

Each of these nodes has registered with the Tor service as a Tor server. The browser has a pool of predefined Tor network nodes. How are the layers of the onion actually built and then peeled away? Suppose the user requests a particular URL by typing it into his Tor browser. Of course, the exit node is not the ultimate sender of the information, and so someone trying to snoop the traffic will mistakenly think the exit node is the originator and be foiled in his attempts to discover who actually did initiate the traffic. Once the data leaves the exit node, it will then journey the rest of the way toward its destination as if it had been sent from the exit node in the first place. All somebody snooping the traffic will see is the identity of the exit node. The original sender of the data packet is completely hidden, having been stored in a layer that has since been peeled off and thrown away. The point at which it leaves the network is called the Tor exit node. Once the layers are completely peeled away, the packet leaves the Tor network. These layers of encryption are peeled off the packet of data one by one as it traverses the Tor network. Tor is called “the onion router” because it routes a data packet through the Internet after first bundling it in layers of encryption. Why is it slow? It turns out that the tool is doing a lot of things behind the scenes. Surfing the web with Tor is reminiscent of surfing the web in 2001, or trying to visit sites in Internet Explorer instead of a good browser today. The tool is not for the impatient, however. If you know how to use a web browser (and surely you must, unless some odd but kind person printed this post and handed it to you on parchment or finely etched granite tablets), then you can use the Tor browser. All you have to do is download the Tor browser. In August, Tor usage more than doubled, and it is reasonable to think that concerns over the NSA’s efforts are to thank (or blame) for that. Tor, which is short for The Onion Router, is an example of an anonymizer, a web tool that hides the identity of people as they surf the web. One of the most popular alternatives is Tor.

Given heightened concerns over privacy online in the wake of disclosures this summer that the NSA has been operating a surveillance program that includes snooping on civilians, Internet users have flocked to solutions that promise increased security and privacy.
