What is the advantage and disadvantage of VPN over TOR

[Rashkae]

arshad wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-12-24 at 06:52 -0500, Rashkae wrote:
>> arshad wrote:
>>> and how to configure a VPN in jaunty? (i don't have a VPN router, im
>>> connecting to interent using mobilephone)
>>> thank you very much.
>>>
>>>
>> Advantage: non-whatsoever
>>
>> Disadvantage: You'll be routing your vpn traffic through routers
>> controlled by other people, who include a handful of University computer
>> science departments and even the NSA, who will all be given the first
>> chance to sniff all your traffic for passwords and what not.
>>
>> It should go without saying, this is not at all what TOR is designed for.
>>
> 
> so you mean,
> TOR is better than vpn?

A vpn tries to keep the communication between two computers secure and
private.  TOR strives prevent two computers which are communicating with
each other from seeing each other.  Not only are they two completely
different objectives, in several ways, they can be considered mutually
exclusive.  (Unless you are tyring to connect to a vpn with stolen
credentials and want to prevent the vpn  owner from tracing connection
back to you.)

> i would like to confirm the following with TOR:
> 
> 1) the site i visit doenst know where i origin from

Correct

> 2) an eavesdropper cannot intercept the message

No such protection.  In fact, a security researcher recently published a
whole whack of government officials e-mail username and password because
he noticed several people using TOR mistakenly thinking it was a
security tool rather than an annonimizer.  If you are sending any kind
of username / password over TOR, you defeat the pupose entirely.
(unless, as I said, the username/password aren't yours.)


> 3) ISP doesnt know which sites visited.
> 

Maybe, though there's nothing stopping the ISP from participating in
TOR, and maybe end up being part of the chain that brokers the
connection.  I don't know enough about TOR internals and encryption to
give information on how successful this goal will be.