure anything or not, we also did a 'brand refresh' bringing our logo to the launcher.

Censorship circumvention configuration

This is one of the most important steps for a user who is trying to connect to Tor while their network is censoring Tor. We also worked really hard to make sure the UI text would make it easy for the user to understand what a bridge is for and how to configure to use one. Another update was a little tip we added at the drop-down menu (as you can see below) for which bridge to use in countries that have very sophisticated censorship methods.

Proxy help information

The proxy settings at our Tor Launcher configuration wizard is an important feature for users who are under a network that demands such configuration. But it can also lead to a lot of confusion if the user has no idea what a proxy is. Since it is a very important feature for users, we decided to keep it in the main configuration screen and introduced a help prompt with an explanation of when someone would need such configuration.

As part of our work with the UX team, we will also be coordinating user testing of this new UI to continue iterating and make sure we are always improving our users' experience. We are also planning a series of improvements not only for the Tor Launcher flow but for the whole browser experience (once you are connected to Tor) including a new user onboarding flow. And last but not least we are streamlining both our mobile and desktop experience: Tor Browser 7.5 adapted the security slider design we did for mobile bringing the improved user experience to the desktop as well.

Other

What's New:

Tor Browser 9.5.3 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory. This release updates Firefox to 68.11.0esr, NoScript to 11.0.34, and Tor to 0.4.3.6.

Also, this release features important security updates to Firefox.

The full changelog since Tor Browser 9.5.1 is:

All Platforms

Note: We are aware of a bug that allows javascript execution on the Safest security level (in some situations). We are working on a fix for this. If you require that javascript is blocked, then you may completely disable it by:

The full changelog since Tor Browser 9.0.5 is:

All Platforms

Build System Windows

Originally posted here:

Tor Browser 10.0 Download - TechSpot

If youre curious about Tor browser, then you already know how important your privacy and anonymity online can be. And yes, Tor browser is a great tool that can help keep you safe. But theres a lot of confusion about its pros and cons, and especially, about how it relates to VPNs.

Were going to explain how this powerful tool works and what to consider when deciding if its right for you.

Tor browser is similar to a normal web browser in many ways. Its no more difficult to use than Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge. The difference is that Tor browser connects you to the internet through the Tor network.

Tor is free, open-source software that helps you stay anonymous online. When you browse the internet using Tor browser, your traffic is randomly directed through a network of servers before you reach your final destination, in order to protect your location and identity.

The name Tor is short for The Onion Router. This refers to the way that Tor protects your data by wrapping it in multiple layers of encryption like an onion.

Tor browser and VPNs are both tools for protecting your privacy online. Theyare not the same thing, however.They are two very different technologies that protect you in different ways.

When you use a VPN, all of your data is secured with end-to-end encryption. Its then directed through a safe channel to a remote server that connects you to the website you are trying to visit.

Tor browser protects your privacy in a different way, which we explain below.

The important thing is that Tor browser is not a VPN, but you can use the two tools together to maximize your security and privacy.

Despite the browsers complex system behind the scenes, it is actually very easy to use. You simply download and install Tor browser, then connect to the internet just like you would with any other browser.

Tor usesa unique system that was developed by the US Navy to protect government intelligence communications.

Your data is bundled into layers of encrypted packets before it enters the Tor network. It is then routedthrough a series of volunteer-operated servers called nodes or relays.

Each time your data passes through one of these relays, a layer of encryption is removed to reveal the location of the next relay. When you reach the final relay on your path, known as the exit node, the last layer of encryption is removed and your data is sent to its final destination.

Each relay only decrypts enough data to know the location of the previous and next relays. Since each path is randomly generated and none of the relays keep records, its nearly impossible for your activity to be traced back to you through Tors complex network.

Tor browser is very effective at hiding your location and preventing your traffic from being tracked. Its almost impossible for your online activity to be traced through Tors network back to you.

However, Tor browser is not entirely secure. The system has a few weaknesses. Since each server in the Tor network is volunteer-operated, you never know whos behind the relays your data travels through.

Generally, this isnt an issue because each relay can only access the location of the previous and next relaysexcept for the exit node.

The exit node removes the final layer of encryption on your data. It cant access your original location or IP address, but it is possible for an exit node to spy on your activity if you visit an unsecured HTTP website.

Torbrowser is also vulnerable to the same attacks that other browsers are. Its a good idea to turn off the browsers plugins and scripts if you are trying to stay anonymous, because these can be exploited to reveal information like your IP address.

The biggest drawback to using Tor browser is speed. Because your data has to travel through multiple relays before reaching your final destination, browsing can be very slow.

Tor browser is not the best choice for streaming and downloading, and its creatorsstrongly discourage torrenting as well. Not only is torrenting painfully slow, but your torrent traffic will not be protected and can expose your IP address.

If youre looking for a way to stream or torrent, a VPN is much better protection.

Another disadvantage of using Torbrowser is that it can draw attention to you. Your ISP cant see what youre doing, but it can see that youre connected to Tor. This by itself can be enough to raise suspicion about what youre doing.

Even if youre only using Tor browserto legally browse the internet, the fact that you are connected to Tor can potentially turn you into a target for government surveillance. US government agencies like the NSA and FBI are very invested in trying to find ways to track Tor users activity.

Tor browser is an effective tool, but it doesnt offer the same level of security and safety that a VPN does. Luckily, you dont have to choose between the two. You can use Tor browser and a VPN together to combine their powers and maximize your privacy.

There are two main ways to combine Tor browser and a VPN. Were going to walk you through both methods and explain the pros and cons of each.

With this method, you connect to your VPN first and then access the Tor network. There are a few advantages to this method, starting with the fact that its very easy. Yousimply connect to your VPN and then open Tor browser.

In most cases, this configuration provides more than enough security and privacy to protect you.

Some VPNs make it even easier by offering a built-in Tor service. One great example is NordVPNs Onion over VPN service, which allows you to connect to Tor without Tor browser.

Instead, NordVPN can route your traffic through one of its secure VPN servers and then directly to the Tor network. The NordVPN service can protect all of the traffic on your device, not just your browser activity.

Another benefit of Tor over VPN is that all of your data is securely encrypted by your VPN before entering the Tor network. This means that Tors volunteer-operated servers cannot access your real IP address.

Since VPNs hide your activity from your ISP, connecting to a VPN before accessing Tor also prevents your ISP from detecting your use of Tor.

Tor over VPN also gives you a measure of privacy from your VPN provider, since they are unable to see what you are doing within the Tor network. On the other hand, if your VPN provider keeps logs of your activity, Tor over VPN doesnt hide your real IP address or the fact that youre using Tor.

The other downside of this method is that it doesnt protect you from malicious exit nodes, since your traffic is unencrypted by the time it reaches your final destination.

With this method, you connect to the Tor network first and then go through your VPN. This method is more complicated than Tor over VPN because in most cases,you have to manually configure your VPN to work with Tor in this way.

The biggest benefit of VPN over Tor is that you areprotected from the Tor exit nodes. Your traffic doesnt go directly from an exit node to your final destination, but rather is routed from the exit node to a secure VPN server.

Thats why this configuration is ideal for communicating sensitive information.

The downside is that your ISPand therefore government agencies as wellwill be able to see that you are using Tor, although your activity will be hidden.

This method also keeps your true IP address hidden from your VPN provider. But with a transparent, no-logs VPN, you shouldnt have to.

The Bottom Line

Despite its flaws, Tor browser is a powerful, effective tool for protecting your privacy online. Combining Tors anonymity with a VPNs security and safety gives you the best of both worlds.

We strongly recommend that you use a VPN, if you are planning on giving Tor browser a try.

Its also good to keep in mind that a VPN by itself can provide excellent security and anonymity, without the significant speed decrease that you will notice with Tor browser.

If youre looking for a trustworthy, reliable VPN to protect your online privacy, check out our list of the best VPN deals and coupon codes.

Privacy Alert!

You are exposing yourself to the websites you visit!

The information above can be used to track you, target you for ads, and monitor what you do online.

VPNs can help you hide this information from websites so that you are protected at all times. We recommend NordVPN the #1 VPN out of over 350 providers we've tested. It has military-grade encryption and privacy features that will ensure your digital security, plus it's currently offering 68% off.

Visit NordVPN

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How To Use Tor Browser: Everything You MUST Know (2020)

Brave, an exclusive crypto-friendly web browser, has announced its integration with the Dark Web. Now Brave browsers pages will be accessible on the Dark Web via the Tor gateway.

Tor browser lets users access .onion links. It helps people use the internet anonymously by bouncing search requests across relays dispersed across the globe.

Ben Kero,DevOps engineer at Brave has developed a handy guide to explain how to access Brave pages on the dark web. Kero writes that he first minded an address already accessible on the onion network to generate a private key by expending computational resources.

Furthermore, by using GTX1080, a mid-range graphics card, the team received a .onion address and a private key within just 15 minutes.

That allows us to advertise we are ready and able to receive traffic sent to this address, wrote Kero in a blog post.

Once the addresss mining was complete, the Brave browser booted the Enterprise Onion Toolkit to let users proxy traffic to their regular .com domain. Afterward, the team set up an SSL certificate to certify that domains are safe, and all the information they send across will be encrypted.

If the GIF doesnt work please open it in the new tab.

Contrary to popular perception, Dark Web isnt all about illegal activities. It is also used by researchers, journalists, and activists to surf the web freely [PDF]. It is particularly useful in areas where the government has imposed strict internet policies.

Nevertheless, the Tor browser not only helps people use the internet anonymously but also helps bypass censorship.

Considering that Brave browser has its own Tor address Brave.onion, users can now easily access Braves websites straight from the dark web. Using Tors address to access Brave web pages will protect the users metadata, including their geolocation.

Did you enjoy reading this article? Do like our page onFacebookand follow us onTwitter.

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Brave Browser enters dark web with its own Tor Onion service - HackRead

Hacking group Anonymous Greece found a new target today in the form of The Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

In a Facebook message, the hacking group wrote Turkish Assembly Parliament subdomain Pwned, with pwned deriving from the word owned, due to o and p being close to each other on the keyboard and finds its origins in internet culture, particularly gaming.

URL: https://apps.tbmm.gov.tr/heyet_karsilama2/login.phpUser: [emailprotected] []javadoq[].com ( remove all [] because facebook doesnt allow to paste the email )Pass: anonymousgreece10NOTE: Login to the system with VPN or Tor Browser and watch the defaced message, the rest of the post would say.

Accompanying the post was an image of the hack Anonymous Greece did against The Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

Turkish Accemly Pwned by (Greek Armenia), Armenia will win this war against evil Turkey and Azerbaijan,and Killing innocent people and kids makes you terrorist, Anonymous Greece wrote on the webpage of the Turkish Parliament.

Turkish Assembly Parliament subdomain Pwned #Greece #ArmeniaURL:

Posted by Anonymous Greece onWednesday, 7 October 2020

In a post made yesterday, Anonymous Greece paid tribute to the Armenian soldiers died fighting against the Turkish-backed Azerbaijani Army and Al-Qaeda terrorists from Syria.

A GREAT PRAYER FOR ALL THE HEROS ARMENIA SOLDERS WHO SACRECTED FOR THEIR COUNTRY IN THIS WARRORRORRORISTS OF TURKIA AND AZERBAITZAN. Stay strong Armenia! Anonymous Greece wrote.

Posted by Anonymous Greece onTuesday, 6 October 2020

These actions come as the hacking group last Thursday brought down over 150 websites belonging to the Azerbaijani government, as reported by Greek City Times.

As a little support to the Armenians we brought down 83 Azerbaijan government websites, Anonymous Greece announced on Facebook.

83 #Armenia #Greece .

Posted by Anonymous Greece onThursday, 1 October 2020

In a follow up post on the same day, Anonymous Greece wrote Another 76 government (the most important) of Azerbaijan were hit along with the central domain https://www.gov.az/.

76 ( ) domain https://www.gov.az/. #Armenia #Greece

Posted by Anonymous Greece onThursday, 1 October 2020

Follow this link:

Anonymous Greece Hacks Into Turkish Parliament Website And Leaves Message In Support Of Armenia - GreekCityTimes.com

Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. It also enables software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features. Tor provides the foundation for a range of applications that allow organizations and individuals to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy.

Note: You can also download the latest beta version, Tor Browser 10 Alpha 1 here.

Individuals use Tor to keep websites from tracking them and their family members, or to connect to news sites, instant messaging services, or the like when these are blocked by their local Internet providers. Tor's hidden services let users publish web sites and other services without needing to reveal the location of the site. Individuals also use Tor for socially sensitive communication: chat rooms and web forums for rape and abuse survivors, or people with illnesses.

Journalists use Tor to communicate more safely with whistleblowers and dissidents. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use Tor to allow their workers to connect to their home website while they're in a foreign country, without notifying everybody nearby that they're working with that organization.

Groups such as Indymedia recommend Tor for safeguarding their members' online privacy and security. Activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recommend Tor as a mechanism for maintaining civil liberties online. Corporations use Tor as a safe way to conduct competitive analysis, and to protect sensitive procurement patterns from eavesdroppers. They also use it to replace traditional VPNs, which reveal the exact amount and timing of communication. Which locations have employees working late? Which locations have employees consulting job-hunting websites? Which research divisions are communicating with the company's patent lawyers?

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.

Welcome Screen

Our old screen had way too much information for the users, leading many of them to spend great time confused about what to do. Some users at the paper experiment spent up to 40min confused about what they needed to be doing here. Besides simplifying the screen and the message, to make it easier for the user to know if they need to configure anything or not, we also did a 'brand refresh' bringing our logo to the launcher.

Censorship circumvention configuration

This is one of the most important steps for a user who is trying to connect to Tor while their network is censoring Tor. We also worked really hard to make sure the UI text would make it easy for the user to understand what a bridge is for and how to configure to use one. Another update was a little tip we added at the drop-down menu (as you can see below) for which bridge to use in countries that have very sophisticated censorship methods.

Proxy help information

The proxy settings at our Tor Launcher configuration wizard is an important feature for users who are under a network that demands such configuration. But it can also lead to a lot of confusion if the user has no idea what a proxy is. Since it is a very important feature for users, we decided to keep it in the main configuration screen and introduced a help prompt with an explanation of when someone would need such configuration.

As part of our work with the UX team, we will also be coordinating user testing of this new UI to continue iterating and make sure we are always improving our users' experience. We are also planning a series of improvements not only for the Tor Launcher flow but for the whole browser experience (once you are connected to Tor) including a new user onboarding flow. And last but not least we are streamlining both our mobile and desktop experience: Tor Browser 7.5 adapted the security slider design we did for mobile bringing the improved user experience to the desktop as well.

Other

What's New:

Tor Browser 9.5.3 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory. This release updates Firefox to 68.11.0esr, NoScript to 11.0.34, and Tor to 0.4.3.6.

Also, this release features important security updates to Firefox.

The full changelog since Tor Browser 9.5.1 is:

All Platforms

Note: We are aware of a bug that allows javascript execution on the Safest security level (in some situations). We are working on a fix for this. If you require that javascript is blocked, then you may completely disable it by:

The full changelog since Tor Browser 9.0.5 is:

All Platforms

Build System Windows

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Tor Browser 9.5.3 Download - TechSpot