WIKILEAKS - and TOR the distributed network of relays run by volunteers

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Wikileaks relies on a networking technology called Tor, which obscures the source of uploaded data. While Tor doesn't encrypt the underlying data--that's up to the user--it does bounce the data through multiple nodes.

At each step, it encrypts the network address. The source of data can be traced to the last node (the so-called "exit node"), but that node won't bear any relationship to the original sender.

Ethan Zuckerman, cofounder of the blogging advocacy organization Global Voices, says he doubts investigators can crack Tor to find the computer from which the documents were originally sent. "There's been an enormous amount of research done on the security of the Tor network and on the basic security of encryption protocols," he says. "There are theoretical attacks on Tor that have been demonstrated to work in the lab, but no credible field reports of Tor being broken."

And while Tor's profile has been raised by its association with Wikileaks, Andrew Lewman, Tor's executive director, says he has no insights into the source of the purloined documents. "I don't know how Wikileaks got any of the information," he says. While Wikileaks gets technical help from Tor staffers, "they don't tell us anything, other than 'Did we set up the hidden service correctly?' which we'd answer for anyone," Lewman adds.

"People assume that Wikileaks is a Tor project, but I can tell you definitely there is no official relationship."

Lewman points out that many law-enforcement agencies, such as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, also use Tor to protect their operations.

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TORPROJECT.ORG

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.

Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world use Tor for a wide variety of reasons: journalists and bloggers, human rights workers, law enforcement officers, soldiers, corporations, citizens of repressive regimes, and just ordinary citizens. See the Who Uses Tor? page for examples of typical Tor users. See the overview page for a more detailed explanation of what Tor does, and why this diversity of users is important.

Tor doesn't magically encrypt all of your Internet activities, though. You should understand what Tor does and does not do for you.

Tor's security improves as its user base grows and as more people volunteer to run relays. (It isn't nearly as hard to set up as you might think, and can significantly enhance your own security.) If running a relay isn't for you, we need help with many other aspects of the project, and we need funds to continue making the Tor network faster and easier to use while maintaining good security.

Tor is a registered 501(c)(3) U.S. non-profit whose mission is to allow you to protect your Internet traffic from analysis. Please make a tax-deductible donation.

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