TOR Proxy – Just How Anonymous is The Onion Routing Proxy?

Just what exactly is a TOR proxy? TOR is an acronym that stands for The Onion Routing program. TOR is supposed to secure information passed across the Internet from your computer.

I first learned of TOR when looking into an alleged December 16, 2013 Harvard bomb plot, supposedly carried out by Eldo Kim. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also known as the FBI claimed that Eldo Kim had used TOR proxy on his MAC book laptop. TOR is free software that is supposed to protect your identity.

I found this information alarming and a huge red flag. I found out that TOR was created by the United States Department of Defense in 1995. I decided to look into TOR further.

This free software was created by the Center for High Assurance Computer Systems of the United States Naval Research Laboratory. This security software was originally created with the United States Navy in mind. This software is supposed to keep your communications anonymous on ethernet networks up to a point of those data packets leaving Onion Routing.

Since allegedly Eldo Kim connected his MAC book pro to Harvard’s college wireless network, perhaps it was still possible for his data packets becoming sniffed so to speak. The Onion Router project claims that their software does not include a back door. Also, their software is open sourced.

What that means is that you could potentially look at this software’s code, line by line, to check to see if there is a back door present. Does TOR proxy really protect your identity or is even this software not one hundred percent fool proof? I do not have an answer to this question at this time.

However, I won’t be installing this software on any of my computers anytime soon, because the website AshleyMadison.com actually used The Onion Router, and was still hacked. MIT researchers were able to allegedly identify eighty eight percent of web sites in the TOR Network.