In this first scenario, Alice is connecting to Bob’s server over the Tor network. Additionally, we will be assuming that you have basic knowledge of how the Tor network functions. If you are not familiar with these characters see the wikipedia entry. For simplicity’s sake, we will be using the common cryptographic archetypes of Alice and Bob et. The first vulnerability we are going to examine is the scenario where the attacker is passively monitoring the connection of both the sender and recipient. See our guide on vetting VPN providers here.įor an in-depth guide on using Tor with a VPN see Advanced Privacy and Anonymity - Part 3. This article assumes you have picked a VPN service after carefully vetting them and you trust its operators to honor no-logs promises. Note: While Tor is decentralized and designed in a way that you don’t have to trust a single entity, most VPN services are run by centralized organizations.

Today we are going to examine two of the known vulnerabilities in the Tor system and then see how using a trustworthy VPN service in conjunction with Tor can mitigate many of those vulnerabilities thus substantially reducing your privacy risk surface. While it has shown itself to be an invaluable tool in protecting one’s privacy through anonymity, it is anything but a panacea. The Tor network has been a useful tool for the privacy-aware internet users since 2002. Back to Privacy Guides Why use Tor with a VPN service?

How to use tor vpn