Clickstream tracking of TOR users: may be easier than you think

As the importance and prevalence of web analytics have increased over the last decade, so has the number of user trying to maintain their online anonymity. The Onion Routing (TOR) system is often seen as the best anonymity tool out there and is used by nearly 2.5 million people daily. For a significant number of these users, many of TOR’s features and terms are rather difficult to comprehend; yet, these users tend to believe that TOR offers more privacy protection than what it is actually intended or able to provide. In this paper, the authors specifically focus on the TOR browser–one of the two key components of the TOR system. In particular, the authors demonstrate that if used in its default settings, the TOR browser provides little if any protection against four most common forms of user tracking. Hence, to achieve true online anonymity, extra efforts and vigilance need to be exercised on the part of the TOR user. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.