Tor enters with the latest version

The latest version of the Tor project was released this week, offering greater security and anonymity to individuals and organizations. Here' s why you should care.

Once upon a time, worrying about government surveillance was a sure sign of paranoia. Unless you were building bombs or stealing secrets, the spies and spooks couldn' t be bothered.

Today, governments can and do spy on all of us. Technology makes it possible&mdash automated systems sift through our internet traffic, voice calls are monitored, and SMS messages are intercepted regularly. The cost of violating privacy has come down to the point where it isn' t just viable&mdash it' s routine.

Although it' s easy to imagine such things happening overseas, the risk is much closer than you may think. Click on a link to the wrong website, and you' re tagged. Search for ISIS news, and you' re marked as a " radicalized menace" . Send the bomb emoji once too often, and you' ve had it.

Now the content of the requests can be secure. If you visit a site with an https:// address, both sides will encrypt the information to protect your privacy. But the client and server still are visible in the request header.

For instance, if you posted some information to WikiLeaks, the content of that post would be encrypted. It would be safe from prying eyes, but those eyes would know that you posted something.

This information is visible as the request makes its way through the internet. Internet packets pass through many points before they reach their destination. That' s how the internet works. Each step along the way is another point where data could be collected.

Tor is essential for people in oppressed countries, organizations transferring sensitive data and journalists. But it isn' t perfect. Cyber-criminals and intelligence agencies constantly are looking for exploits and weaknesses. That' s why it' s essential that the Tor developers keep working on the project to patch the holes and improve the performance.

The latest release contains more than 300 individual fixes and improvements&mdash it' s the result of months of work. The bootstrapping process has been overhauled for faster performance. The security keys for relays are stronger. And the code is now more thoroughly tested than before. The Tor team also has collaborated with Debian developers to offer better protection to their users.