Internet security

THE CIA SETS UP SHOP ON TOR, THE ANONYMOUS INTERNET

THE ANONYMITY SERVICE Tor has grown in popularity around the world over the past few years, but it has also long been a tool for intelligence agencies and clandestine communications—not to mention endless cat-and-mousegames between law enforcement and criminals. But now, the CIA is staking out a more public presence there.

On Tuesday, the CIA announced its own Tor "onion service," so that people around the world can browse the agency's website anonymously—or, you know, send history-altering tips. Tor is an anonymity network that you access through a special browser, like the Tor Browser, and that uses its own URLs. The service protects your IP address and browsing online by encrypting the traffic and bouncing it around a series of waypoints to make it very difficult to trace.

Over the years, several organizations have made so-called onion sites—a dedicated version of their website that they configure and host to be accessible through the Tor anonymity network. Also called an onion service, Facebook launched one in 2014, and The New York Times added one in 2017. The National Police of the Netherlands even has an onion service related to its dark-web criminal takedown operations. But the CIA is the first intelligence agency to make the leap.