With the invention of Wi-Fi, satellite internet, and portable hotspots, the internet is both more accessible and more vulnerable than ever before.ĭata can be intercepted or spied on in a growing variety of ways, especially if networks are not using proper encryption or have accidentally downloaded malware. The transmission lines that connect clients to servers come in a variety of forms, whether fiber-optic cables or Wi-Fi, but they are all connections. A device used to access this information, such as a smartphone or PC, is known as a client. Some PCs house the data stored on the internet, including webpages like Google, which are known as servers. At its most basic, it’s a series of connections between computers across great distances.

To understand how Tor can protect a user’s identity as they browse the internet, we need to discuss the internet. Perhaps ironically, the organization received the bulk of its funding from branches of the United States government for years, which still views Tor as a tool for fostering democracy in authoritarian states. Naval Research Lab in the 1990s, onion routers get their name from the onion-like layering technique that conceals information about user activity and location. Like many underground phenomena on the internet, it is poorly understood and shrouded in the sort of technological mysticism that people often ascribe to things like hacking or Bitcoin. In this climate of data gathering and privacy concerns, the Tor browser has become the subject of discussion and notoriety.

The onion router