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Tor is not the Dark Web

Tor is not the “Dark Web”

Section titled “Tor is not the “Dark Web””

When people hear the word Tor, it is often followed by phrases like “the dark web”, “illegal marketplaces”, or “hackers hiding from the law”.
This reputation is not just misleading — it actively obscures what Tor actually is and why it exists.

Tor is a networking protocol. Not a crime network. Not a secret club. Not a place.

It is developed by The Tor Project, a non-profit organisation, and is fully open source.

To understand Tor, it helps to first understand what it is comparable to.

Tor is end-to-end encryption for computers

Section titled “Tor is end-to-end encryption for computers”

Most people are already familiar with end-to-end encrypted messaging apps such as Signal or WhatsApp.

These tools enable:

  • secure communication
  • between humans
  • using text, images, voice messages, and calls

Tor does something similar — but at a different layer.

Tor enables end-to-end encrypted communication between computers.

For example:

  • Tor Browser on your laptop
  • communicating securely
  • with an onion service (a Tor website)
  • without exposing identities, locations, or network paths on either side

This is not messaging encryption.
This is network-level encryption and anonymity.

What Tor actually protects

Section titled “What Tor actually protects”

On today’s internet, even when content is encrypted, a large amount of metadata is still exposed:

  • Who you are connecting to
  • When you connect
  • From where
  • How often
  • Through which providers

Tor is designed to protect metadata, not just content.

Why does this matter? Consider: a government doesn’t need to read your messages to know you contacted a journalist, visited a protest organisation’s website, or researched legal aid at 2am. The pattern alone is enough.

Tor addresses this by routing traffic through multiple volunteer-run relays around the world, encrypting each layer separately — so that no single party knows both who you are and where you are going.

Disintermediated communication

Section titled “Disintermediated communication”

One of Tor’s most important properties is rarely discussed:

Tor removes intermediaries.

With onion services:

  • There is no traditional DNS name to seize, spoof, or censor
  • There is no fixed IP address to block
  • There is no central server location to raid
  • There is no single ISP choke point
  • There is no obvious DDoS target

The client and the server meet inside the Tor network itself.

This makes Tor:

  • decentralised
  • distributed
  • disintermediated

In practical terms, this means:

  • censorship is harder
  • surveillance is more expensive
  • takedowns are less trivial
  • users are not forced to trust large intermediaries

“But isn’t Tor used for illegal things?”

Section titled ““But isn’t Tor used for illegal things?””

Yes — just like:

  • phones
  • email
  • cars
  • cash
  • the internet itself

Technologies are neutral.
People are not.

Tor is used by:

  • journalists protecting sources
  • activists under authoritarian regimes
  • researchers bypassing censorship
  • citizens avoiding mass surveillance
  • NGOs and civil society organisations
  • domestic abuse survivors
  • everyday users who value privacy

Focusing only on criminal use cases is a framing choice, not a technical truth.

The myth of the “Dark Web”

Section titled “The myth of the “Dark Web””

The term “Dark Web” is not a technical term.
It is a media invention.

What people usually mean is:

“Websites that are not indexed by search engines and require special software to access.”

By that definition:

  • private Git repositories
  • internal company dashboards
  • staging servers
  • password-protected websites

are also “dark”.

Onion services are simply:

  • websites
  • using a different addressing system
  • with stronger privacy and anonymity guarantees

Nothing inherently sinister is required.

Tor is not about hiding crimes — it is about resisting abuse

Section titled “Tor is not about hiding crimes — it is about resisting abuse”

Tor exists because:

  • the internet leaks too much information by default
  • centralisation creates single points of failure
  • surveillance scales faster than accountability
  • censorship is easier than ever

Tor shifts the balance slightly back toward the user.

It does not make you invincible.
It does not make you anonymous by magic.
It does not replace good operational security.

But it raises the cost of surveillance and censorship, which matters — especially in hostile environments.

Why Anonomi uses Tor

Section titled “Why Anonomi uses Tor”

Anonomi uses Tor because:

  • privacy should not require trust in intermediaries
  • metadata protection matters as much as content encryption
  • access to information should not depend on geography or politics
  • users deserve tools that work even when infrastructure is hostile

Tor is not an edge case.
It is a foundational privacy technology.

In short

Section titled “In short”
  • Tor is not the dark web
  • Tor is not a crime network
  • Tor is end-to-end encrypted networking
  • Tor enables disintermediated communication
  • Tor protects metadata, not just messages

Understanding Tor means looking past myths — and looking directly at how the internet actually works.

Resources

Section titled “Resources”
Section titled “Related”