The Onion Router

The first thing that come in your mind while interacting with the word Tor is "dark web", isn't it? so in this article I am going to share details about Tor browser and why it is consider best for accessing dark web. So tor browser or The onion router is a modified version of Mozilla Firefox that connects to the internet using tor network. It is free and open-source software which provides anonymous communication. The core principle of Tor, Onion routing, was developed in the mid-1990s by United States. It?was developed for their military and other confidential stuffs. Then?in 2004 it was launched in?public domain. Almost everyone involved in developing Tor was (or is) funded by the US government.

As in?onion there are several layer inside layer one layer or onion is in contact of only two layer that immediate neighbour of it. Similarly in Tor there are several nodes, the packet bounce through several nodes before reaching its destination and the nodes are unaware of the ip address of the actual?user and actual destination one nodes only knows the ip address of the node through which it recived packet and to which it has to send that packet similary as in onion. When you are in Tor you replace normal internet with the Tor network. Tor network actually runs over a normal Internet but it replaces the direct connection between a user and a web server with a maze of encrypted connection between two.?

Tor is build in the foundation of cryptography to create anonymous communications. using concept called perfect froward secrecy. When we open tor browser the tor browser select the newtwork circuit for us it is random selected that will handle our communication for the session. When the circuit is built the torbrowser access and load a list of all the tor nodes currently available on the internet. There are currently 7000 metric site each of these are computer system whose owner have placed them at the service of the tor newtwork. It selects random nodes usually 3 that are used?to route traffic to its destination. We can also change the number of nodes used manually. But the more number of nodes we add the more delay our network will be.

Tor nodes are heart of tor network. No one is benifitd by using tor. There are 3 nodes Entry node, exit node and relay node. Entry node is the only node that knows the true identity of the tor user, but it doesn't know the final destination. So our ISP will only know that we have been using tor and for how long but will not know our browsing history. Exit node It communicates with the targeted system means the destination.?The node in between is known as relay node.

There is something for maintaning information that is known as directory server. It tracks when nodes appear and disappear, it quickly drops the unhealthy node when we open browser, it goes to one of the directory server to get the list of available nodes from there browser selects random 3 nodes for our session. There are two type of relay node on tor browser. Advertised node and unadvertised node or the Bridge node. Advertised nodes are the nodes which are listed in the tor directory server. Any one who querry about directory server can know about these nodes. Bridge node or unadvertise node are the relay nodes that are not listed in tor network. If government or ISP try to block connection by applying firewall rules these nodes help to bypass. There are 1000 unadvertised node.

Dark web

it is nothing but collection of websites that operate in a shadowy corner of the internet where they can be accessed using secure anonymized connections. This network of connections is called the tor newtwork. Tor browser had two side of anonymity, the user do not know the true IP address of hidden side and the sitesalso does not know user's IP address. Hidden site use special url known as onion address. Onion address is randomly generated alpha numeric address, that uniquely identifies the web server and takes the?place of a normal domain name.

While using Tor you should not log in using your personal account. Should not use plugin, should not download any file from tor browser for security purpose.

Concluding all Tor browser is not just for dark web but also for normal browsing with high anonymity.