Tor project upgrades network speed performance with new system
The Tor Project has implemented three new algorithms in the latest protocol version (0.4.7.7) to address network congestion and increase browser speeds. The new system, called Congestion Control, promises to eliminate speed limits on the network. The algorithms are designed to minimize packet loss (Tor-Westwood), estimate queue lengths (Tor-Vegas), and estimating bandwidth delays (Tor-NOLA).
Congestion Control "will result in significant performance improvements in Tor, as well as increased utilization of our network capacity," say the maintainers of the project.
[...] . However, for the entire community to benefit from the improvements, exit relay operators will have to upgrade to 0.4.7 of the Tor protocol.
"[...] Because our network is roughly 25% utilized, we expect that throughput may be very high for the first few users who use 0.4.7 on fast circuits with fast 0.4.7 Exits until the point where most clients have upgraded. At that point, a new equilibrium will be reached in terms of throughput and network utilization."
"For this reason, we are holding back on releasing a Tor Browser Stable with congestion control until enough Exits have upgraded to make the experience more uniform. We hope this will happen by May 31st" - the Tor Project
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The Tor Project and Mullvad VPN have both announced collaboration on a privacy-oriented web browser. The joint browser, which is based on Firefox, has the features of the Tor Browser but operates over the Mullvad Virtual Private Network rather than Tor's onion routers. The collaboration has helped polish interface improvements and address several long standing issues.
Mullvad and the Tor Project have been part of the same community that is dedicated to developing technology that prioritizes protecting people's right to privacy for many years now. Mullvad contributes to the Tor Project at the highest level of membership, Shallot, and were a founding member of the Tor Project's Membership Program. They approached us to help them develop their browser because they wanted to leverage our expertise to create a product that is built on the same principles and with similar safety levels as the Tor Browser -- but that works independently of the Tor network. The result is the Mullvad Browser, a free, privacy-preserving web browser to challenge the all-too-prevalent business model of exploiting people's data for profit.
and
"The mass surveillance of today is absurd. Both from commercial actors like big tech companies and from governments," says Jan Jonsson, CEO at Mullvad VPN. "We want to free the internet from mass surveillance and a VPN alone is not enough to achieve privacy. From our perspective there has been a gap in the market for those who want to run a privacy-focused browser as good as the Tor Project's but with a VPN instead of the Tor Network."
Mullvad has been an active member of the Tor project for years.
Oh, and one more thing, speaking of VPNs, buried in the actual text of Senate Bill S.686 - RESTRICT Act 118th Congress (2023-2024), hidden behind rhetoric about ByteDance and Tiktok is a ban on VPN usage.
Previously:
(2023) The 'Insanely Broad' RESTRICT Act Could Ban VPNs in the USA
(2022) Are Virtual Private Networks Actually Private?
(2022) VPN Providers Remove Servers From India in Wake of New Data Collection Laws
(2022) Tor Project Upgrades Network Speed Performance with New System
(2014) VPN Providers Response to Heartbleed
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 09 2022, @01:13AM (2 children)
Last time I tried TOR, over 5 years ago, I found it extremely slow. Adequate for texts, but just too slow for video. It's perfectly safe to use bittorrent, without any VPN or other method to hide your IP address, to download most anything over 5 years old. The MAFIAA puts their resources towards watching for new stuff.
(Score: 5, Informative) by tangomargarine on Monday May 09 2022, @02:50AM
...Do you really not see the conflict between your two statements here?
Tor was not designed to be something you torrent over to hide yourself from the RIAA arresting you. It was designed to allow you to access information that your government in China or Turkey or wherever didn't want you to see.
You pointing your bittorrent client to Tor and telling it "go as fast as you can" is precisely the reason that it isn't faster.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @04:26AM
I have a slight nitpick based on my experience as someone that handles those requests because the enforcement groups do not actually focus on new stuff. They focus on whatever will make them the most money. Instead of new things, it is either popular things, things by bigger companies with bigger budgets, and the low-hanging fruit. That is where the cost-benefit analysis seems to aim for. Some of the things we got the most notices to forward were for things so old I almost forgot they existed.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @01:44AM
Tor users of all kinds should know about the Official Tor Forum:
https://forum.torproject.net/ [torproject.net]
It’s really a great bunch of people.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Monday May 09 2022, @05:57AM (3 children)
I think Tor is the bees knees. Anything they can do to make it better and faster is awesome. I’d like to run an exit node, but 300K up isn’t going to help, and definitely not worth the chance of the cops knocking at my door for some child pornography shit.
I wonder the amount/frequency Tor exit nodes get in trouble for child pornography/snuff/drugs? Is the fact that you’re running a Tor exit node any kind of plausible deniability?
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223
(Score: 3, Informative) by rigrig on Monday May 09 2022, @09:27AM
> Is the fact that you’re running a Tor exit node any kind of plausible deniability?
As I understand it, legally: probably.
But I wouldn't want to deal with the fallout at my home: do you want to explain to your neighbors/ISP/etc. that you're not downloading CP, but merely helping other people do so anonymously?
From The TOR project Community and legal resources [torproject.org]:
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @06:54PM (1 child)
you can limit what ports can exit thru your ..uhm ..err... exit node.
plain port 50+3 requests are unencrypted and port 49+4 servers are the fasted way the different shades of clubbermints can compel ISPs to opaquify a website/domain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @08:40PM
if you can find a less convoluted disaster then bind that can use the roots.hint file you might also consider configuring that on 127.0.0.1 on your exit node ...