Tor questions

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Anybody here ever use the tor browser? I've read about it and I want to see what is actually on that dark web I've heard of. Anybody got any advice or info?

It's all explained on its site. Tor isn't a browser, however; it's a program that routes any kind of Internet traffic so it follows an indirect path to the machine you're ultimately communicating with (e.g., a web server if you're browsing a website it hosts), preventing it from knowing where you are. Depending on what exactly you want to do, the setup can be quite complex, but I think there are bundles of Tor with a web browser that work out of the box. I know there is Orweb for Android.

Never been there on a Windows box, not sure I would want to...

Basic FAQ:
http://theanonymousinternet.tumblr.com/faq

Not a bad super basic guide here:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/ ... -internet/

Somewhere in that link it will link you to the modified Firefox browser download, which is here:
https://www.torproject.org/download/dow ... sy.html.en

And please do read the warnings:
https://www.torproject.org/download/dow ... en#warning

Once you are up and running and comfortable, hit the basic lists of .onion sites.
http://thehiddenwiki.org/

Yes I have. It's Mozilla Firefox... but everyone's IP and port is 127.0.0.1 and 9150 (the more people on, the more anonymous it is). It has been used by whistleblowers, journalists, government and a darker type of user (drug vendors, child exploitation photographers, etc.).

It can also be used in repressive regimes to avoid censorship and government spying.

Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to check it out. I didn't come across anything sinister. The worst thing I saw was a drug marketplace it had listings for any drug from A to Z. I stopped going on it because it got boring.

I advise you to not click links without knowing what you will be seeing. I recall there was a video on the deep web so disgusting that people who saw it required therapy.

Ah, yes; the U.S. presidential candidate debates...

(j/k ...sorta)

Which one(s)? What year?

Maybe the last 10-15 years & specifically the ones with both parties' top candidate(s). They've become staged events where the candidates get to determine the questions asked. As a voter, that's near useless to me.

We could always start a new thread, this is getting a bit OT...

Isn't that illegal?!

No.

Why not?

I think it's illegal to view some of the porn onion sites (pornography containing animals, children etc.). However, you can't be arrested for looking at a website. If it is illegal could you please cite, specifically, what laws one would be violating when looking at such websites.

Hint: None exist, so you won't be able to cite any.

Not at all; .onion sites are just ones that are part of the "dark" (encrypted) network. Because they are part of that network, however, you will find sites that cater to people who don't have much regard for various countries' copyright law, child protection laws, animal protection laws, religious laws, basic decency and kindness social rules, ethics, morals, etc. (I'm sure there are plenty of others). So, it depends on what sites you visit and what you view/download.

Also, depending on your operating system & browser, you also run the potentially very real risk of getting infected with malware, rootkits and keyloggers that will stay on your system to watch for any credit card numbers or passwords typed in so they can be sent to bad people.

Personally, I don't find .onions all that useful or interesting. Tor itself, as a protocol set and an experiment in transparent end-to-end network encryption on the other hand, is potentially where the entire Internet may end up someday so I do follow its development and progression.

I personally have no intention of ever visiting such a place, as they say - some things are better off left alone. I am however quite against encryption such as TOR for reasons being it is used by criminals to do some terrible things.

Believe what you want to believe but that's like being against technology because people can commit cybercrime using a computer. Or being against spoons because one can gouge another person eye's out using a spoon.

Tor is used for good things as well, more good things than bad things actually. That's just how the media represents Tor.

That was such a great way of countering that line of thinking that I do indeed have a hard time (only occasionally) believing that you are 12 years old! Such a nice rebuttal- similarly to what I wanted to say.