A site telling people how to protect themselves should be willing to say how it works. This page is that statement.
Who writes this
Everything here is written by Jesus Cordonero, who has used the Tor network since 2013. That is experience, not credentials, and the distinction matters.
What that experience is good for: knowing what actually breaks, which advice has aged badly, and which mistakes catch people repeatedly. What it is not good for: judgements about cryptography. Where a claim depends on how the mathematics works, this site follows the Tor Project’s documentation rather than reasoning independently.
How claims are checked
Primary sources first. Technical statements are checked against the Tor Project’s own documentation, release notes and announcements. Where a date or version is given, it comes from that record rather than memory.
Uncertainty is stated. Where something is genuinely unresolved, such as traffic correlation, it is described as unresolved. Articles here do not present open problems as solved.
Limits are stated as prominently as benefits. Every article about a protection also describes what that protection does not cover. This is the part most guides leave out, and it is the part that actually costs people.
Dates
Every article shows when it was last revised. If a piece has not been checked within the past year, that is visible from the date, and you should weigh it accordingly.
Revision is preferred to republication. When an article is updated, it stays at the same address rather than reappearing as new, so links to it keep working.
Corrections
Things will be wrong here. When they are:
- Write to [email protected] with the article and what is incorrect.
- Substantive corrections are noted in the article itself, with the date.
- Whoever reported it is credited, unless they would rather not be. Say so and you will not be named.
Corrections are not treated as an embarrassment to be minimised. A reference site that quietly edits its mistakes is less trustworthy than one that shows its working.
What this site will not do
No onion addresses or link directories. An address is only safe when it comes from whoever owns it. Any list published here would be as unverifiable as every other list, and a decade of watching those lists turn into phishing vehicles is reason enough not to add another.
No recommendations of marketplaces, vendors or services.
No guidance on evading law enforcement. The material here is about understanding a technology and avoiding harm, and that is where it stops.
Money
This site carries no advertising and no affiliate links. Nothing recommended here earns it money.
Worth stating because much of the writing about privacy tools is funded by commission on the tools it recommends, which is why so much of it recommends a VPN regardless of the question. Where this site advises against something popular, no revenue depends on the answer.
Comments and contact
Corrections, questions and disagreement are welcome at [email protected].
Requests for onion addresses, marketplace links or help with anything illegal are not answered.