The Onion Router, or Tor, is a powerful privacy-enhancing network originally developed by the U.S. Navy to protect government communications. Since its inception, Tor has become an invaluable tool for individuals, activists, and journalists who need to maintain their privacy and anonymity online. Tor routes user traffic through a series of volunteer-operated servers called nodes, encrypting data at each step to provide a high level of anonymity and make it difficult to trace the origin of the traffic. As a result, users can access the internet without revealing their IP addresses or other identifying information.