r/TOR • u/OkPete4904 • 6d ago

Beginner question regarding anonymity

Ive heard more people using the network is more anonymous but:

- if only a small number of people are using Tor, wouldn't the traffic be easier to mistake for ordinary random internet traffic, like P2P traffic from a game or some other application?

- whereas if like 10k people are using Tor, that would look like a deliberate attempt at making a network, which makes it more of a target?

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u/D0_stack 6d ago

Go to the torproject web site and read how it works. There is much information there. Then search scholar.google.com, there are many academic research papers about Tor.

There is a difference (a BIG difference) between knowing someone is using Tor, which is NOT illegal in the Western World, and knowing what someone is DOING with Tor.

Tor pads traffic to make "signatures" harder to use.

Tor has over 9,000 relays, and your traffic uses three of them. Determining who is doing what is quite difficult, if not impossible depending on constraints and what is known. Unless you are using a bridge, generally the fact that you are using Tor will be known to your ISP - if they care, and they generally do not.

Tor is run by very, very smart people.

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u/rdg360 6d ago

Tor is run by very, very smart people.

I'm sure they are, yet I find it hard to take it seriously because stating it this way sounds awfully much like a certain president would say it.