# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Tech Talk >  >  How secure is Tor?

## tommo

When using Tor, say for browsing websites, could people potentially find out who accessed it?
Realistically I mean.
Like if you hacked in to some huge corporations website they could probably track you down I would think.
But just generally if for some reason someone wanted to find out who you were, could they do it?  Or is it encrypted to a point where it's basically impossible?

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## Marvo

Tor is fairly secure. A personal secured VPN is better.

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## LikesToTrip

I'd never heard of Tor until now. It looks like its basically connecting a string of proxies together, how is this better than using just one online proxy? And how would a VPN help Marvo? Sure VPN Tunnels are extremely secure, but you can't use them to browse the internet... Mind elaborating?
And Tommo why do you need to make sure you're browsing anonymously?

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## tommo

Just wondering really.  I was just thinking that, if someone wanted to find out who was on the website or whatever, they could contact the person who's proxy you were using etc. etc.
Or, since your IP's are openly available for whoever is connected to a certain node, that list would probably be on the server too.

It's better than online proxies because online proxies usually don't do anything.  And if they do they aren't anonymous.  Or they are incredibly slow.  Or all of that.

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## Marvo

> I'd never heard of Tor until now. It looks like its basically connecting a string of proxies together, how is this better than using just one online proxy? And how would a VPN help Marvo? Sure VPN Tunnels are extremely secure, but you can't use them to browse the internet... Mind elaborating?
> And Tommo why do you need to make sure you're browsing anonymously?



You can easily connect to the internet through a VPN. What I was getting at, is that people who really want to find people (the government) probably have networks like Tor mapped out by now. Though it's tough to say.

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## LikesToTrip

> Just wondering really.  I was just thinking that, if someone wanted to find out who was on the website or whatever, they could contact the person who's proxy you were using etc. etc.



Couldn't they also contact Tor and get that information from them, if they are going to go that route?




> It's better than online proxies because online proxies usually don't do anything.  And if they do they aren't anonymous.  Or they are incredibly slow.  Or all of that.



I don't understand what you mean by, "they don't do anything." Connect to a proxy and go to whatsmyip.com and you'll see its the proxies IP, not yours. Sure they are slow, but it sounds like Tor would be even slower since it is adding multiple hops instead of just one.





> You can easily connect to the internet through a VPN. What I was getting at, is that people who really want to find people (the government) probably have networks like Tor mapped out by now. Though it's tough to say.



When you said VPN I was thinking of the basic idea of connecting to another LAN over the internet. Which would require you to have two separate networks set up, and since you owned them both it wouldn't help at all, hence my confusion. But then I googled and found this. So basically you pay somebody to connect to their network and connect to the internet through them. But if the government wanted to find you couldn't they just contact whichever service you are using and get your information from them?

I would think a proxy, Tor, or a personal VPN would protect you from the average hacker equally. But I don't see how any of them could protect you from a large corporation or the government.

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## Marvo

> Couldn't they also contact Tor and get that information from them, if they are going to go that route?
> I don't understand what you mean by, "they don't do anything." Connect to a proxy and go to whatsmyip.com and you'll see its the proxies IP, not yours. Sure they are slow, but it sounds like Tor would be even slower since it is adding multiple hops instead of just one.
> 
> 
> When you said VPN I was thinking of the basic idea of connecting to another LAN over the internet. Which would require you to have two separate networks set up, and since you owned them both it wouldn't help at all, hence my confusion. But then I googled and found this. So basically you pay somebody to connect to their network and connect to the internet through them. But if the government wanted to find you couldn't they just contact whichever service you are using and get your information from them?
> 
> I would think a proxy, Tor, or a personal VPN would protect you from the average hacker equally. But I don't see how any of them could protect you from a large corporation or the government.



Governments have limits, no matter how big they are. If your proxy is sitting in Sweden, and the government that wants to track you is in America, there isn't much they can do, at least not legally.

I suspect that a government could more easily trace you through something they already know a lot about, as opposed to something they've never encountered. But then again, Tor looks fairly secure.

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## LikesToTrip

> Governments have limits, no matter how big they are. If your proxy is sitting in Sweden, and the government that wants to track you is in America, there isn't much they can do, at least not legally.



That is a good point. However if they had a good reason I'm sure they could get other governments to cooperate. But if you are only breaking American laws and not the country's you are using as a proxy you could possibly be safe.




> I suspect that a government could more easily trace you through something they already know a lot about, as opposed to something they've never encountered. But then again, Tor looks fairly secure.



I highly doubt there is anything the government has yet to encounter....

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## tommo

Well apparently the U.S government made Tor and released it to the public so that they could get more nodes lol  I don't how true that is, my brother read it somewhere.





> That is a good point. However if they had a good reason I'm sure they could get other governments to cooperate. But if you are only breaking American laws and not the country's you are using as a proxy you could possibly be safe.



So basically, you would set up a Russian proxy lol

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## Marvo

> Well apparently the U.S government made Tor and released it to the public so that they could get more nodes lol  I don't how true that is, my brother read it somewhere.
> 
> 
> So basically, you would set up a Russian proxy lol



One in Russia that links to one in China to one in some African country. Should be fine. Expect 1kb/s.

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## LikesToTrip

> One in Russia that links to one in China to one in some African country. Should be fine. Expect 1kb/s.



 Africans don't have computers....

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## tommo

> One in Russia that links to one in China to one in some African country. Should be fine. Expect 1kb/s.



 lol, the Chinese government would probably get you then.

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