TOR
Onion routing (Syverson) is an anonymous communication technique used to anonymize network traffic. Messages are encrypted recursively and sent to multiple network nodes or onion routers; each router decrypts one layer of the message and passes it on to the next router. This prevents the transport medium to find out who you are; the network does know that onion communication is taking place.
Figure 1: An example "Onion", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Onion_diagram.svg
An onion is a data structure that is formed by wrapping a plaintext message with successive layers of encryption, such that each layer can be unwrapped or decrypted like the layers of an onion. The plaintext message is only viewable by the sender, exit node, recipient. This can be extended to end to end encryption so that the last intermediary cannot also view the message.
TOR (Roger Dingledine) is a circuit based low-latency anonymous communication service. TOR is now in its second generation and was developed from the Onion routing program. The routing system can run on several operating systems and protect the anonymity of the user. The latest TOR version supports perfect forward secrecy, congestion control, directory servers, integrity checking and configurable exit policies. Tor is essentially a distributed overlay network which works on the application layer of the TCP protocol. It essentially anonymizes all TCP-based applications like web-browsing, SSH, instant messaging. Using TOR can protect against common form of Internet surveillance known as “traffic analysis” (Electronic Frontier Foundation). Knowing the source and destination of your internet traffic allows others to track your behavior and interests. An IP packet has a header and a dat...
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...n also use TOR to communicate more safely with whistleblowers and dissidents. TOR is also used by people in countries like China to access content blocked by the government.
Works Cited
Electronic Frontier Foundation. TOR Overview. n.d. 9 May 2014 .
Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson, Paul Syverson. Tor: The Second-Generation Onion Router. Washington DC: Naval Research Lab, 2004.
Syverson, Paul. Onion Routing. 2005. 9 May 2014 .
Loesing, Karsten, Steven J. Murdoch, and Roger Dingledine. A case study on measuring statistical data in the tor anonymity network." Financial Cryptography and Data Security. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2010. 203-215.
Murdoch, Steven J., and George Danezis. Low-cost traffic analysis of Tor. Security and Privacy, 2005 IEEE Symposium on. IEEE, 2005.
“The Onion Field” directed by Harold Becker is a true story, set in the 1960’s, about two men named Greg Powell (James Woods) and Jimmy Smith (Franklyn Seales) who meet through a mutual friend. The two men become close and soon become business partners. They go around together robbing places such as stores to get money. On one excursion to gain some money, they are stopped by two Los Angeles Department police officers named Karl Hettinger (John Savage) and Ian Campbell (Ted Danson). When Campbell asks Powell to step out of the car, he grabs him and puts a gun to his back, pushing him around to the other side of the car. Powell forces the other officer, Hettinger, to hand over his gun to Smith. Without a choice he does so. Powell and Smith take the officers prisoner and drive them out to a middle of nowhere onion field in Bakersfield, California. Powell ends up shooting Campbell once in the mouth, but not before mentioning the Lindbergh Law. He later shoots him four more times while Smith shoots at Hettinger who has escaped. After Smith escapes with the car, Powell is arrested and blames the shooting on Smith. Over several years an investigation and trial goes on to find out the true events of that night. Both men are sentenced to the gas chamber and wait for their time in prison. In the meantime, Hettinger is suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as depression and keeps having nightmares about what occurred that night. He loses his jobs and begins stealing as a coping mechanism. After some time, Powell and Smith get a re-trial and are sentenced to life. After the trial, Hettinger is offered a job in Bakersfield, near the onion field. He and his family move out there. Eventually he learns to deal with the...
There is considerable utilitarian value in extending privacy rights to the Internet. The fear that communication is being monitored by a third party inevitably leads to inefficiency, because individuals feel a need to find loopholes in the surveillance. For instance, if the public does not feel comfortable with communica...
Since the internet's inception in China, regulations have been in place in order to protect “state secrets”. The first such law was the “Safety and Protection Regulations for Computer Information Systems”1 put into place in 1994. This law opened the door for monitoring of Internet usage for criminal and other activities. In 1997, the “Computer Information Network and Internet Security, Protection and Management Regulations” strengthened the monitoring by requiring all Internet Service Providers in China to turn over monthly Internet traffic data to government’s Public Security Bureau. The new millennium ushe...
Edward Snowden is America’s most recent controversial figure. People can’t decide if he is their hero or traitor. Nevertheless, his leaks on the U.S. government surveillance program, PRISM, demand an explanation. Many American citizens have been enraged by the thought of the government tracing their telecommunication systems. According to factbrowser.com 54% of internet users would rather have more online privacy, even at the risk of security (Facts Tagged with Privacy). They say it is an infringement on their privacy rights of the constitution. However, some of them don’t mind; they believe it will help thwart the acts of terrorists. Both sides make a good point, but the inevitable future is one where the government is adapting as technology is changing. In order for us to continue living in the new digital decade, we must accept the government’s ability to surveil us.
"Internet Privacy." Congressional Quarterly Researcher 8.41 ( Nov. 6, 1998 ). Busse Library, Cedar Rapids . 6 July 2003 <http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher>
Once you have a program like Tor installed, you first have to locate a site, or “hidden service directories” (Fripp), that serves the need of what you are looking for. An example site looks something like this: http://kpvz7ki2v5agwt35.onion. These links are inaccessible by regular browsers, like Firefox or Chrome because they cannot parse these links – mainly to the fact that .onion is not a top-level domain that is not recognized by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The site posted links to a directory of sites called “The Hidden Wiki.” It contains a menagerie of deep ...
allow almost anyone access to the internet virtually anonymously and untraceably. The cyber investigator can attempt to obtain the IP address, which would lead investigators to the actual computer used to commit a crime. (Walker, Brock, & Stuart, 2006) However, when that computer is in a net café, with literally hundreds of potential users, finding the one person who committed the crime just becomes infinitely more difficult to achieve because the criminal knows that there are open ports to gain free unlimited access to the internet.
Part of the allure of the Internet has always been the anonymity it offers its users. As the Internet has grown however, causing capitalists and governments to enter the picture, the old rules are changing fast. E-commerce firms employ the latest technologies to track minute details on customer behavior. The FBI's Carnivore email-tracking system is being increasingly used to infringe on the privacy of netizens. Corporations now monitor their employees' web and email usage. In addition to these privacy infringements, Internet users are also having their use censored, as governments, corporations, and other institutions block access to certain sites. However, as technology can be used to wage war on personal freedoms, it can also be employed in the fight against censorship and invasion of privacy.
A. A. IP Cameras Keep Watching. PC World 30.10 (2012): 42. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. The Web.
Internet VPN is a solution that utilizes a shared infrastructure in a way that provides you high performance and strong security. Internet VPN offers you the benefits of a private network (security, controlled performance) with the advantages of public networks (flexibility, scalability, redundancy, load sharing, performance, and lower costs).
Terrorism is a growing threat in modern times. Ultimately all activities need co-ordination and such co-ordination is facilitated by communication. Terrorist activities need communication as well as any other activity. In order to avoid getting traced, such communication can be done over secure lines on open public networks or hacked private networks.
[3] B. Thuraisingham. Data mining, national security, privacy and civil liberties. In ACM SIGKDD Explorations, Volume 4 Issue 2, page 1-5. New York, 2002.
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