The Tor network uses secure, encrypted protocols to protect users' online privacy. Tor network routes Internet data over a free, global, volunteer overlay network of approximately 7000 relays. Although onion routing offers an elevated level of security and secrecy, there are ways to undermine that, including timing analysis. Because each intermediate only knows the locations of the nodes that are immediately before and behind it, the sender's identity is kept private. The communication reaches its target after the last layer is decrypted. The encrypted data is sent through a network of 'onion routers,' or network nodes, each of which 'peels' away a single layer to disclose the encrypted data's destination.
The layers of encryption that protect messages in an onion network are comparable to the layers of an onion. Onion Routing is a method of communicating anonymously across a computer network.
