So I want to be able to use the Tor Expert Bundle and know what I am doing. How do I become a competent expert on Tor? I want to know what I am doing configuring it. I actually want to learn generally about privacy, security, and anonymity. I know learning OSINT can help and I know Michael Bazzell’s book Extreme Privacy is a notable read.
But I want to know what the Tor Project recommends for it.
I don’t think a “Guide to become an expert” exists, and if it did I wouldn’t trust it: expertise can’t be taught, it must be built through experience. You have to set a goal, study, practice, and repeat.
If you want to become an expert in, let’s say, managing tor relays, read the docs and set up a middle one. When it works, invest the next six months dealing with overloads, complaints from your ISP and DoS attacks. If you achieve this, migrate the same relay to a more powerful server with a different operating system. And so on.
However, good introduction guides do exist, such those on the Tor Community website. You can start with them, and once you are done with the basics you should find your most interesting steps on your own.
Hi,
practice, practice, practice and read a lot about Tor and compare it with other privacy technologies and/or use both.
The problem is Tor can’t help you when using it wrong and here on the forum are more beginners I would say than experts helping you ( I am no expert either yet).
Since privacy/anonymity costs also money, which can’t be obtained if you, for example, use only a Linux box with Tor, you have to read also about things like “Adversarial Stylometry” “long latency with Mixnets over Tor” etc. and also have to purchase an offline device for preparing your encrypted messages for friends, via a secure USB stick etc.
Most tutorials, like the ones from EFF etc. are a bit outdated and only cover the surface, when it comes to privacy. It is also advisable to build your own anonymous infrastructures with family and friends and not relying on third party servers, for communications.
See for example here:
Ch1ffr3punk/oc: oc - Onion Courier Tor Hidden Service Mixnet
HTH!