 Screenshot of Tor Mail main page in April 2013 | |
Type of site | Webmail |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| URL |
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| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Required |
| Users | unknown |
| Current status | Offline (as of 10 August 2013) |
Tor Mail was aTor hidden service that went offline in August 2013 after an FBI raid onFreedom Hosting. The service allowed users to send and receiveemail anonymously toemail addresses inside and outside theTor network.
Tor Mail provided web mail access with twowebmail applications to choose from, one fully functionalajax-based, and one simple client which required noJavaScript orcookies. The user could also access mail viaSMTP,POP3 orIMAP with anemail client. The user signed up and accessed Tor Mail via theTor hidden service and needed to haveTor software installed on a computer to access Tor hidden services. Users were not required to provide any identifying information such as their name or address.
Tor Mail's goal was to provide completely anonymous and private communications to anyone who needed it.[1] The service providers said that they wereanonymous and could not be forced to reveal anything about a Tor Mail user. They also said that the service did not cooperate with anyone attempting to identify or censor a Tor Mail user.
Tor Mail's service consisted of several servers, the hidden service, and an incoming and outgoing internet facing mail servers. The site's operators said that the only data stored on thehard drive of those servers was theExim mail server and the Tor software. "No emails, logs or personal data were stored on those servers, thus it doesn't matter if they are seized or shut down." They claimed to be prepared to quickly replace any relay that was taken offline. The service and SMTP/IMAP/POP3 were on a hidden server completely separate from the relays. The relays did not know theIP address of the hidden service.
A message appeared on the Tor Mail main page in early August 2013, saying "Down for Maintenance Sorry, This server is currently offline for maintenance. Please try again in a few hours." Since August 2013, the service has been unavailable. The disappearance of Tor Mail has been linked to the arrest onchild pornography charges of the alleged operator ofFreedom Hosting, which hosted a large number of.onion sites.[2] In September 2013, theFBI admitted in a court filing inDublin that it had taken down Freedom Hosting.[3]
The following month, details emerged of azero-dayJavaScript attack affecting theTor Browser Bundle based on FirefoxESR 17 if JavaScript was enabled, as it was by default. Later versions of the Tor Browser Bundle disabled JavaScript by default. This zero-day vulnerability was exploited during the takedown to send users' IP addresses and Windows computer names to an FBI-controlled server inVirginia.[3][4] In January 2014 it was confirmed that the FBI had access to Tor Mail servers.[5]
In January 2016, it was claimed that innocent TorMail users may also have been subject to hacking by the FBI.[6]
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