- <p>Malicious governments often spy on their citizens to punish dissent or human rights activity. They commonly either
- operate the local ISPs or they can force them to disclose information showing every IP address that is visited
- by each user. Tor is designed to defeat this infringement of privacy by encrypting the traffic
- from a user’s device and routing it through three separate servers on the internet before sending it on to the final destination.
- This means that no individual ISP, server, or website, can know both the <a href="https://ipleak.net">IP address the user’s device</a>
- and the IP address of the final web server. Malicious governments and the ISPs they control cannot tell which
- web servers a user is accessing, although they can tell that the user is using Tor. In some parts of
- the world, using Tor could be construed as an evidence of illegal behavior (“if you didn’t have anything
- to hide you wouldn’t be encrypting your traffic”) and users could be punished because governments
- assume they are doing something that is prohibited. Thus, Tor can be helpful, but isn’t a panacea.</p>
+ <p>Malicious governments often spy on their citizens to punish dissent or human rights activity.
+ They commonly either operate the local ISPs or they can force them to disclose information showing every IP address that is visited by each user.
+ Tor is designed to defeat this infringement of privacy by encrypting the traffic from a user’s device and routing it through three separate servers on the internet
+ before sending it on to the final destination.
+ This means that no individual ISP, server, or website, can know both the <a href="https://ipleak.net">IP address the user’s device</a> and the IP address of the final web server.
+ Malicious governments and the ISPs they control cannot tell which web servers a user is accessing, although they can tell that the user is using Tor.
+ In some parts of the world, using Tor could be construed as an evidence of illegal behavior (“if you didn’t have anything to hide you wouldn’t be encrypting your traffic”)
+ and users could be punished because governments assume they are doing something that is prohibited. Thus, Tor can be helpful, but isn’t a panacea.</p>