Tor is not a 100% bulletproof guarantee, but it is infinitely better than not using it. Keep in mind people stake their lives on Tor every day, and darknet marketplaces flourish. Like all things it’s an evolving cat and mouse game. If you want to stay up to date with the happenings in the darknet I recommend taking a look at Dread (darknet reddit).
If you need the highest guarantees there are various things you can do to mitigate the risk including connecting via a network not connected to you at all, or to a TRUSTED ANONYMOUS (mullvad paid anonymously) VPN before tor, that way if your IP becomes known it is still a dead end. The latter is a complicated and controversial topic so I didn’t mention it in this post.
99% of people saying this don’t really know what they’re talking about and are just repeating stuff they heard, but it seems like a popular sentiment so I will look for some more resources to explain and put people’s minds at ease
The reality of the situation is unless you are a high value person of interest being specifically targeted you don’t need to worry much.
"Keep in mind that it is still possible for you to get deanonymized sometimes if you’re unlucky to have all 3 nodes ran by the same entity. So it is not perfect, but it is definitely many times more trustworthy than having to trust a centralised entity providing you with a VPN connection.
As we have discussed previously, sometimes Anonymity is the difference-maker between Life and Death, especially for Journalism in censorship-heavy countries, Tor’s main attraction is that De-anonymization attacks are made to be as expensive as possible, even for state-actors.
Some people argue that Tor can’t be trusted, but as we have discussed previously, Governments need to be able to know what happened (lack of Privacy), and once they know what happened, they need to know who did it (lack of Anonymity), in order to enforce their laws. When that is the case, how come is there still so many illegal marketplaces with years of uptime on the Tor network ? One thing is for sure, these marketplaces are very high on international authorities’ priority list. If they are still there after all this time, It must be because the Tor network is protecting them from being discovered by the authorities isn’t it?
Even though i don’t recommend to use Tor for any illegal purposes, the fact that these marketplaces have remained in activity for such a long time are a clear testament to the resiliency of the Tor network."
Tor is not a 100% bulletproof guarantee, but it is infinitely better than not using it. Keep in mind people stake their lives on Tor every day, and darknet marketplaces flourish. Like all things it’s an evolving cat and mouse game. If you want to stay up to date with the happenings in the darknet I recommend taking a look at Dread (darknet reddit).
http://dreadytofatroptsdj6io7l3xptbet6onoyno2yv7jicoxknyazubrad.onion/d/opsec/?sort=top&time=all
If you need the highest guarantees there are various things you can do to mitigate the risk including connecting via a network not connected to you at all, or to a TRUSTED ANONYMOUS (mullvad paid anonymously) VPN before tor, that way if your IP becomes known it is still a dead end. The latter is a complicated and controversial topic so I didn’t mention it in this post.
99% of people saying this don’t really know what they’re talking about and are just repeating stuff they heard, but it seems like a popular sentiment so I will look for some more resources to explain and put people’s minds at ease
The reality of the situation is unless you are a high value person of interest being specifically targeted you don’t need to worry much.
The main source of Anonymity: The Tor Network http://blog.nowherejezfoltodf4jiyl6r56jnzintap5vyjlia7fkirfsnfizflqd.onion/opsec/torvsvpns/index.html
Using Tor Safely: Tor through VPN or VPN through Tor? http://blog.nowherejezfoltodf4jiyl6r56jnzintap5vyjlia7fkirfsnfizflqd.onion/opsec/torthroughvpn/index.html
READ THESE UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND THEM!!!
https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Tunnels/Introduction
https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Tunnels/Connecting_to_a_VPN_before_Tor
Excerpt:
"Keep in mind that it is still possible for you to get deanonymized sometimes if you’re unlucky to have all 3 nodes ran by the same entity. So it is not perfect, but it is definitely many times more trustworthy than having to trust a centralised entity providing you with a VPN connection.
As we have discussed previously, sometimes Anonymity is the difference-maker between Life and Death, especially for Journalism in censorship-heavy countries, Tor’s main attraction is that De-anonymization attacks are made to be as expensive as possible, even for state-actors.
Some people argue that Tor can’t be trusted, but as we have discussed previously, Governments need to be able to know what happened (lack of Privacy), and once they know what happened, they need to know who did it (lack of Anonymity), in order to enforce their laws. When that is the case, how come is there still so many illegal marketplaces with years of uptime on the Tor network ? One thing is for sure, these marketplaces are very high on international authorities’ priority list. If they are still there after all this time, It must be because the Tor network is protecting them from being discovered by the authorities isn’t it?
Even though i don’t recommend to use Tor for any illegal purposes, the fact that these marketplaces have remained in activity for such a long time are a clear testament to the resiliency of the Tor network."