15
votes
How to properly start tor service
Normally the Tor service should be started/stopped with either:
sudo systemctl start/stop tor.service
Or:
sudo service tor start/stop
Personally I've always used the service command because it is ...
- 1,239
9
votes
Accepted
Does Tor latency leak location information?
There's one important fact that makes such an attack extremely difficult. A connection between a Tor client and a Tor hidden service is actually composed of two entirely separate circuits that both ...
- 429
6
votes
TOR Anonymity Query
Your "source" at the "CIA" (i.e. your "friend" with the tinfoil hat (i.e. you)) is wrong. It was created by the US Naval Research Lab, some of whom are still active within the community.
It's not ...
- 10.9k
6
votes
Security of Tor bridges and Captcha
Any captcha system can be broken by paying people.
The captcha has been attacked in the past by a nationstate adversary.
The captcha isn't critical to the security of Tor, it does present problems ...
- 10.9k
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 ...
- 3,135
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 ...
- 562
4
votes
Can Tor be used with applications other than Web browsers?
Applications that support SOCKS
As mentioned by @zhenech any application that supports SOCKS can be used with Tor.
Here are few examples that show your IP changing via an IP identifying website:
...
4
votes
Accepted
Why does Tails use an insecure memory wiping process
Tails uses sdmem from the secure-delete package to overwrite RAM on shutdown, see https://tails.boum.org/contribute/design/memory_erasure/ for details.
According to that page, "memory is only ...
- 56
4
votes
Is a server's response to a Tor browser query encrypted by the Tor nodes when it transits the Tor circuit in the reverse direction?
If a Tor browser makes a request of a server on the Internet, it will
be encrypted several times by the Tor browser before it leaves the
client.
Correct. Once for each Tor relay, which is a ...
- 3,135
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 ...
- 5,900
4
votes
Accepted
Is it safe to use Tor with Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit?
Alright this was going to be a comment but no one has really addressed this and it's a pet peeve of mine, so...
Generally speaking anti-virus protects you from known threats, they provide signature ...
- 10.9k
4
votes
Routing Bittorrent through a Tor relay...
my thinking is that having all this Tor relay traffic co-mingling with the BitTorrent traffic would make any sort of traffic analysis of my Internet much more complicated.
Not in any meaningful way, ...
- 10.9k
4
votes
Accepted
Has my Facebook Account been hacked when using Tor?
You probably logged into your Facebook account over Tor.
Facebook sees you exiting the Tor network in Portugal, or what it thinks is Portugal and so it flagged up your own login attempt as suspicious....
- 10.9k
3
votes
How does Tor guarantee server integrity?
This is not what is actually happening. When a Tor client first starts, it does connect to the central Tor servers (Directory Authorities, they're called), but it gets the list of all Tor relays ...
- 2,219
3
votes
Accepted
Use Tor browser as non-root Linux
You can run any command as a different user using sudo:
sudo -u my_user tor-browser-en
If you need to use multiple commands you can do this:
sudo -u my_user sh -c "first && second"
If you ...
- 210
3
votes
Accepted
TOR asking for donations?
The latest release info says:
Tor Browser 5.0.5 comes with a banner supporting our donations
campaign. The banner is visible on the about:tor page and features
either Roger Dingledine, Laura ...
- 1,863
3
votes
block tor2web, onion.city,cab, .link etc
The Tor2Web software includes an 'X-tor2web' header in all hidden service requests [1].
You should be able to configure nginx to block requests or show an error page when the request includes a 'X-...
- 121
3
votes
Can somebody force my Tor circuits to always start from his "guard node", to access my traffic?
Yes. An attacker can perform a sybil attack or just kick down your guard node repeatedly until your Tor client choose a malicious node as guard.
Controlling your guard node doesn't lead to decrypting ...
- 725
3
votes
Does tails work with Mini free Laptops
From looking at the pictures on their website, Minifree laptops appear to be old, re-branded Lenovo T400 and X200 Thinkpads.
If we ignore the fact that they're selling old, presumably ex-business ...
- 3,135
3
votes
What would happen when multiple servers are having the same onion hostname?
It depends on the exponent, if the people will use the same exponent - yes, they will have an identical keys. And - as far as I know - as soon you publish your HS descriptor, no descriptor with the ...
- 5,900
3
votes
Serious TCP Bug in Linux Systems?
What we can do to protect ourselves as VPN/Tor users?
Note that the attack itself is targeted at the service, not the client (I.E. tor relay, not the tor client) so there isn't much you can do. If ...
- 10.9k
3
votes
Accepted
Tails and OnionShare
The threats are completely different.
Tor Browser has a much larger attack surface (it has far more features and functionality that could go wrong) and it's not written in an memory safe language (if ...
- 10.9k
3
votes
Extra security for private forum posts
No, Tor would not help.
What you are suggesting is 100% impossible.
- 10.9k
3
votes
Does facebook's hidden service url mean that collisions are feasible?
No, and yes.
Facebook, hidden services, and https certs had talked on this. Facebook in fact brute forced only the first 40 bits and then made a backronym.
Their hidden service name is "...
- 725
3
votes
Is Tor network traceable
Tor connections are in general secure.
However for a global adversary it would be possible to trace a Tor connection back to a user.
It is not known whether such a global adversary exists or if ...
- 446
3
votes
Accepted
How did the FBI find the IP address of the Freedom Hosting servers?
According to this FAQ from the EFF, Freedom Host had a publicly visible IP address that allowed the FBI to physically seize their server:
In December 2014, the FBI received a tip from a foreign law
...
- 146
3
votes
Accepted
Should I first stop all local servers running on localhost before starting Tor?
Unless you edit your tor configuration (your torrc file) to add an onion service, tor won't run any onion services and no one will be able to connect to any of your local servers, so you're safe. Even ...
- 3,112
3
votes
Accepted
Why doesn't Tor browser block HTTP by default?
It's not enabled by default because it would block a significant fraction of the Internet for users. Blocking HTTP-only traffic will likely come in the future once Tor Browser is using a version of ...
- 3,112
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible