Anonymous Communication

Anonymous communication: Exchanging information without revealing identities.
Private browsing / incognito mode: Browser mode that does not store browsing history or cookies locally.
Tracking cookies / third-party cookies: Cookies set by domains other than the one being visited, used for cross-site tracking.
Covert channel: An unintended communication path used to transfer data between processes or systems.
Side-channel attack: Gaining information indirectly via timing, power use, or other physical signals.
Surface web: The part of the web indexed by standard search engines.
Deep web: Content not indexed by search engines, often behind authentication or generated dynamically.
Dark web: Part of the deep web that requires special tools like Tor to access; often uses .onion domains.
.onion domain: Special domain used by Tor hidden services, not accessible through standard DNS.
Tor (The Onion Router): A network that routes traffic through multiple relays to provide anonymity.
Onion routing: Wrapping messages in multiple layers of encryption, with each relay removing one layer.
Entry node: The first Tor relay that knows the user’s IP address.
Exit node: The last Tor relay that sends traffic to the destination server.
Relay: A Tor server that forwards encrypted traffic between other Tor nodes.
Circuit: A path through Tor consisting of multiple relays.
Correlation attack: Matching traffic entering and exiting Tor by timing and size to de-anonymize users.
Sybil attack: Controlling many nodes in a network to compromise anonymity.
IP spoofing attack: Forging source IP addresses to mislead systems or trigger abuse reports.
I2P: Invisible Internet Project; an anonymity network using garlic routing.
Garlic routing: Bundling multiple messages into one encrypted packet to make traffic analysis harder.
Distributed hash table (DHT): A decentralized lookup system for finding resources in I2P.
Mesh networking: A peer-to-peer communication system where devices relay messages without central infrastructure.