Whois & Analysis for torproject.org

Rust (programming language).

Tor is free software for enabling anonymous communication.

The name is derived from an acronym for the original software project name "The Onion Router".

Tor directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer network consisting of more than seven thousand relays to conceal a user's location and usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis.

Using Tor makes it more difficult for Internet activity to be traced back to the user: this includes "visits to Web sites, online posts, instant messages, and other communication forms".

Tor's use is intended to protect the personal privacy of users, as well as their freedom and ability to conduct confidential communication by keeping their Internet activities from being monitored.

Anonymity, adjective "anonymous", is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness".

In colloquial use, "anonymous" is used to describe situations where the acting person's name is unknown.

Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity.

The important idea here is that a person be non-identifiable, unreachable, or untrackable.

Anonymity is seen as a technique, or a way of realizing, certain other values, such as privacy, or liberty.

Internet censorship is the control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet enacted by regulators, or on their own initiative.

Individuals and organizations may engage in self-censorship for moral, religious, or business reasons, to conform to societal norms, due to intimidation, or out of fear of legal or other consequences.

Surveillance (or) is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people for the purpose of influencing, managing, directing, or protecting them.

This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment (such as closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras), or interception of electronically transmitted information (such as Internet traffic or phone calls); and it can include simple, no- or relatively low-technology methods such as human intelligence agents and postal interception.

The word comes from a French phrase for "watching over" (sur means "from above" and veiller means "to watch"), and is in contrast to more recent developments such as sousveillance.

The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link devices worldwide.

It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies.

The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and peer-to-peer networks for file sharing.