Tor onion site

Peeling back the layers of the onionThe Tor anonymity network receives no small amount of attention from the mainstream press – not least for its purported association with cybercrime and darknet drug dealings.But what is Tor? And how secure is it? The Daily Swig asked several security and privacy experts to answer all of your questions, and many more.What is Tor?Tor is an internet communication method for enabling online anonymity. The same term is commonly used to refer to both the anonymity network and the open source software that supports it.The Tor name derives from The Onion Router – the name of a pioneering privacy project run by the US Naval Research Lab.How does Tor work?Tor directs internet traffic through a network of thousands of relays, many of which are set up and maintained by volunteers.Messages are encapsulated in layers of encryption, comparable to the layers of an onion. Inside the Tor network are.onion sites, or ‘hidden services’.Tor facilitates anonymized browsing by allowing traffic to pass onto or through the network through nodes that only know the immediately preceding and following node in a relay.The source and destination of messages is obscured by encryption.Tor directs internet traffic through a network of thousands of relaysHow can I access Tor?The easiest way to access the Tor network is through the Tor Browser. The Tor Browser is automatically connected to the Tor network and will place krmpcc all your requests through it, while ensuring anonymity.In addition, the browser comes with an added functionality that improves your security and privacy by disabling JavaScript, automatic image, video loading and more.The Tor Browser bundle is developed by the Tor Project, a non-profit organisation that carries out research as well as maintaining the software used by the Tor anonymity network.The Tor Browser is currently available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. There’s also a version of Tor Browser for Android but not, as yet, an official version for iOS.What is Tor used for?The Tor Browser is just a web browser, and you can still view the ‘surface’ internet – or ‘clear web’ – using the software.However, the Tor Browser offers an extra level of privacy for normal web use or as a way to bypass government surveillance and censorship.Some sites on the so-called dark web can only be accessed using Tor.
Vince Warrington, managing director of Protective Intelligence, explained: “The dark web – primarily those sites that can only be accessed via Tor – is still generally the host to the illegal and illicit.“Whilst there are some legitimate sites (for example, the BBC now has a.onion version of the BBC News website) our research indicates that over 95% of.onion sites contain illegal or illicit material,” he added.Who uses Tor and why?While most people are only familiar with Tor’s use for illegal activities – such as accessing online markets that sell drugs – many other users access the Tor network.These include:JournalistsPolitical activistsThe US militaryLaw enforcementThose living in repressive regimesAnyone who does not want a third-party to observe their online activitiesTor uses vary from bypassing censorship and avoiding online spying and profiling, to disguising the origin of traffic and hiding sensitive communications.What expectation of anonymity can people have when they use Tor?Tor offers anonymity, but only up to a point.Those using the technology, and looking to keep their identity secret, also need to apply best practices in operational security (OpSec).Charity Wright, a cyber threat intelligence advisor at IntSights and former NSA Chinese espionage expert, explained: “Tor is a browser that can anonymize your network connection and your IP address that you are logging on from.“However, once you venture into illicit spaces, it is important to use pseudonyms and to hide your real name and never reveal your true location, nationality, or identifying pieces of information.“Any small clue can be used for people to find out who you are. Even more, federal agencies and law enforcement will use every detail about an online persona to find a wanted suspect,” she added.Tor is easily accessible via the Tor BrowserHow anonymous is Tor?Tor is aimed at providing anonymous communication, but there have been numerous examples of people whose identities have been unmasked despite using Tor.For example, The FBI recently closed a criminal case against the owner of Freedom Hosting, a dark web service that ran on the Tor network.In addition, several research projects have shown varying levels of successful attacks that either attempted to eavesdrop on Tor-encrypted traffic or identify users.Read more of the latest privacy news from The Daily SwigProtective Intelligence’s Warrington commented: “It’s a myth to think that using Tor (even with a VPN) gives you total anonymity. With the tools we are using nowadays we can slowly strip back the layers of anonymity to find out who is behind the computer.“By using specialist software combined with open source intelligence – basically searching the surface, deep, and dark web for small snippets of information – we can build up a picture of a Tor user who is involved in illegal activity.”The era where Tor was a thorn in the side of law enforcement seems to be coming to an end.Warrington explained: “In the UK, the police and intelligence agencies have access to these tools, and the only limitation on identifying users of the dark web is resources. There’s simply not enough police dedicated to these kinds of investigations.”What are the limitations of Tor, and how can these be overcome?Tor has its limitations. Maintaining online anonymity is much more far reaching an exercise than simply using Tor.Israel Barak, chief information security officer at Cybereason, told The Daily Swig: “Tor, at its core, only gives you network level anonymity. It won't help you with applications on your computer that retain your identity and provide your identity to the internet service providers.“As an example, when an individual connects to Gmail, the computer or device you are using saves your identity, so you don't have to log on in the future.“Tor will not protect your anonymity from this,” he warned.INSIGHT How to become a CISO – Your guide to climbing to the top of the enterprise security ladderWhile the Tor network is designed to keep browsing habits away from service providers or webpage trackers, the most privacy-conscious users can go even further.Boris Cipot, senior security engineer at Synopsys, added: “To achieve the highest level of anonymity, one would need to get rid of any installation of OS or software with tracking, thus allowing the user to enter the Tor network with a clean slate.“This can be achieved with the use of Tails or Qubes OS, which run from a USB stick. They run fully in memory, so it is safe to use on existing hardware, but once activated, there is no trace of you.”The Tails operating system can be combined with Tor to help improve users’ anonymity onlineWhy does Tor take so long to load sites?Using Tor to browse the web involves accepting trade-offs.The Tor Browser gives a user considerable anonymity advantages over other web browsers, such as Edge, Firefox, and Chrome.While standard browsers can leak data that goes a long way to identifying the user – even in ‘private’ mode – Tor was designed with anonymity in mind.RELATED Firefox and Chrome yet to fix privacy issue that leaks user searches to ISPsTor does, however, saddle the user some significant limitations when browsing the internet.For starters, browsing with Tor can be very slow, and so many people are unlikely to want to swap out their current browser.Sluggish traffic speeds arise because data packets take a circuitous route through Tor, bouncing between various volunteers’ computers to reach their destinations.Network latency is always going to be a problem in this scenario – even if you’re fortunate enough to avoid bottlenecks.Tor also makes websites look like they were built 20 years ago, as much of the presentation and customization content of websites is stripped away by Tor, since these technologies can be used to identify the computer that’s being used. What have software developers learned from Tor?Opinions among experts are split over whether or not Tor has done much to directly affect browser development, but at a minimum the technology has done a great deal to raise awareness about privacy.Chad Anderson, senior security researcher at DomainTools, commented: “I don’t know how much we can attribute back to modern browser improvements due to Tor, but I think privacy issues have certainly become more focused.“The browser shift to DNS-over-HTTPS, commonly called DoH, is a boost for user privacy and where DNS didn’t work over Tor before, and in fact was an attack vector for de-anonymizing users, DoH fixes that,” he added.RECOMMENDED A guide to DNS-over-HTTPS – how a new web protocol aims to protect your privacy onlineAnderson continued: “It used to be you could listen to traffic on a Tor exit node… but now that SSL is near ubiquitous thanks to free certificates [from the likes of Let’s Encrypt] that’s less of an issue.”Arthur Edelstein, senior product manager for Firefox Privacy and Security, gave The Daily Swig a list of projects involving collaborations between Mozilla and Tor:First-Party Isolation – This feature was developed jointly by Tor and Mozilla and is now fully integrated into Firefox, although currently disabled by default. It fully prevents users from being tracked across websites via cookies.Fingerprinting Resistance – Also developed jointly between Tor and Mozilla, when Fingerprinting Resistance is enabled in Firefox, it modifies the behavior of a large collection of browser features so they can’t be used to fingerprint users and track them across websites.Proxy bypass protection – Tor contributed a number of patches to Firefox to tighten up proxy usage, so that the browser doesn’t leak the user's IP address when a proxy is in use.How is Tor’s technology itself being further developed?Current examples of Tor’s development projects include proof-of-concept work on human-memorable names, a collaboration with SecureDrop, the open source whistleblowing system based on Tor, among other examples.Tor Project representative Al Smith told The Daily Swig: “Currently, we only partnered with Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), but we want to continue expanding the proof-of-concept with other media and public health organizations in the future.” In July 2021, the Tor Project released Tor Browser 10.5, a version of the browser that improves censorship circumvention for Tor users by "simplifying the connection flow, detecting censorship, and providing bridges"."Snowflake is now a default bridge option," a representative of the Tor Project explained. "Snowflake is a kind of pluggable transport allows volunteers to download a web extension on Firefox or Chrome and easily run an anti-censorship proxy (aka "bridge")". How is the Tor Project coping with the coronavirus pandemic?The Tor Project was recently obliged to lay off a third of its core staff in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Daily Swig asked how the non-profit has sought to minimize the effect of this on development pipelines. A representative of the Tor Project responded: “Because we are now a smaller organization, we are creating more projects where different teams (e.g., Browser, Network, UX, Community, Anti-Censorship) come together and work on the same issue, instead of working in isolated groups on disparate pieces of work.“This is the approach we took to improve onion services for the Tor Browser 9.5 release,” they added.Is Tor safe?Despite the many and varied caveats about Tor the security experts we spoke to raised, none made any suggestion that the technology was ‘unsafe’.In a typical response, Charles Ragland, a security engineer at threat intel agency Digital Shadows, explained: “Generally speaking, as long as security updates are in place, and users are following privacy and anonymity best practices, yes, Tor is safe to use.”INTERVIEW Shodan founder John Matherly on IoT security, dual-purpose hacking tools, and information overload

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ISPs (Internet Service Providers), guest Wi-Fi providers, and visited sites that may be watching their Internet connection or even tracking and collecting IP addresses, a device’s Internet identifier.We are, and always have been, hugely thankful for the work and mission that the Tor team brings to the world. To continue our support, we wanted to make our website and browser download accessible to Tor users by creating Tor onion services for Brave websites. These services are a way to protect users’ metadata, such as their real location, and enhance the security of our already-encrypted traffic. This was desired for a few reasons, foremost of which was to be able to reach users who could be in a situation where learning about and retrieving Brave browser is problematic.We’ll go through the process of creating this setup, which you should be able to use to create your own onion service.To start the process we ‘mined’ the address using a piece of software called a miner: I chose Scallion due to Linux support and GPU acceleration. Mining is the computationally expensive process of creating a private key to prove a claim on an onion address with a desired string. Onion (v2) addresses are 16 character strings consisting of a-z and 2-7. They end in .onion, and traffic to .onion domains does not exit the Tor network. V3 addresses are a longer, more secure address which will provide stronger cryptography, which we will soon migrate to.In our case we wanted a string that started with ‘brave’ followed by a number. A six-character prefix only takes around 15 minutes when mined on a relatively powerful GPU (we used a GTX1080). The end result is a .onion address and a private key that allows us to advertise we are ready and able to receive traffic sent to this address. This is routed through a ‘tor’ daemon with some specific options.After we mined our onion address we loaded it up in EOTK. The Enterprise Onion Toolkit is a piece of software that simplifies setting up a Tor daemon and OpenResty (a Lua-configurable nginx-based) web server to proxy traffic to non-onion web servers. In our case we are proxying traffic to brave.com domains. One last piece was required to complete the setup: a valid SSL certificate.Without the certificate, upon starting  EOTK for the first time, you’ll find that many web assets don’t load. This is due to using a self-signed SSL certificate. For some, this is acceptable. Many onion users are accustomed to seeing self-signed certificate warnings, however for the best experience a legitimate certificate from a CA is necessary. For now, the only certificate authority issuing certificates for .onion addresses is DigiCert. They provide EV certificates for .onion addresses including SANs, with the exciting addition of wildcard SANs, which are otherwise not allowed in an EV certificate!Generating a private key and certificate signing request is done in the standard way with OpenSSL. For more information about how this is done see documentation here. An example of a CSR configuration file is shown below:One snag was that the process of proving you own the address requires a few different steps of validation. One is the traditional EV due diligence of contacting a representative of the organization that is on-file with DigiCert. Another is a practical demonstration, either of a DNS TXT record or a HTTP request to a well-known URL path. Since the onion addresses don’t have the concept of DNS, TXT validation will be impossible. That leaves the only remaining option as the HTTP practical demonstration. The demonstration involves requesting a challenge from DigiCert, at which point they will send you a short string and a path that they need to see the string served at.You then start a web server listening on that address on port 80 (non-SSL). They will send a GET request for that path. If they are able to successfully fetch the string, they know that you are in control of the address. Sadly, when I performed this song and dance with DigiCert the request did not work for 2 reasons. One was that EOTK was redirecting all of the non-SSL traffic to the SSL listener. The request failed since we were still running an EOTK-generated self-signed certificate. EOTK has a feature to serve short strings such as those required for this process using the “hardcoded_endpoint_csv” configuration option, but unfortunately it did not work due to the SSL redirect. I was able to modify the OpenResty configuration to move the configuration block responsible to the port-80 server section.After consulting with the author, I was told that the “force_http” EOTK option will fix this. Another problem is that DigiCert’s automated validator evidently cannot route Tor traffic since requests still failed. Opening a chat session with a DigiCert rep solved this problem quickly though, especially after pointing out that DNS TXT validation is not possible, and providing a link to the .onion blog post referenced earlier.We had to reissue certificates a few times (requiring more rounds of human validation for the EV cert requirements) in order to add some SAN wildcard subjects for our various subdomains (for example *.brave.com will not match example.s3.brave.com). One thing to note here is that even if you update the SAN subjects in your CSR, this will not add them to the reissued cert. They must be added through DigiCert’s web interface, and it can be easy to miss.Once we had our certificate we fed this into EOTK and found that web pages started appearing correctly, and that downloads worked without receiving a certificate error! This was a very satisfying milestone and let me know that we were almost done.EOTK does some string manipulation to rewrite URLs and some text on the pages so that they refer to the .onion addresses (example: a link to “brave.com/blog” becomes “brave5t5rjjg3s6k.onion/blog”). This is mostly desirable, although some strings should be preserved. For example we have several email addresses listed on brave.com such as [email protected]. This was being rewritten as [email protected]. Since we don’t (yet) run an email server as an onion service these email addresses won’t work, thus they should be preserved as [email protected]. EOTK has a “preserve_csv” option to maintain these static strings.Another suggestion is to include an Onion-Location response header on your web site, which points to your onion address. This hints at the user and their browser that the site is also available as an Onion service, and that they can visit that site if they so choose.Of course this novel daemon setup needed to run *somewhere*. In accordance with our standard devops practices at Brave, we wrote infrastructure-as-code using Terraform to deploy and maintain this. It is currently deployed in AWS EC2 with private keys secured in AWS SSM and loaded on boot. In a future iteration of the code we’d like to implement OnionBalance so that we can provide more redundancy and scalability to our onion services.Hopefully this post has taught you how we’ve been able to set this up at Brave, and how you can replicate our success to run an onion service for yourself. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected], or on Twitter at @bkero.I’d like to thank Alec Muffett, the author of EOTK, for his invaluable assistance in helping me overcome all the challenges related to setting this up, and for encouraging me to do things the harder but more correct way. I’d also like to thank Kenyon Abbott at DigiCert for his assistance in helping with the process of issuing and re-issuing the certificate and enduring the multiple iterations necessary to get our certificate working.

Pijus Jauniškis in Entertainment2022, January 26 · 7 min readWhat to know before exploring dark web linksBefore you start, let’s go through your dark web checklist real quick:You need a Tor browser. Luckily for you, The Tor Project (they maintain the network’s technological base) has one ready to download.Be careful. Keep in mind that the anonymity of the Tor network makes it a haven for criminals and hackers. A few things to keep in mind:You have to be careful when entering any dark web link. Before entering the Tor network, shut down most other programs or apps. Download and use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) for added security. Don’t forget there are hidden pages. Surfing Tor isn’t easy. Aside from being isolated from the everyday internet, most of the Tor network isn’t indexed, rendering it invisible to search engines. In essence, the network is populated by hidden websites. Yes, search engines exist on Tor, but their reliability is questionable. DataProt, a website dedicated to advising on cybersecurity, has a great looking infographic explaining how Tor works. Tor sometimes has websites made exclusively for the network. These usually come as onion links with the “.onion” domain. To find the best dark web links on Tor, you have to use a website list – just like the one below. Here are ten cool dark web links to paste into your Tor browser today!The Hidden Wiki is usually presented as your one-stop-shop for dark web links. That’s not the case. Many of the links present in The Hidden Wiki are of dubious (if not criminal) nature. Many more don’t work. As far as resources go, it’s somewhat useless. Which is why we recommend Daniel.Daniel’s website lists 7,000 .onion addresses. They are separated into several categories to make browsing easier. Moreover, Daniel’s site has an in-built test functionality. This means you can have the website check if any given Tor website is online. The list shows the last time a website was checked and whether it was online. This makes Daniel’s website an excellent first step in exploring Tor.ProPublica is an investigative journalism outfit. Their 2016 reporting on sexual abuse won the Pulitzer Prize that year. ProPublica is accessible on the “clearnet” – that is, the regular internet you’re using right now. Yet it also maintains a Tor website. Accessing it via a Tor browser gives you a layer of anonymity and security, as well as allows you to bypass country blocks. As a bonus, ProPublica is one of the most polished web experiences you’ll have on the dark web. It’s also not the only one to have a dark web link: you can also use Tor to read The New York Times and other news sites or use their SecureDrop integration for whistleblowing purposes.3. Ahmia – for those who want a Tor search engine http://msydqstlz2kzerdg.onion I still maintain that going into Tor without having dark web links already in your hand is a fool’s errand. But some people insist on search engines, and several Tor engines do exist. I’m going to recommend Ahmia. While it’s hard to tell which engine works the best, Ahmia presents itself as a hidden service search engine, and that’s what it does. It also works to remove child abuse content from their search results, which is both the morally right thing to do and a good service for those who want to trawl the dark web.4. DuckDuckGo – search the clearnet securely and without trackinghttps://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion Google collects a lot of your information. Its search results tend to be biased. DuckDuckGo, however, was built on the idea of not collecting user data. The results that this search engine shows you are always neutral. It’s similar to the Surfshark Search feature offered by Surfshark. You’re most likely to find DuckDuckGo useful outside of the dark web. Indeed, it doesn’t search for Tor websites. This is a bit of a bummer since the popular Tor search engines are all ugly and uncomfortable to use. DuckDuckGo has a presentation similar to Google. And unlike the Tor search engines, it won’t lead you to quite so many illegal websites after a simple search.5. Riseup – tools for activists and organizershttp://nzh3fv6jc6jskki3.onionRiseup provides email and chat services that keep no records of your activity. It is also protected from malicious attacks. It also has no intention of cooperating with any government – unlike, say, Google. Riseup supports the causes of “human liberation, the ethical treatment of animals, and ecological sustainability.” That’s why Riseup also provides organizational tools, mailing lists, and more. However, knowing the dark web link isn’t enough – you need an invitation code to create a Riseup account. But you can still browse the security section! It has excellent tips on how to add a dash of information security to your daily life.6. Hidden Answers – ask what you want in anonymityhttp://answerszuvs3gg2l64e6hmnryudl5zg
rmwm3vh65hzszdghblddvfiqd.onion Hidden Answers is one of those dark web links that keep making their way onto these lists. The reason for that is simple. Hidden Answers is the dark web version of Quora, Yahoo Answers, and Reddit. Once you access the site, you’ll soon notice that the questions on Hidden Answers touch upon a variety of topics. When people have the ultimate anonymity the internet can offer, they still ask where your nickname comes from – or would you have your head cryo-frozen after death.7. Tor Metrics – explore the statistics of the dark webhttp://rougmnvswfsmd4dq.onion The dark web is a curious subject: it’s not that easy to use, and it seems to be popular among shady people. But what if we put all that activity into numbers?Tor Metrics is the website that measures who and where uses the network. Surprisingly enough, about 20% of daily users come from Russia. The US is in second place, with around 18% of the share. Aside from revealing just how widely not-used Tor is (data suggests barely more than 1.5 million daily users), you can also see the scope of the network. Metrics record slightly more than 60,000 unique .onion addresses.We already established that many of the dark web links you find on link aggregators are offline. Thus, it paints a picture of the tiny world of Tor websites.8. ZeroBin – the secure way to share your pasteshttp://zerobinqmdqd236y.onion Just like clearnet, Tor has its utility websites. ZeroBin is one of them. If you use the Tor network regularly, you will want a way to share stuff with your dark web friends. ZeroBin allows you to do that with complete safety and privacy. One of its selling points is that even ZeroBin servers don’t know what you pasted. The data encryption takes place on your browser before it goes to the server. Options for sharing include password protection. And, of course, the pastes will be deleted sometime later.9a. Imperial Library – the fun dark web libraryhttp://xfmro77i3lixucja.onion Tor website lists like to harp about Sci-Hub. They miss two vital points: it’s down (at the time of writing), and a clearnet version exists – you don’t need Tor to use it.Sci-Hub is mostly useful for academic types who know the PMID, DOI, or URLs of papers they want to access. At the same time, websites like the Imperial Library of Trantor store stuff that’s interesting to the broader public. Imperial Library is a public depository of scanned books. As a bonus, it’s administered by a guy with a Riseup email address. To date, nearly four hundred thousand books have been uploaded.9b. Comic Book Library – reading comics but on the dark webhttp://r6rfy5zlifbsiiym.onion  Interested in comic books instead? There’s also the Comic Book Library, with entries dating back to the 1930s. Of course, like any such effort, the scans are of dubious legality.10. Tunnels – explore the literal university undergroundhttp://62gs2n5ydnyffzfy.onion http://74ypjqjwf6oejmax.onion  And for the end, a slice of something completely different. Some of the more famous Tor websites are about exploring the tunnels in American universities.Infrastructure like that is both dangerous and illegal to access. That’s why urban explorers hosted their blogs on Tor. It also helps that said universities are heavily tech-related. IIT Underground – focused on Illinois Tech – is the smaller of the blogs. Beneath VT – that’s Virginia Tech – is more prominent. It provides more details on the tunnels as well as the dangers associated with them.The websites are a step above the usual Tor website design, too. They still look like something from the early aughts, though.The threats lurking in the dark webThe dark web is the Wild West of the internet – exciting to explore but can also be dangerous. Here are some threats you might run into:Scams. Since most of the websites are non-indexed and unregulated, the probability of running into scams is much greater. This is especially true if you’re trying to purchase anything illegal or questionable. Why? Because “Excuse me, officer, but the drugs I ordered on the dark web were never delivered to me” is a poor alibi. And even if you’re getting something that’s not illegal, there’s no reason for a vendor to ever remain in the dark web. In short, it’s bad for traffic and sales.Malicious software. Keyloggers, ransomware, phishing malware, and other types of malicious software are more common on the dark web. This happens because there are fewer rules for website quality. They often come with poor encryption standards (http) and get universally marked as suspicious by normal browsers. Simply visiting a website like that could get you into trouble with malware.Government monitoring. Sadly, the same goes for many Tor-based websites. Anything illegal or deemed potentially harmful by your local government is usually closely monitored. Simply visiting such a website could get you into trouble with authorities.That’s why, even if you use The Onion Router, it’s a good idea to use Tor over a VPN.Beef up your internet privacy even moreSo if you want to experience the dark web, these Tor websites are a good starting point. But you should be aware of the security dangers involved in using the Tor network.The fact that you’re using Tor is not hidden from your ISP’s (Internet Service Provider) records. Keep your Tor browsing a secret by using Surfshark (it’s called Tor over VPN)! If necessary, it can even hide the fact that you’re using a VPN.Secure your data with a VPNBrowse the dark web privatelyGet Surfshark!Written byPijus JauniškisA privacy worrier with a knack for translating tech stuff into human languageRate and share this articleHand picked related articlesHow to use Tor, and is it safe to access the dark web?Aistė Jokšaitė in Cybersecurity, Internet Security2022, March 9 · 10 min readUsing Tor over a VPN: What, why and how?Pijus Jauniškis in VPN, Must-knows2021, January 6 · 7 min read