<commit_before># Introduction to Anonymous Communications Using Tor

*Tor* is a free, state-of-the-art, privacy-enhancing digital communications tool that evolved from work originally performed at the United States's Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in the mid 1990's. Today, its steward is the [Tor Project](https://torproject.org/), a US-based registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization that coordinates ongoing work by the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community on Tor itself along with its related software components, such as the *Tor Browser*. Tor's core privacy-enhancing feature is its implementation of an encrypted [*onion routing*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing) protocol that makes it possible to obscure the destination of a message from the message's intermediary handlers as well as simultaneously obscuring the source of the message from the recipient at the destination.

This ability to hide both the source and destination of messages makes Tor an invaluable tool in any privacy advocate's toolkit, since it enables both more anonymous online speech and far improved censorship circumvention efforts. After all, anonymity and censorship circumvention go hand-in-hand. If a censor does not know what information is being requested (because the destination is obscured), how can it know whether or not to perform any censorship? Similarly, if a server cannot determine who sent it a message (because the source is obscured), how can it make any discriminatory decisions based on that sender's identity?

While there are other privacy- and anonymity-enabling digital toolkits, the tools that the Tor Project is responsible for maintaining are arguably the most widely deployed and most rigorously tested by security researchers, academics, and cryptographers. This makes using Tor a good choice for many people who need or desire a safer, more private Internet, such as journalists, whistleblowers, activists, business people, and any privacy-conscious ordinary individual. In fact, Tor is famous both for [frustrating surveillance efforts](https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/04/tor-stinks-nsa-presentation-document) (even of very powerful entities such as the National Security Agency) and for its role in facilitating anonymous online interactions on the so-called "[*Dark Web*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_web)."

In this practice lab, you will learn how Tor can maximize your privacy while using the Internet. In the process, we will demystify frequently misrepresented terms (such as "Dark Web"!) and debunk numerous myths and misconceptions about what Tor is, how it works, and why it can be valuable for you even if you are not hunted by your government or other law enforcement agency. Although familiarity with some basic computer networking concepts will be helpful, we try to present the material herein in a way that people new to digital privacy can still benefit, such as by illuminating the fact that *how one uses Tor* is just as important as the technical underpinnings of *how Tor works*.

# Contents
<commit_msg>Link to list of "real-world" Onion sites.<commit_after># Introduction to Anonymous Communications Using Tor

*Tor* is a free, state-of-the-art, privacy-enhancing digital communications tool that evolved from work originally performed at the United States's Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in the mid 1990's. Today, its steward is the [Tor Project](https://torproject.org/), a US-based registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization that coordinates ongoing work by the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community on Tor itself along with its related software components, such as the *Tor Browser*. Tor's core privacy-enhancing feature is its implementation of an encrypted [*onion routing*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing) protocol that makes it possible to obscure the destination of a message from the message's intermediary handlers as well as simultaneously obscuring the source of the message from the recipient at the destination.

This ability to hide both the source and destination of messages makes Tor an invaluable tool in any privacy advocate's toolkit, since it enables both more anonymous online speech and far improved censorship circumvention efforts. After all, anonymity and censorship circumvention go hand-in-hand. If a censor does not know what information is being requested (because the destination is obscured), how can it know whether or not to perform any censorship? Similarly, if a server cannot determine who sent it a message (because the source is obscured), how can it make any discriminatory decisions based on that sender's identity?

While there are other privacy- and anonymity-enabling digital toolkits, the tools that the Tor Project is responsible for maintaining are arguably the most widely deployed and most rigorously tested by security researchers, academics, and cryptographers. This makes using Tor a good choice for many people who need or desire a safer, more private Internet, such as journalists, whistleblowers, activists, business people, and any privacy-conscious ordinary individual. In fact, Tor is famous both for [frustrating surveillance efforts](https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/04/tor-stinks-nsa-presentation-document) (even of very powerful entities such as the National Security Agency) and for its role in facilitating anonymous online interactions on the so-called "[*Dark Web*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_web)."

In this practice lab, you will learn how Tor can maximize your privacy while using the Internet. In the process, we will demystify frequently misrepresented terms (such as "Dark Web"!) and debunk numerous myths and misconceptions about what Tor is, how it works, and why [it can be valuable for you even if you are not hunted by your government or other law enforcement agency](https://github.com/alecmuffett/real-world-onion-sites "View a list of substantial, commercial-or-social-good mainstream websites which provide onion services."). Although familiarity with some basic computer networking concepts will be helpful, we try to present the material herein in a way that people new to digital privacy can still benefit, such as by illuminating the fact that *how one uses Tor* is just as important as the technical underpinnings of *how Tor works*.

# Contents

{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.048895157498824636, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004388026955022724, 'mean_word_length': 5.214216163583252, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 3, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 3, 'https://': 9, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 2, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
{'dir': 'git-commits-cleaned', 'id': '2774993', 'n_tokens_mistral': 1491, 'n_tokens_neox': 1365, 'n_words': 894}