How to Know if an IP Address Has Been Part of the TOR Network

What is the Tor network

First of all we are going to remember what the TOR network is . It is a project created to develop a communications network based on the exchange of messages anonymously. This is possible thanks to a number of organizations and also private users who donate their bandwidth. So connections are routed anonymously.

The name comes from The Onion Router , which in Spanish we could say is El Router Cebolla. It is based on a layered structure, hence the name onion. These layers are what provide anonymity to the user. So we can, for example, hide the IP address when we enter a specific site.

This decentralized network allows us to browse the Deep Web. It should be noted that for this to be possible, nodes are needed to maintain privacy. There are thousands of nodes available.

This is where what we are going to explain to know if an IP address has been part of the TOR nodes or not comes into play.

How to know if an IP has been part of TOR

Knowing if a specific address has been a TOR node at some point can be achieved thanks to the ExoneraTor project. It belongs to the TOR network itself. It is a database where the information of all the nodes that have participated in the network appears.

This allows us that, if we have an IP address and we want to know if it has been part or not, we can do it in a simple way. In addition, we can also use a function to know if that address was part of the TOR network on a certain date.

To do this, the first thing we have to do is enter ExoneraTor . The interface, as we can see, is very simple. We simply have a field to put the IP address that interests us and right next to another to put the date that we want to check.

When we have filled in the data we just have to click Search . A message will automatically appear with the result. In case that IP address has been part of the TOR nodes, it will indicate that it matches the database. In case there are no results, it will tell us that they have not found a match for that IP address.

The process, as we see, is very fast. It is simply enough to know which is the IP address that we want to check and assign it the date that interests us. We can carry out this as many times as we want, both for the same address by changing the date, as well as trying different addresses that interest us.

This is how ExoneraTor works. The tool is nothing more than a search engine to find out if a specific IP address has been part of the TOR network. We may at some point have doubts as to whether our IP has been part or not or we simply want to check it.

Uses of the TOR network

The TOR network, as well as your browser, has different uses that we will explain. Some of them are more geared towards keeping our data protected and anonymity on the Internet.

Access the Deep Web

Although it is not what the TOR network was originally created for, the truth is that today it can be used to access the Deep Web and the Dark Web . We already know that not everything in the latter is precisely legal. There we can find, for example, forums where hackers exchange tools and malware to attack.

The TOR network allows a user to access this hidden part of the Internet that they would not be able to access under normal circumstances.

Browse with privacy

Of course privacy is also one of the reasons. We already know that our data has great value online and there are many methods that can be used to collect personal information.

Using browsers that focus on privacy is important. That’s where the TOR network also comes into play.

Hide our IP address

Hiding the real IP address is another reason. We have seen how it works through the layering system to be able to offer more privacy and prevent the real address of a user from appearing when entering a web page for example.

Avoid censorship

Finally, another utility of the TOR network is to avoid censorship . This is useful in certain countries where freedom of the press is not present. Many journalists use this network to be able to carry out their work without fear of being discovered.

In short, these are some of the utilities that we can achieve thanks to the TOR network. We have also seen how to know if a specific IP address has been part of a node.