What is TOR? And it's relation to DEEP/DARK WEB.

OK, so last weekend, I had a business talk with 2 of my best buds. We went to a well-known buffet/hot pot restaurant, near our place. It was doing good, and we were talking about business as usual. Then comes the part where we talked about creating accounts and shit. And how to practically cover up your trace and all. So everyone was mentioning about going incognito (you know the typical answers), then I mentioned the importance of IP and how incognito doesn't change it at all and pretty much useless. So I was the one to suggest "TOR". And to my surprise, both of them didn't know what it is and how does it work. So it makes me wonder, if these guys, whom I know for so long, and whom I've known to be much "techie" than I am, doesn't know what TOR is then, I know that you need to read this article for sure. lol

So here's a quick intro about TOR.

Tor is a computer network that allows users to communicate with anonymity. It's not exactly like the dark web you know, but yes both of them are related very much. You can call TOR Deep Web 2.0 and it's the deepest level of Deep Web you can go to.

(DISCLAIMER: Don't ever go to Dark Web or DeepWeb without knowing the precautions first, otherwise you'll get hacked. You've been warned!)

Ok, so first things first. What is TOR?

TOR stands for The Onion Router. It's a free internet service, which allows you to browse the world wide web anonymously, similar to what VPNs do. TOR allows you to create a digital pathway between you and the website or server you want to visit by using other people's data packets. Normally, when you're connected to the internet, your data goes through different servers from the server that you want to get connected with. But with TOR, it directs your request through random nodes (or nodes are actually just relays) before hitting the target server or website. This process is called onion routing because you're sending the data through layers of encryption.

So, how does TOR work?

The way TOR works is quite complicated but what you need to know is that it uses the same concept as VPNs. When you want to visit any website with TOR, all your browser needs to do is get connected to a node and request a web page. The node will retrieve the data from another node and forward it to your browser. So basically, your internet traffic follows several paths before reaching its desired destination. You can choose whether or not you want your requests to be routed through random nodes or just directly (onion routing). TOR has over 11,000 relays running in the background.

What are the pros and cons of TOR?

So Tor has 1 big pro and 2 cons

Pros: using TOR can really protect your privacy, in several ways. One of them is that the random nodes act as a middle man between you and the server or website you want to search.

The second is that if you're using TOR to visit a censored website, then your ISP will not be able to track your internet traffic easily. It will be like surfing the normal open internet as if it's been opened up by VPNs (which is what VPNs are).

This leads to the second cons of using TOR

Cons: although there are millions of nodes, not all of them are active, at any one time. Therefore, searching through the vast ocean of nodes will take longer and you'd be vulnerable to attacks from hackers on your way.- It is very slow as compared to when you're connected to the internet normally with no VPN.

And finally, last but not least…

TOR can only be used for web surfing and nothing more. What I mean is that you can't use TOR for torrent downloads or streaming websites like Netflix or even YouTube that allows streaming on browsers. (This is because TOR only connects 2 computers/nodes in a "unidirectional" link. So it's not an open/shared connection.)

So how does TOR work with Darknet?

When you're on Deep Web, don't forget to add TOR in your browser settings. This will help you connect to Deep Web with no issues whatsoever at all. So when you go to a Darknet website, use TOR as well and everything will work fine just like normal. (This is because Darknet uses Virtual Private Networks and not OpenVPN or BitTorrent.)

So here are some links that can help you better understand TOR:- https://www.torproject.org/ - https://snowman.shadowbrokers.li/ - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tor+overview&t=h_&ia=web

So I hope this article has helped you guys answer a few questions about TOR. Let me know in the comments section below if you have any queries.

Hopefully, I could help you understand how Tor works and how it can protect your online privacy in many ways, just like a VPN would.

Let me know in the comments below if you want to know more about DEEP WEB or DARK WEB. I'll do my best to come up with an accurate article to provide info to those who are "lost", just like my 2 buds.

Image Reference:

• https://www.torproject.org/download/