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Part ofA Guide to Being Anonymous

One advanced method many aspiring pirates or privacy concerned folks can take nowadays is using a proxy to mask your IP.

The Onion Router, or TOR, is a proxy system that uses a chain of proxies, or relays, to further hide your IP behind multiple layers.

Tor can be used for basic private browsing, more anonymous communications, and is a tool used by many journalists and activists globally to keep themselves private and secure. It’s one of the best tools for avoiding online surveillance and censorship.

For more advanced use is Tails OS. Famously used by Edward Snowden during his whistleblowing, Tails OS is a Debian based operating system that routes everything through Tor for more complete anonymity.

How does Tor work?

Tor is a global network of computers run by volunteers, designed to provide online anonymity to its users. It accomplishes this through a combination of innovative features and a unique network infrastructure known as onion routing. The Tor network consists of thousands of servers, called Tor relays, operated by volunteers worldwide, making it extremely difficult to trace the origin and destination of internet activity.

Tor’s functionality is based on the principle of onion routing. This process creates a private network pathway with layers of encryption, similar to the layers of an onion. Here’s a detailed breakdown of how it works:

1. Circuit Establishment

When you connect to the Tor network, your Tor client downloads a list of all available Tor relays. It then selects three relays to create a circuit: a guard node, a middle (relay) node, and an exit node.

2. Layered Encryption

Your request is encrypted in multiple layers, with each layer only decryptable by its corresponding node. This ensures that no single node knows both the origin and destination of the data.

3. Data Transmission

The encrypted request is sent through the selected nodes:

+ The guard node (entry node) only knows your IP address and the middle relay. It decrypts the outer layer of encryption.

• The middle node only knows the guard relay and the exit relay. It decrypts the next layer of encryption.
• The exit node knows what you’re requesting from the internet and the middle relay, but not your identity or the guard relay. It decrypts the final layer and sends your request to its destination.

A single relay never knows both where the encrypted connection is coming from and where it is going to:

+ The 1st relay only knows where you are coming from but not where you are going to.

+ This 3rd relay only knows where you are going to but not where you are coming from.

+ The connection to the final destination is encrypted whenever possible to prevent the 3rd relay from reading its content.

This way, Tor is secure by design even if a few relays are malicious.

Organizations running Tor relays include universities like the MIT, activist groups like Riseup, nonprofits like Derechos Digitales, Internet hosting companies like Private Internet Access, and so on. The huge diversity of people and organizations running Tor relays makes it more secure and more sustainable.

4. Response Routing

The response from the website follows the same path back through the Tor network, with each node encrypting the data before passing it to the previous node.

5. Circuit Renewal

To further enhance anonymity, Tor creates a new circuit every 10 minutes for new connections, making long-term traffic analysis even more challenging.

This process effectively separates the content you’re requesting from anything that can be used to establish your identity, providing a high degree of anonymity.

Downloading and Installing Tor Browser

The best way to start using Tor for your online uses is todownload The Tor Browser from The Tor Project and use it for your daily browsing. They have packages and installation files for various operating systems listed there. You can download it for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android!

For the more secure, you can also download their PGP keys and check the signatures and hashes to ensure the integrity of your downloads.

Downloading for iPhone

The Tor Project recommends installing two applications to effectively use Tor for your browsing needs on iPhone:Orbot andOnion Browser. WikiHow hasa great guide on how to use them effectively together.

Well, what about Tails?

Tails OS is an operating system you install onto a USB that always starts on a clean slate when you turn it on.

Amnesia

Tails always starts from the same clean state and everything you do disappears automatically when you shut down Tails. Nothing is written to storage unless you set up secure and encrypted persistent storage.

Without Tails, almost everything you do can leave traces on the computer:

• Websites that you visited, even in private mode
• Files that you opened, even if you deleted them
• Passwords, even if you use a password manager
• All the devices and Wi-Fi networks that you used

Tor for everything

Everything you do on the Internet from Tails goes through the Tor network. As discussed above, that’s pretty awesome.

Downloading and using Tails

Downloading, verifying, and installing Tails requires about an hour of your time and:

• A USB stick of 8 GB minimum or a recordable DVD.

All the data on this USB stick or DVD is lost when installing Tails.

• The ability to start from a USB stick or a DVD reader.
• A 64-bit x86-64 IBM PC compatible processor.

Tails does not work on ARM or PowerPC processors.

Tails does not work on 32-bit computers since Tails 3.0 (June 2017).

• 2 GB of RAM to work smoothly.

Tails can work with less than 2 GB RAM but might behave strangely or crash.

A detailed guide for each operating system you may be using to download and install tails is available from the Tails Website. This includes a browser based download verification tool for additional security.

For Mac

Unfortunately, we don’t know of any Mac model that works well in Tails and can run the latest macOS version.

For Android

Tails doesn’t work on smartphones or tablets. The hardware of smartphones and tablets is very different from the hardware of computers. For now, it’s impossible to make smartphone and tablet hardware work with Linux distributions like Tails.

Further reading:

The Tor Project: About Tor

Wikipedia: About The Tor Network

TailsOS: How Tails Works

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