Re: tor-browser bundle on XP

[phobos@xxxxxxxxxx]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 07:54:31PM +0000, mikel.anderson@xxxxxxxx wrote 0.8K bytes in 23 lines about:
: >Anyone knows if there is a difference between the bundle and Xerobank,
: apart from being portable?
: 
: Thanks for the head-up about Xerobank.  It appears Xerobank is an
: improvement on TBB.  Here is a link to a review/comparison of the two
: products:

There are many differences.  For one, Xerobank xB doesn't use Tor.  See
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Dec-2008/msg00053.html for some recent
discussion.  

: Hopefully, this will answer many of your questions.  Note 1: I'm
: assuming TBB and TorPark are essentially the same thing.  Note 2: The
: linked review is over a year old, so further investigation is advised.

TBB and TorPark are altogether different packages.  TorPark was a
compilation of PortableApps packages tied together with the Nullsoft
Installer.  This is similar to PortableTor and other portable tor
packaging.  This is a fine solution if you just want to browse
anonymously, not so much if discovery costs you far more valuable
things.

The Tor Browser Bundle is produced by the Tor Project itself.  It's more
than a compilation of software designed to be portable.  One of the
threat models it defends against is that of a user at an internet cafe in
a heavily censored country.  The user risks bad things happening to them
if they are found to be bypassing the censorship.  Much research went into
creating TBB, such that it works in a self-contained, anonymity-preserving
way.  There are many ways for the operating system to divulge that TBB
was run, what was cached, and otherwise provide a fingerprint that can
be tracked.  We mitigate these leaks.  There are still more to correct,
https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torbrowser/trunk/docs/traces.txt.

Our modifications to the software in TBB are freely available,
https://www.torproject.org/torbrowser/details.html.en#contents.  The
process for building your own TBB from original source (not just ours)
is clearly documented,
https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torbrowser/trunk/build-scripts/INSTALL.  

Hopefully this provide some differences between TBB and others.

-- 
Andrew