| PackageDescription | anonymizing overlay network for TCP
Tor is a connection-based low-latency anonymous communication system.
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Clients choose a source-routed path through a set of relays, and
negotiate a "virtual circuit" through the network, in which each relay
knows its predecessor and successor, but no others. Traffic flowing
down the circuit is decrypted at each relay, which reveals the
downstream relay.
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Basically, Tor provides a distributed network of relays. Users bounce
their TCP streams (web traffic, ftp, ssh, etc) around the relays, and
recipients, observers, and even the relays themselves have difficulty
learning which users connected to which destinations.
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This package enables only a Tor client by default, but it can also be
configured as a relay and/or a hidden service easily.
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Client applications can use the Tor network by connecting to the local
socks proxy interface provided by your Tor instance. If the application
itself does not come with socks support, you can use a socks client
such as torsocks.
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Note that Tor does no protocol cleaning on application traffic. There
is a danger that application protocols and associated programs can be
induced to reveal information about the user. Tor depends on Torbutton
and similar protocol cleaners to solve this problem. For best
protection when web surfing, the Tor Project recommends that you use
the Tor Browser Bundle, a standalone tarball that includes static
builds of Tor, Torbutton, and a modified Firefox that is patched to fix
a variety of privacy bugs. |