Facebook Tests Onion URL for Tor Users

Facebook is experimenting with ways for security-conscious users to access the social network via Tor, and Alec Muffett, a software engineer for security infrastructure in the company’s London office, described the process in a note on the Protect the Graph page.

TorLogo650Facebook is experimenting with ways for security-conscious users to access the social network via Tor, and Alec Muffett, a software engineer for security infrastructure in the company’s London office, described the process in a note on the Protect the Graph page.

He wrote:

It’s important to us at Facebook to provide methods for people to use our site securely. People connect to Facebook in many different ways, which is why we have implemented HTTPS across our service, and Perfect Forward Secrecy, HSTS and other technologies that help give people more confidence that they are connected securely to Facebook.

That doesn’t mean we can’t improve yet further.

Consider Tor: Tor challenges some assumptions of Facebook’s security mechanisms — for example, its design means that from the perspective of our systems, a person who appears to be connecting from Australia at one moment may the next appear to be in Sweden or Canada.

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