Is Tor any good?

[Reaper]

I've just installed Tor on my computer to use as a proxy, but I'm wondering if its any good.

 

I also want to know if it contains any malicious programs or spyware or something so that I can delete it before it does harm. I checked my virus scanner and so far it checks out.

 

Does anybody here have it, know what it is, knows if it is any good. It's free if you want to download it by the way.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

It's well-known and I doubt it has viruses in it.

 

There's really little point to using it as a proxy unless you're doing things on the Internet you don't want traced, however; it's quite a bit slower than a regular Internet connection. (Your traffic is routed through random "exit nodes" around the world, which tend to be slow because of the amount of traffic through them.)

[1veedo]

The program is open source if I remember correctly so there's no viruses or anything in it. It works really well but not enough people use it to do anything like p2p over it.

 

 

Side question: if you ran tor in sever external mode (whatever it's called, been a while sense I used it) could you claim deniability if the government thought you were doing something illegal? "No, I wasn't hax0ring, obviously I have this proxy set up and someone else was doing it, not me!"

[bascule]

The actually efficacy of a public onion routing network to provide anonymity is a subject of serious debate.

 

The basic principle behind the onion routing structure utilized by Tor is to use three "hops", i.e. proxy servers:

 

You -> [Entry Node] -> [Mix Node] -> [Exit Node] -> Intarweb

 

The Entry Node knows your IP address. The Exit Node shouldn't, but can if a malicious snooper controls both the entry and exit node.

 

Some students at the local University of Colorado have suggested that setting up networks of malicious Tor servers which advertise themselves as possessing high bandwidth can significantly improve the chances of controlling both nodes:

 

http://www.cs.colorado.edu/department/news/torfaq.html

 

Furthermore, merely controlling exit nodes lets you sniff traffic:

 

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/09/embassy_hacks?currentPage=1

 

9 colluding Tor exit routers were spotted in Washington, DC, carrying 11% of the Tor network's traffic:

 

http://cryptogon.com/?p=624