Web Anonymity: Tor Use More Than Doubles Since PRISM Revelations
In the wake of Edward Snowden’s PRISM-revealing NSA leak, web users concerned about online privacy have flocked to Tor – a heavily encrypted network that helps to cover their virtual tracks. The Tor network’s user base more than doubled in August, likely in reaction to the reports of widespread government spying.
“[Tor] had been humming along with an average base of around 500,000 directly connected users for most of the year,” said The Resister. But that started to change around mid-August, and the results were both sudden and dramatic. As of Wednesday, the Tor network was seeing more than 1,200,000 users connecting daily – a figure that topped the previous record of around 950,000 global daily users in January 2012.”
Tor, which is short for “The Onion Router,” was initially developed by the U.S. Navy as a tool for government officials, activists, journalists, and dissidents to conceal their online activity. In an ironic twist, the government-initiated service has become home to “deep web” sites like the illegal drug marketplaces Atlantis and Silk Road – as well as hosting popular file-sharing sites like The Pirate Bay. Compounding that irony is the fact that the U.S. government created Tor as a safety net for “whistleblowers” – but is now jailing and hunting them down.
While Tor can help to hide a user’s electronic fingerprints, the service isn’t completely anonymous. “Internet Service Providers are able to detect Tor usage on their networks and trace it back to the Internet user,” wrote The Daily Caller.
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