Re: Anonymity via Tor?

[Krymson () gmail com]

Tor is pretty nice, although it can be slow. I think using random web proxies open on the Internet (while questionably 
legal) is a better route (pun unintended). You can go a Google search for "free anonymous web proxies" and eventually 
find lists of them. Think of Tor as basically the same thing as using a web proxy, only instead of just one, you're 
going through 3 of them. You can get some pretty slow response times on websites that way.

Theoretically, there are some attacks that other replies may have posted links to that can attack your anonymity. The 
first involves owning the DNS server you send requests to, thus knowing where you're going (pretty exotic). The second 
involves owning multiple Tor servers and getting lucky in seeing your traffic end-to-end. The last server your 
connection goes through to hit your target server is particularly sensitive as that will be the server that, for 
instance, sends your clear-text data to the web site. If you logged into a banking site and I own that Tor server you 
exited out of, I can possibly inspect your data.

Now, Tor only provides you anonymity by obfuscating your IP address, but if you log into sites using your real name or 
something Googlable, you can still be tracked down.

As far as what else can be used with Tor, that can depend on what you are using Tor for. I think most people use it for 
web browsing. If you use Firefox, the Tor toggle plugin is really useful.

<- snip ->
Any thoughts on "Tor"? Is this a safe and effective way to achieve anonymity
while online? Is there anything better or what other tools should this be
combined with?