EFF and TOR

Today, the U.S. and many other governments are in heavy-surveillance mode. Most of our telecommunications, including our online activities, are being monitored and cached. In a moderate case scenario, this information can be used to keep track of what we do online. The sites that we visit and the information that we view can all be monitored and cataloged. Since the U.S. Congress has given the President the authority (without checks and balances) to determine what is “legal,” the extreme case is one in which your online activity can be used to build a case against you, for whatever reason.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created TOR (The Onion Router) in order to give those who desire it absolute anonymity while surfing the Net. TOR works for most Net protocols (HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc) and is by far the best way to insure that free speech doesn’t become a quaint idea from a distant past.

For more information about the EFF and TOR, please visit http://tor.eff.org

For a no-nonsense explanation of Internet Anonymity and how TOR works, check out Episode #70 of the Security Now podcast with Leo Leporte and Steve Gibson.