Tor and the Onion Routing System: The Backbone of Dark Web Privacy

Tor (The Onion Router) is the primary technology that enables privacy on the dark web. It’s designed to obscure your identity by bouncing your internet traffic through a global network of volunteer-operated servers, called nodes. The idea is to “wrap” your data in multiple layers of encryption (like layers of an onion).
Each node in the network only knows where the data came from and where it’s going next—no single point ever knows the full path of your data. This method ensures that anyone trying to trace your activity would be faced with a maze of encrypted hops across the world.
Fun fact: The term "onion routing" comes from this multilayer encryption that hides user data as it bounces across nodes.