11 Do's And Don'ts Of Tor Network!

These tips and tricks will bring out the best of Tor for you!

There is nothing better than The Onion Router aka TOR for those genuinly concerned about the privacy of their digital communications. The free software secretly routes your system’s Internet traffic over several places on the Internet, thereby hiding the actual source of communication improving your privacy and security on the Internet.

We bring you a list of tips and tricks for using Tor to protect you better when online:

1. Do Use Tor

Tor is widely known for providing online anonymity, having gained quite a lot of reputation at what it does. It can be used for:

-sensitive browsing

-reporting abuse or corruption

-serious business activities

-inter-state or inter-country communications

-publishing anonymous posts

-sharing personal secrets with family and friends

and more.

2. Don’t Use Windows

Refrain from browsing websites through Tor on Windows systems if you're looking to improve your Internet privacy. On Windows systems, security bugs and vulnerabilities present in the system may 

compromise your privacy rendering Tor quite literally worthless. It's best to run Tor-configured Linux systems such as Tails and Whonix, Further, you can also set up Tor on any of your favorite Linux distro.

3. Do Update Your System

Remember, Tor is only as safe and secure as the system running the Tor client. Therefore, it is highly advisable to regularly update the Tor client, Tor-secured applications (browsers, instant messaging clients, email clients, etc.), and the operating system of your computer. 

4. Don’t Use HTTP Websites

Tor is a traffic router and not a tool to encrypt the network traffic throughout the Internet, therefore, its exit nodes can read your Internet traffic when in the form of plain unencrypted data. 

It's only obvious you use end-to-end encryption such as SSL or TLS when doing sensitive online communications that requires HTTPS websites. Further, add-ons like 'HTTPS Everywhere' automatically switch to HTTPS-mode browsing for supported websites. It's preferred you use these.

5. Do Encrypt Your Data Storage

Tor cannot secure the digital data on your computer. Complete security can only be achieved through encryption of data using strong cryptographic algorithms. LUKS or TrueCrypt can be used for the same.

6. Don’t Use Tor Browser Bundle

Tor Browser Bundle contains critical vulnerabilities and therefore should not be used for browsing websites anonymously through Tor.

7. Do Disable JavaScript, Flash And Java

Binary applications like JavaScript, Adobe Flash, Java, QuickTime, ActiveX controls, VBScripts etc run with user account's privileges. These might access and share your data leaving Tor rendered useless. Websites can use to track you using JavaScript. Meanwhile, Java and Adobe Flash run in virtual machines. These might ignore your system’s configured proxy settings, and share your data directly with the websites. 

8. Don’t Use P2P

Tor network is not built for peer-to-peer file sharing. If you're into downloading torrents, remember you're simply busing Tor. Another downside is, it slows down other user's browsing on the network.

9. Do Delete Cookies And Site’s Local Data

Tor uses network packets to hide your real identity from the websites. However, it can't stop websites from using workarounds such as cookies and local data storage to detect your real identity.

10. Don’t Use Your Real Email

Tor protects online privacy and hides real identity. However if you’re giving out your real email on the websites, how is Tor to secure you? Ideally, you must consider a virtual identity while using Tor.

11. Don’t Use Google

Warning: Google periodically collects information on users’ browsing and search data to facilitate the growth of its revenue. Rather, go for alternatives such as Startpage and DuckDuckGo. These anonymity-compliant services offer search results without logging your IP address and storing cookies on your computer.

Putting KVM Switches In Your Data Center

As your company grows you realize that you need to process data faster so as to give your clients all the information they need in a timely fashion. This need often compels a company to obtain more computers and servers but which take up more of the company's available space and also take a toll on its present staff. All these complications should inform the management of the need to make more investments so as to be able to better manage the added infrastructure. A centralized system for managing the whole IT framework will be the best choice for such a scenario and luckily such a solution exists in KVM switches whereby KVM stands for keyboard, video and mouse. 

With a KVM switch you can expect to make monetary savings because you will no longer need to purchase separate sets of monitor, mouse and keyboards for each and every computer or server on your network. This further translates into space savings because with a KVM switch the single monitor, mouse and keyboard, as well as all the servers can be bundled onto a single rack. With regards to today's business trends whereby more people are opting to buy their products online and whereby companies are demanding for their information faster and in the right format, KVM switches are fast becoming an indispensable part of efficient IT department management. 

There are various ways through which to connect a KVM switch to all the computers we have onsite. One of these involves the use of Cat5 or CAT6 twisted pair cables, and which are suitable for controlling equipment up to 40 meters away. IP address-based KVM switches ability were introduced recently and they enable administrators to interact with servers remotely via the internet. Other switches feature USB capability implying that making connections is now easier and faster. For video we can use a DVI-D/VGA connector dongle, and it can also be the db-15VGA/USB for KB or MS. KVM switches are really size-efficient; picture the compactness of a switch with up to 32 ports and occupying only 1U rackmount space. 

KVM switches have a multiplatform design, meaning that they can handle computers and servers based on multiple platforms such as Dell, HP, MAC, IBM, SUN, Linux, Unix, Windows and Netware. These switches are also easy to use in that you just need to press the KVM buttons on the screen display to switch from server to the next. The KVM Switches buttons are well abbreviated and as such you can easily identify whatever server you are working on. Most respectable switches feature the multilingual option on their screen display menus, and they also allow for the creation of user profiles and OSD hot key combinations. 

Space can be further be conserved with the use of rackmount consoles with TFT or LED screens instead of CRT screens. TFT and/or LED screens may also feature touch-screen capability and which will be an added advantage.