13 votes
Accepted

How does Tor obfs4 protocol and PTs work?

The Tor Project Wiki has a good article covering this: A Childs Garden Of Pluggable Transports. The pluggable transport is used as a proxy for tors traffic, it provides an extra layer of ...
cacahuatl's user avatar
  • 10.9k
5 votes
Accepted

Is Tor completely anonymous?

This setup may, or may not, be completely anonymous, depending on a whole bunch of factors, some extremely subtle. Adding a VPN to Tor basically never improves anonymity, though. Exactly how someone ...
womble's user avatar
  • 562
5 votes
Accepted

What encryption algorithms does Tor use?

What encryption algorithms does Tor use? See the following sections of the Tor Protocol Specification: 0.2 Security parameters 0.3 Ciphers Isn't RSA 1024 considered weak? 1024 hasn't been broken ...
Richard Horrocks's user avatar
4 votes
Accepted

Why do Tor hidden service operators bother with SSL/TLS encryption?

It has it's uses, of course! At least: Integrity you know, that your server is responsible for cipher strength, and a potential malicious node in a chain will have some trouble-time due to that fact ...
Alexey Vesnin's user avatar
  • 5,900
2 votes

Sniff Tor onions address from a relay

I have worked on finding ALL Onion Addresses in TOR service and as I found, there is no clear way of finding all the Onions. Actually in the next generation of Onion Addresses, HSDirs can not see the ...
Mir Saman's user avatar
  • 368
2 votes

Tor and encryption

If you are using an external client (such as an onion pi) and then connect to the internet over that client, then yes you can use any browser you want and your traffic will be encrypted and sent over ...
Devin Hurley's user avatar
2 votes
Accepted

Are all tor exit nodes known?

There wouldn't really be any benefit to the attacker sniffing the exit traffic and then routing it over Tor again. Theoretically it would be possible. They can run an exit node, and configure their ...
drew010's user avatar
  • 270
2 votes

Do all .onion addresses use SSL/TLS?

Do not mess up using Tor as a transport layer, where encryption is used for your privacy protection primarily, and the HTTP access protection by using SSL(aka HTTPS ). Onion sites may use HTTPS freely ...
Alexey Vesnin's user avatar
  • 5,900
2 votes

HTTPS Everywhere and Tor

Is the HTTPS not needed on the Tor Browser? HTTPS Everywhere is included by default in Tor Browser Does Tor encrypt one's data like the HTTPS Everywhere add-on? Neither of these tools encrypt the ...
cacahuatl's user avatar
  • 10.9k
2 votes

HTTPS Everywhere and Tor

HTTPS Everywhere is already included in Tor Browser. Its button is next to the Firefox menu button. Is the HTTPS not needed on the Tor Browser? It is recommended to always use HTTPS whenever ...
Anonymous's user avatar
  • 138
2 votes

Does all bridge users have the same encryption key?

Whenever your client makes a connection to a bridge or any other Tor relay it negotiates an individual key. So this key if different from a key which another client uses and also from a key which your ...
Jens Kubieziel's user avatar
  • 8,561
2 votes
Accepted

Encryption by EFS

If you create an encrypted folder and put Tor Browser inside of it: Remote - You will gain no security advantage against a remote attacker: exploits will still work fine. Local Offline - You will ...
cacahuatl's user avatar
  • 10.9k
2 votes
Accepted

What is the key blinding function used in the hidden service protocol v3?

I've messaged one of the tor developpers and he's been kind enough to answer. In the rend-spec-v3.txt document, the function is actually specified in appendix A2. And the "HSDirV3" flag ...
mega_tarsus's user avatar
2 votes
Accepted

What prevents the first relay from decrypting the rest of the layers in the onion packet?

These "layers" in Tor are actually layers of encryption, where each relay only knows how to remove a single layer. As a client builds a circuit, the client performs a key exchange with each ...
Steve's user avatar
  • 3,112
2 votes

How does Tor connect to a server while hiding it's ip?

The general idea is that the client doesn't connect directly to the onion service. Instead, the client creates an anonymous circuit to a relay, the onion service creates its own anonymous circuit to ...
Steve's user avatar
  • 3,112
2 votes
Accepted

How do TOR nodes select the CircID's when creating, or extending, a circuit?

A circuit ID identifies a circuit on an OR connection. If this OR connection is between two relays, either relay can make new circuits on that OR connection. If a relay wants to create a new circuit, ...
Steve's user avatar
  • 3,112
1 vote

Is it possible to find encryption key in Tor Browser?

If you're doing something like a presentation, paper, book, etc, it's best to 1. Ask the developers and contributors directly https://www.torproject.org/contact/ and 2. Read the documentation for ...
elmerjfudd's user avatar
  • 2,264
1 vote

Need some details about relays between user and onion sites

I believe the traffic is encrypted 8 times (not including the TLS link crypto): 3 times along the client's circuit, 4 times along the onion service's circuit, and once more for the end-to-end ...
Steve's user avatar
  • 3,112
1 vote

Is there any vulnerabilities when using socks with tails?

It's only on the local loopback interface, the unencrypted connection is made purely locally. It traverses any local network resources encrypted. Note however that anything you send into the Tor ...
cacahuatl's user avatar
  • 10.9k
1 vote

Can the tor initial client to relay or bridge connection be MITM attacked?

Q 1 So I am assuming that this is unencrypted data. Is this correct? There is no "data", this is a TCP handshake, you cannot send data until the 3 way handshake is completed. This is simply ...
cacahuatl's user avatar
  • 10.9k
1 vote

Tor's encryption confusion and client to first node encryption

Does the server's response reach the client encrypted or unencrypted? Is the cycle exactly the same for the client's request as it is for the server's response? It reaches the client encrypted (in ...
cacahuatl's user avatar
  • 10.9k
1 vote

Specifications for Tor security in the transmision of Data

The tor-spec.txt you linked to is a more-or-less up-to-date description of how Tor works. There may be minor divergences between that document and the running code (which makes the codebase the ...
womble's user avatar
  • 562
1 vote

What encryption is actually used by tor circuits?

CELLs are encrypted using a stream cipher, presently AES-128-CTR with a zeroed IV. This will be upgraded to an SPRP in the future to defend against tagging attacks. 0.3. Ciphers These are the ...
cypherfox's user avatar
  • 166
1 vote

Differences between Onion Routing (Public Key) and Tor-Circuit (Session Key)

Your understanding is basically correct. The first create cell is indeed encrypted with 1 layer, the second 2 layers, the third 3 layers, etc. However, Tor takes a different approach when encrypting ...
nobody's user avatar
  • 725
1 vote

Have global adversaries ever been able to decrypt hard drives storing .onion material encrypted by Veracrypt?

these matters are totally unrelated: Tor is a Network layer, sort of speaking, and - HDD security - is a server-layer or service-layer, regardless of the network the Server is exposed to: Internet/...
Alexey Vesnin's user avatar
  • 5,900
1 vote

ultimate encryption and protection of sensitive data

Don´t exists a "ultimate encryption tool" but with right tools e a little discipline is possible protect your files with a good encryption cipher and software, my recommendation is Veracrypt with AES-...
Kordycepts's user avatar
1 vote

ultimate encryption and protection of sensitive data

There is unfortunately no "ultimate encryption tool". However there are some tools, that if used correctly provide reasonable security. These tools listed here are well known to provide strong enough ...
bn4t's user avatar
  • 446
1 vote
Accepted

Rekeying a Tor circuit

Not possible yet. Proposal 262 is still open and there is no other rekey mechanism.
nobody's user avatar
  • 725
1 vote

Security: Can an exit node be set up with an encrypted connection to the service?

So far it seems that all exit note-to-server connections are communicated in plaintext. They're communicated as they're sent, I.E. Tor doesn't add or remove any encryption that was already applied to ...
cacahuatl's user avatar
  • 10.9k
1 vote

typical way to run tails virtualized on ubuntu?

Generally the virtualisation of choice is VirtualBox, see: Tails VirtualBox documentation However, also heed the warnings. Tails do not recommend using VirtualBox for day-to-day use. It's there ...
cacahuatl's user avatar
  • 10.9k

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