How secure is the use of Tor?

[Comdrpopnfresh]

Is it safe to pay bills and make purchases using the project's 'tor browser' bundle?

 

[imagoon]

Tor isn't about security, it is about anonymity. The exit points can change pages at times, logging in to your bank can give away your information as well and reveal is full detail who you are.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

a route near me is dropping data, and I can't reach sites. I can if I use tor as a proxy. But I have to do holiday shopping- so I should wait for the problem to be resolved by the ISP?

 

[imagoon]

a route near me is dropping data, and I can't reach sites. I can if I use tor as a proxy. But I have to do holiday shopping- so I should wait for the problem to be resolved by the ISP?

I would, unless you have throw away credit card information. Otherwise you might be sending your card info over seas. Also some sites don't like the random exit node thing of tor and will get up set when you switch form say Asia to Iran exit nodes etc.

 

[drebo]

I would absolutely never, ever log in to any site while over the tor network. When on the tor network, you are bouncing around through uncountable proxies owned by people whose motives are unknowable.

It is about as insecure as it gets.

As stated, tor is not about security. It is about anonymity. Don't trust your banking information to strangers. Ever.

 

[Nebor]

JohnofSheffield, renowned British Special Operations Captain of the SAS , and frequent AT P&N visitor, says that the SAS use it for their secret transmissions all the time in Afghanistan, so you should be fine.

 

[imagoon]

JohnofSheffield, renowned British Special Operations Captain of the SAS , and frequent AT P&N visitor, says that the SAS use it for their secret transmissions all the time in Afghanistan, so you should be fine.

Encrypting a transmission, and sending it to "tormail" services is actually secure as long as both sides know the passwords. Not that much different than sending secure comms on a post card when only the 2 end points understand it. Putting your credit card in to websites and accessing your bank accounts, not so much.

 

[Nebor]

Encrypting a transmission, and sending it to "tormail" services is actually secure as long as both sides know the passwords. Not that much different than sending secure comms on a post card when only the 2 end points understand it. Putting your credit card in to websites and accessing your bank accounts, not so much.

It's not "secure" enough to transmit classified information on, by Western standards.

 

[BrightCandle]

You are bouncing around loads of nodes all the time on the internet and don't know the owner. Its unlike its some guys PC at home recording all traffic but its certainly possible. As long as a website is using a decent implementation of https (banks do!) then TOR is only marginally less secure with that data than a normal connection. Just make sure that https is up before you login to anything.

But if you are using it purely for a proxy then you may want to try an actual free socks proxy instead which wont bounce all your traffic through russia (say) instead just change the routing. There are plenty of free ones or you can pay someone for a high quality high bandwidth one.

 

[imagoon]

You are bouncing around loads of nodes all the time on the internet and don't know the owner. Its unlike its some guys PC at home recording all traffic but its certainly possible. As long as a website is using a decent implementation of https (banks do!) then TOR is only marginally less secure with that data than a normal connection. Just make sure that https is up before you login to anything.

But if you are using it purely for a proxy then you may want to try an actual free socks proxy instead which wont bounce all your traffic through russia (say) instead just change the routing. There are plenty of free ones or you can pay someone for a high quality high bandwidth one.

HTTPS can't be guaranteed over TOR, it is far to easy to MITM the protocol. The exit node is by far in the best position to compromise you. You need to be very careful with certificates at if you try it.

 

[imagoon]

It's not "secure" enough to transmit classified information on, by Western standards.

It makes sense since TOR is not "secure."