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| Developer(s) | The Tor Project |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 20 September 2002 |
| Stable release | 0.2.3.25 (3 December 2012 |
| Preview release | 0.2.4.11-alpha(19 March 2013) |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Onion routing, Anonymity |
| License | BSD license |
| Website | www.torproject.org |
Tor (originally short for The Onion Router) is free software for enabling online anonymity. Tor directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide volunteer network consisting of thousands of relays to conceal a user's location or usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis. Using Tor makes it more difficult to trace Internet activity, including "visits to Web sites, online posts, instant messages and other communication forms", back to the user and is intended to protect users' personal privacy, freedom, and ability to conduct confidential business by keeping their internet activities from being monitored.
"Onion Routing" refers to the layers of the encryption used. The original data, including its destination, are encrypted and re-encrypted multiple times, and sent through a virtual circuit comprising successive, randomly selected Tor relays. Each relay decrypts a "layer" of encryption to reveal only the next relay in the circuit in order to pass the remaining encrypted data on to it. The final relay decrypts the last layer of encryption and sends the original data, without revealing or even knowing its sender, to the destination. This method reduces the chance of the original data being understood in transit and, more notably, conceals the routing of it
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