Understanding TOR Project
The Tor project is a non-profit organisation that conducts research and development into online privacy and anonymity. It is designed to stop people – including government agencies and corporations – learning your location or tracking your browsing habits.
The original technology behind Tor was developed by the US navy and has received about 60% of its funding from the State Department and Department of Defense, although its other backers have included digital rights lobbyist the Electronic Frontier Foundation, journalism and community body Knight Foundation and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.
When it launched in 2002, the Tor project's emphasis was on protecting internet users' privacy from corporations rather than governments.
When users installed Tor software onto their computers, it would conceal their identity and network activity from anyone spying on their behavior. This was accomplished by separating the identification and routing information. The data is transmitted through multiple computers via a network of relays run by like-minded volunteers — almost like how users installed SETI software to look for extraterrestrial beings.
TOR BROWSER
Tor Browser lets you use Tor on Microsoft Windows, Apple MacOS, or GNU/Linux without needing to install any software. It can run off a USB flash drive, comes with a pre-configured web browser to protect your anonymity, and is self-contained (portable)
The Tor network runs through the computer servers of thousands of volunteers (over 4,500 at time of publishing) spread throughout the world. Your data is bundled into an encrypted packet when it enters the Tor network. Then, unlike the case with normal Internet connections, Tor strips away part of the packet's header, which is a part of the addressing information that could be used to learn things about the sender such as the operating system from which the message was sent.
Finally, Tor encrypts the rest of the addressing information, called the packet wrapper. Regular Internet connections don't do this.
The modified and encrypted data packet is then routed through many of these servers, called relays, on the way to its final destination.The roundabout way packets travel through the Tor network is akin to a person taking a roundabout path through a city to shake a pursuer.
Each relay decrypts only enough of the data packet wrapper to know which relay the data came from, and which relay to send it to next. The relay then rewraps the package in a new wrapper and sends it on.
The layers of encrypted address information used to anonymize data packets sent through Tor are reminiscent of an onion, hence the name. That way, a data packet's path through the Tor network cannot be fully traced.
Some regular Internet data packets are encrypted using a protocol called Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or its newer, stronger cousin Transport Layer Security (TLS). For example, if you submit your credit card information to an online store, that information travels across the network in an encrypted state to prevent theft.
However, even when you use SSL or TLS, it's still possible for others to intercept those packets and see the information's metadata — who sent that encrypted information and who received it — because the addressing wrappers in SSL or TLS are not encrypted. In Tor, they are, which hides the sender and receiver of a given transmission.
Further, if you use the Tor Browser to visit a website that does not use encryption to secure users' connections, then your data packet will not be encrypted when it makes the final hop from the last Tor relay to the website's server. That's because the data packet's destination lies outside the Tor network. So it's best to be sure that a website offers some kind of SSL or TLS encryption, usually denoted by an "https" instead of simply "http" in the Web address, before trying to access it anonymously.
With anonymized Internet usage, this opens up new opportunities for a variety of people, whether it’s for consumers who just want privacy, or for criminals, military personnel, activists and whistleblowers, businesses, journalists and more. Each of these groups has a specific mission to accomplish, but the end goal is the same — to do so with as little surveillance as possible.
Note: The website hosted on TOR can only be viewed on TOR only not on any other browsers also it is not a usual www link , A website Hosted on TOR will look like 'http://uhwiki36pbooodfj.onion'
Not only TOR Browser there projects include
- ORBOT - TOR for android
- ARM - Terminal for monitoring TOR
- ATLAS- Overview of TOR
- STEM - Library for scripting
- You have to download TOR bundle from there website TOR
- Install it like any other application , once installed open TOR
- click on connect wait for some times
- after connecting Tor browser will automatically open up .
Viola you're done .
For peoples still thinks opening a incognito windows is safe , I don't have any words
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