According to a statement made on Twitter just after midnight today by software developer and internet security activist Alec Muffett, Twitter has opened its website on the Tor (The Onion Router) network.
Muffet has previously assisted organizations such as the New York Times, Wikipedia, and BBC News in developing services for the Tor network. According to him, he also assisted Twitter developers in their implementation of the Tor network. Twitter has added the Tor network and browser to its list of compatible browsers.
This action by the corporation comes at a time when the Russian government has blocked access to sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and several news platforms, allegedly to isolate the home audience from global news and viewpoints.
While you could previously visit Twitter’s regular website via the Tor network, the new onion domain is solely available via the Tor network and browser. Furthermore, because the site is now part of the Tor network, traffic does not need to be routed via a Tor exit node.
This indicates that both the user and the web server are becoming anonymized. Otherwise, the user’s information is diverted via Tor relays before exiting the network via an exit node.
This also reduces the possibility of malicious Tor exit nodes, allowing users to avoid national website bans in most cases. According to Muffet’s blog, if you write in the exact onion URL for a website, you will be assured to connect to the genuine webpage, or you will not connect at all.
If you’ve ever used the Tor network to access ordinary websites, you may have observed that they frequently need users to enter several CAPTCHA codes, and occasionally don’t work at all, showing the warning “Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network.” Please try your request later.”
This is determined by your exit node’s IP repute. Having a service based on Tor helps to minimize this issue as well.
