Apple is all set to allow TOR anonymity apps on iOS9, which will be the part of its ongoing effort to defend their user’s privacy.
A fascinating part of this news that the apps are coming for Apple devices when U.S and UK government are in discussions on future of encryption and anonymity online.
All the Tor apps will be available free of cost on all Apple iPad and iPhone. Though, no date for the launch has been announced yet. One can, however, suspect that it would be very soon.
This project for increasing encryption and safeguarding user’s privacy is being driven by a team of developers who are focused on developing apps and software that can easily protect the users from unwanted surveillance programs. This project is known as iCepa.
“There are a bunch of pieces in the works,” Nathan Freitas, a Tor developer supporting the iCepa project, told The Daily Dot. “We just started to work on it and think about it. Tor knows we can’t ignore all the iOS 9 users in the world.”
Nathan is also working on the Guardian Project that develops apps keeping in mind the users’ privacy.
Tor is often confused with the dark web (in reality 95 percent of these dark web platforms are not indexed by any of the search engines even google), but Tor is very different to the dark web it is something for anonymity or privacy on the web.
Tor browsers and apps gained popularity last year after Edward Snowden leaked several documents related surveillance programs related to NSA.
Basically, what Tor does is that it hides the IP addresses of the users visiting the website so that they cannot be spied on. So, the basic objective is to hide users from surveillance programs. However, law enforcement agencies find such services as a way of covering criminals or terrorists.
Many leading tech firms from around the world have strongly supported the argument of maintaining strong encryption on the overall web and mobile applications.
To make the case even stronger, all the tech firms in Silicon Valley launched a petition to the U.S president to support encryption. The petition so far has received 80,000 signatures and still counting.
The petition further states that proposals from the government are a threat to the user’s private data and also to the security of any technology that relies on encryption. But, the FBI is not happy with the tech companies equipping their devices with default encryption.
In 2014, the FBI chief showed disappointment over Apple obtaining default encryption for its devices.
Earlier this week Apple told a judge that it is now “impossible” to access any data from Apple devices. Though, the company can still access data from older phones.