Tor. Information and download here.

[Peter Presland]

I have just started using Tor and I have to say it is impressive. Well worth using.

It is an impressive project - but it is undoubtedly seen as a serious threat to the SIS's and the Establishment in general. I therefore have no doubt they are beavering away at ways to harness it to their own purposes. I read an article recently (can't find it right now but will post if it turns up) which suggested a serious potential vulnerability. It had to do with the algorithms that determine the Tor exit nodes. They naturally are determined (among other things) by the destination of the traffic.

Briefly, Tor is plagued by restricted bandwidth on the majority of its volunteer nodes. If a node with copious unrestricted bandwidth is positioned in such a manner as to be available as an obvious potential exit node for a 'site of interest' then it turns out that a high proportion of traffic to that site will indeed exit the Tor network at said node. So naturally, the SIS's are busy providing vast bandwidth nodes to the Tor network and hoovering up everything that passes through them. Where the server is in fact the exit node for a piece of traffic then the originator of that piece of traffic is readable by the operator of the node.

I can envisage circumstances where, far from protecting a user, it actually delivers them into the hands of the authorities when normal use would have left them free and clear - except for historical evidence contained in logs of course.

Oh dear.