{"id":12414,"date":"2020-08-12T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T01:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=12414"},"modified":"2020-08-18T14:40:52","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T18:40:52","slug":"internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/","title":{"rendered":"Internet Anonymity: Why You Need The Tor Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How do you hide your real identity online? Is it easy to connect your online persona with your true identity? Is internet anonymity even possible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Internet anonymity is the concept of keeping what you do online private. With changes in technology, it is more of a theoretical concept than a realistic one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about internet anonymity and how the Tor Project browser may be a viable solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is Internet Anonymity Possible?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Internet made a lot of things both easier and harder at the same time. For example, if a CO couldn\u2019t find information about a target on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-cia-operations-technology-langley\/\">the CIA<\/a> databases,<strong> the CO would probably be able to find the target on the public Internet. However, on the public Internet, any search was trackable.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whenever you search something on the Internet, your request typically goes directly to the website you\u2019re aiming for. Your request is tagged with source and destination headers, which tell anyone who\u2019s looking where the request is going and where it came from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The CIA didn\u2019t have a good solution. Whenever a CO needed to search someone on the public Internet, they were supposed to contact the CIA and get them to do the search for them. The CIA would do so using a \u201cnonattributable research system,\u201d which involved setting up a front business that would have some legitimate reason to do the search. Setting up a front was a lot of work\u2014it needed a physical address, URL, website, and servers\u2014and if it wasn\u2019t done properly, the business could be traced back to the CIA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Tor Project Browser<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The best way to maintain anonymity on the Internet is to use the Tor Project.<\/strong> Tor works a little like the front business, but better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you request a website using Tor, your request doesn\u2019t go directly to the website you\u2019re aiming for. Instead, it goes through a chain of Tor servers. The servers are hosted by volunteers all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first server\u2014the gateway\u2014knows what your request is, but not where it\u2019s going. By the time your request eventually gets to the website you\u2019re looking for, it\u2019s source header is the last Tor server in the chain. As a result, the content of the request can never be connected to where it came from.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do you hide your real identity online? Is it easy to connect your online persona with your true identity? Is internet anonymity even possible? Internet anonymity is the concept of keeping what you do online private. With changes in technology, it is more of a theoretical concept than a realistic one. Read more about internet anonymity and how the Tor Project browser may be a viable solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-12414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","tag-permanent-record","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Internet Anonymity: Why You Need The Tor Project - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Internet anonymity is the concept of keeping what you do online private. It is difficult to be anonymous, but the Tor Project browser can help. Here&#039;s how.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Internet Anonymity: Why You Need The Tor Project\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Internet anonymity is the concept of keeping what you do online private. It is difficult to be anonymous, but the Tor Project browser can help. Here&#039;s how.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-08-13T01:50:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-18T18:40:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-internet-anonymity.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1330\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"741\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rina Shah\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287\"},\"headline\":\"Internet Anonymity: Why You Need The Tor Project\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-13T01:50:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-18T18:40:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/\"},\"wordCount\":403,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-internet-anonymity.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Permanent Record\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/\",\"name\":\"Internet Anonymity: Why You Need The Tor Project - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/internet-anonymity-the-tor-project-browser\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-internet-anonymity.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-13T01:50:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-18T18:40:52+00:00\",\"description\":\"Internet anonymity is the concept of keeping what you do online private. 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