Admin: qwiki: categories/privacy-and-anonymity.md

2026-09-29T23:55:47Z

qwiki: categories/privacy-and-anonymity.md

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= Privacy & Anonymity =

Tools whose ''primary purpose'' is protecting the privacy or anonymity of your network activity – [[:Category:VPN]] services, self-hosted tunnels, and the [[Tor]] anonymity network.

This is distinct from tools that are ''private but do some other job'': end-to-end encrypted messengers like [[Signal]] live under [[:Category:Secure Messaging]] (their function is communication; privacy is an attribute), and secret storage lives under [[:Category:Password Management]]. Use those categories for those needs; this one is for hiding ''where your traffic goes and who is sending it''.

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== No single tool is a guarantee – match the adversary ==

The most important idea in this whole category: '''there is no tool that makes you anonymous against everyone.''' Every option here defends against some adversaries and not others, so the question is never “is this secure?” but “secure ''against whom?''”. Most real-world deanonymizations don’t come from broken cryptography – they come from a compromised device or browser, a leaked login or reused handle, or an adversary who can observe enough of the network to correlate traffic. Pick the tool that covers ''your'' adversary, and remember that operational discipline (what you log into, what you leak) usually matters more than the tool.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Adversary
! What a VPN / Tor realistically gives you
|-
| Your ISP, local/public Wi-Fi, mass or passive surveillance, ad-tech trackers
| Defeated well – this is the sweet spot
|-
| Ordinary, untargeted law enforcement
| Raises the cost of attribution substantially; usually enough
|-
| A nation-state targeting ''you by name''
| Assume nothing is guaranteed; opsec and compartmentation dominate
|}

For the specific trade-offs between a self-hosted tunnel, a shared-IP provider, and Tor, see the comparison table in [[:Category:VPN]].

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Category:Privacy & Anonymity - Revision history

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