This is roughly how regular Internet traffic works. It has my address right there on the package. Once my friend gets the package they can send it back because it’s not anonymous.

If I want to send a package to a friend, the simplest way to do that is to put my return address (IP address) on the package and ship it. Well let’s simplify things and instead compare out internet traffic to a package sent in the mail. Data sent from the exit node to the target server and cannot be traced back to the user because the exit node appears to be the origin of the traffic.īut what does all this technical jargon mean and how does it work?

The exit node will know who the target server is but not the user’s original IP address. Each middle node will only ever know the IP address of the previous node, and the next node, so they do not know any information about the user’s IP address or the target server. The entry node will know the IP address of the user but will not know what target server they are communicating with. Data enters the Tor network at the entry node/guard relay, travels between several middle nodes, and leaves the network through an exit node while being encrypted in layers at each node inside the Tor network. The Tor network masks a user’s identity by randomly moving traffic between multiple different Tor nodes or relays. Apparently this is an artifact though because those relays are all at (0, 0) which I am told GeoIP uses as a placeholder for “unknown” (in fact, GeoIP location is a somewhat imprecise art so there may be other anomalies in the data.The Onion Router, Tor, is a free open-source software that can be used for anonymous Internet browsing. There appears to be a particularly intriguing concentration of 16 relays on a tiny island in the Gulf of Guinea. Given that the relays are all (well, nearly all….) run by volunteers like me and funded out of their own pockets it is perhaps not surprising that this concentration should occur.

Unfortunately, international bandwidth costs are lowest is the areas where relays are currently located. I recently moved my own relay from Amsterdam (190 relays) to London (133) but the network needs much more geo-diversity. Having the data overlaid on a world map gives a startling picture of the unfortunate concentration of Tor nodes in particular locations. It enables you to see where traffic is concentrated (Europe) and where there is almost none (Australasia). TorFlow is a beautiful visualisation of Tor network traffic around the world. Yesterday, Kenneth Freeman posted a note to the tor-relays list drawing attention to a new resource called TorFlow.

Torflow tor network analysis