This less known Tor mode is called Tor hidden services, you can read more about it on the above link. There are no exit nodes involved in this mode, at no point other than your and your buddies own computer will the traffic ever leave the Tor network. This means all TorChat traffic is end2end encrypted. Upon connection another layer of encryption is established reaching through from one client to the other, building one uninterrupted encrypted tunnel through all 6 nodes between the two end points. Both clients build a normal 3 node circuit from each end to some random tor node in the middle to 'meet' there and connect their circuits with each other. However, there exists another and less commonly known mode of operation in which two Tor clients can initiate a fully encrypted peer-to-peer connection between each other that will not leave the Tor network at any point! This is what TorChat is using. This is the origin of the above mentioned 'Tor provides no encryption' and it is undoubtedly true for this most widely known and practiced application of Tor and users should understand it.

The most commonly known usage of Tor is to use it as an anonymizer for traffic between the anonymous user and a publicly available service in the Internet and while the traffic will travel encrypted through the Tor network it MUST at some point leave the Tor network and enter the unencrypted internet to reach its final destination. Whenever I mention Tor and encryption in the same sentence the immediate reflex response of many people is: 'But Tor provides no encryption!' This statement is true for most applications but not for all. There are some misunderstandings floating around regarding Tor and encryption. EncryptionĪll TorChat traffic is encrypted end-to-end. You can binary compare the tor.exe with the official one to verify this or replace it with your own version of tor.exe if you like. The Tor binary which is bundled with the windows version of TorChat is taken from the official Tor-0.2.2.37 installer. to whom you are sending or receiving from.what you send or receive (everything is end-to-end encrypted).If they are already observing you and sniff your internet connection they will not be able to find out.Nobody will be able to find out where you are.Tor location hidden services basically means: (It can run on Linux and Mac too, in fact it was developed on Linux with cross platform usability in mind from the very first moment on, but the installation on other platforms than Windows is a bit more complicated at the moment) TorChat just runs from an USB drive on any Windows PC. TorChat is a peer to peer instant messenger with a completely decentralized design, built on top of Tor's location hidden services, giving you extremely strong anonymity while being very easy to use without the need to install or configure anything.

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