Scam Warning Lists: Who Maintains Them and When to Trust Them
Scam warning lists look authoritative from outside. Who maintains them, how reports get verified, and where they fail explains why readers should treat them as evidence, not verdicts.
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newest firstLink directories and dark.fail: what verified onion lists actually prove
What link directories like dark.fail actually verify, how PGP-signed mirror lists work, where they fall short, and how to build a verification habit that survives.
Verifying software downloads over Tor: checksums and signatures done right
Checking a hash against the same server that served your download proves nothing. Here is how to verify software over Tor properly: signatures, key fingerprints and a little patience.
Threat model thinking: deciding which protections you actually need
Security advice tells you to do everything. A threat model tells you what matters for you: your assets, your adversaries, their capabilities, and where effort is wasted.
The v3-only era: life after legacy onion addresses disappeared
Four years after Tor pulled the plug on v2 onion services, we look back at why the old addresses died, what v3 fixed, and how the ecosystem settled.
The long goodbye of v2 onion addresses: how Tor retired a 16-character era
From SHA-1 collisions to the October 2021 cutoff: how the Tor Project deprecated v2 onion services, and why thousands of sites initially stayed behind on legacy addresses.
Tor Browser 13 and the Mozilla rebase: what really changed under the hood
Tor Browser 13 was more than a visual refresh. Its rebase onto Firefox ESR 115 changed how the anonymity browser absorbs security fixes on desktop and Android.
Snowflake bridges explained: how volunteers become temporary Tor relays
Snowflake turns thousands of volunteer browsers into disposable WebRTC proxies that stand in front of Tor. How the design works, what limits it, and why censors struggle to keep up.
Obfs4 bridges explained: hiding Tor traffic in plain randomness
How obfs4 bridges hide Tor traffic inside random-looking bytes, where to request bridge lines from BridgeDB, moat or email, and why active probing still lets censors find them.
WebTunnel explained: how Tor hides inside ordinary HTTPS traffic
WebTunnel disguises Tor bridge connections as everyday HTTPS traffic. We explain how the pluggable transport works and what performance it costs.
How onion services work: introduction points, rendezvous relays and the six-circuit handshake
Every .onion connection is a small choreography of descriptors, introduction points and a rendezvous relay. Here is how the six-circuit handshake works, in plain language.
OnionBalance and the hard truth about DDoS protection for hidden services
OnionBalance spreads onion services across backend instances, but it is not a DDoS shield. How frontend-backend balancing really works, where it failed in 2023-2024.