Tor vs VPN

It seems like every time someone mentions a VPN there's always the comments of "Just use TOR". These two things are not mutually exclusive and provide different benefits. Let's discuss what is actually happening with both of these. (Sorry about image quality. I'm on Mobile)

VPNS

A VPN is a virtual private network. With a VPN your data is sent to the VPN providers server through an encrypted tunnel. From there the VPN provider will route the traffic to the proper location. The way this works is through TCP/IP headers. The VPN strips off your TCP/IP header and replaces it with it's own so that it appears that the traffic is coming from the VPN server instead of you. This is a system we'll also see with TOR. Where VPNs provide benefit is in the end to end encryption. Your traffic is encrypted from your computer to the VPN server. From there the server will negotiate encryption with the website and if available use the highest possible. If the website does not support SSL/TLS encryption your data will be sent in plaintext to the website.

What benefit does this provide? The end to end encryption prevents cyber criminals from getting ahold of your data in transit. Let's use an example here. Alice is at Starbucks and trying to go to Bob's website. Eva is also at starbucks but she is running a packet sniffer. Provided that Bob's website does not support SSL/TLS encryption Eva would be able to see what Alice is doing on Bob's website including getting her credit card details, username, and password. If Alice was using a VPN Eva would only see a VPN tunnel but not what was inside of the tunnel. The information would come across as gibberish. Realistically Eva could theoretically decipher this traffic but if the VPN is reputable it is going to be an AES256 bit cipher which would take years to decipher.

TOR

TOR

TOR or The Onion Router operates a bit differently. TOR operates on a series of Nodes. Each Node is called a HOP, and each HOP changes the location in which the traffic is coming from. Communications from the router to the first Node/Hop are encrypted, and communication between each Hop is also encrypted. However communications between the computer and the router are not encrypted, and communications between the last Hop and the webpage might not be encrypted (The negotiation). Each Hop strips the TCP/IP header and replaces it so that each time it hops it looks like it came from the one before it. There is no set pattern of how many Hops a TOR connection will go through so even the first Hop doesn't know if t is receiving data from another Hop or from the host. The last Hop does actually know the path back to the originating PC. That's why there's a general phrase that whoever controls the end node controls the information.

Let's go back to our example with Alice, Bob, and Eva. If Alice is using TOR and attempts to connect to Bob's website Bob will see the last hop she took as the originator instead of Alice's PC. Meaning that it might come from somewhere in Russia rather than the Star Bucks in California. This however will not actually stop Eva from being able to see Alice's traffic. See image above. Because the connection to the ISP, through the router is not encrypted Eva could still see everything Alice is doing, or almost everything.

Using VPN and TOR

Is it possible to use VPN and TOR together? Yes it actually is. It will give you the best of both worlds. Your PC will establish and encrypted connection to the VPN server. The VPN server will then route your traffic to the first TOR Node. From there the TOR Nodes will Hop you around until they eventually put you to your destination.

TL:DR: TOR and VPNs are very different protocols. VPNs are made for encrypting connections and TOR is made to keep you anonymous. Let's stop saying one is better than the other or use TOR instead of VPN., etc. Use them for what they are made for, and hopefully now you know mostly what that is.