How Does Tor Work?
Tor, also known as “The Onion Router”, is a sophisticated anonymity network that makes it extremely difficult for anyone to trace back Internet activities to you, provided you’re using Tor. The network comprises of randomly selected relay servers distributed across the world, which route Internet traffic between entry and exit nodes. Tor uses at least three servers between the entry and exit nodes.
At any given point in time, the servers can see the IP of only the packets’ senders, and not that of the original source. For instance, in a three-server scenario, the first one sees your real IP, but not the content or destination. The second server sees the IP of the first one, and not the original source of traffic. Only the third server knows the traffic’s destination, but not the source IP of information sent.
How Tor Can Be Tracked
How Tor can be tracked? An ISP can tell when a user connects to a Tor network. Most of the servers accessed through Tor are on a publicly available list. The ISP can check the IP connecting to the list of websites including connections through Tor. Bridges are useful in circumventing this risk. They are relays that bounce off Internet traffic across multiple servers and architectures.
At the exit node, however, the ISP’s rules and policies apply. This means that ISPs can track Tor usage. They can see the date and time the service was used, the location of the last node, and the time spent on the network. Whoever controls the exit node has access to the traffic being transmitted over Tor.
Agencies such as the FBI and NSA could be monitoring or even owning one or more exit nodes. They can even mirror suspicious nodes diverting all illegal internet traffic to their own servers. This method may have been used to track down and capture the admin of Silk Road 2.0 by matching connection types, locations, and durations of time spent on darknet user accounts. It also sheds new insight on how tor can be tracked.
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
In a VPN, remote user typically connects to a VPN server, which acts as a proxy to connect to a desired website on the Internet. Thus, the web server of the website accessed communicates with and identifies the IP of the VPN server only, and not that of the remote client. A VPN also encrypts Internet traffic on transit and at server level. This locks out hackers, law enforcement and ISPs from accessing a user’s web traffic and tapping into private information.
You can enhance secrecy and privacy by combining a VPN and Tor. Thus, traffic moves from the remote node, through Tor, into a VPN, and exits into the Internet. In case your VPN crashes, your real IP is still concealed, as you’ll fall back to Tor. Similarly, using VPNs significantly reduces the number of approaches on how Tor can be tracked because the agencies cannot know users are on the network and this lowers the possibility of monitoring and logging internet activities.
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