TOR Browser traceability question?

[raina_vissora]

Not exactly.

On TOR, data is repeatedly encrypted and then sent through several network nodes called onion routers. Each onion router removes a layer of encryption to uncover routing instructions, and then sends the message to the next router where this is repeated. This prevents these intermediary nodes from knowing the origin, destination, and contents of the message.

A VPN, on the other hand, enables a computer to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if it were directly connected to the private network. Basically, it tells that internet that you're on one network, while you're really on another, and that's the extent of it's effects.

You can't backtrace someone on TOR (at least not easily), because no one router knows all the details of your request. Only one router knows where the traffic came from, and only one router knows where the traffic ultimately ended up... and there are several jumps in between those two points on the chain, all of which are encrypted.

Sure, you could try too backtrace someone on TOR... but it's not easy to do, and you may still come up empty-handed in the end, because the intermediary routers don't hold onto data indefinitely. You might trace something back a step or two, but the next step may have already purged the information by the time you get there so you can go back any farther.

Also @Captain, I wonder if you even bothered reading the article you linked to. It said absolutely nothing about TOR being "cracked". It said that the NSA had been exploiting a vulnerability in the FireFox browser (which has since been patched) that allowed them to track a small number of TOR users who were using compromised systems.