CIA And Dark Web: Agency Creates Site On Tor Network For Intelligence Gathering

The Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday that it is setting up an "onion" site on the dark web so that individuals can browse the website anonymously or give tips.

"Our global mission demands that individuals can access us securely from anywhere. Creating an onion site is just one of many ways we're going where people are," said Brittany Bramell, the CIA's Director of Public Affairs, in a statement.

The website can be found on the Tor network, which hosts so-called "onion" sites. In order to keep users anonymous, the information about the user, such as the IP address, goes through multiple computers and is encrypted before it reaches its final destination, which makes the original information about the user hard to trace. This is why these websites are called "onion" sites because, like an onion, they have many layers.

The Tor network can be accessed on a special Tor browser.

Everything that is on the cia.gov domain is available on the Tor version of the site. This includes the CIA World Factbook, an encyclopedic resource that has extensive political, economic and geographic information on every country worldwide.

The CIA is the first intelligence agency globally to start a Tor site.

Tor sites have also been launched by Facebook and the New York Times.

Another reason why organizations like the CIA start a Tor site is to overcome censorship and web filters that are enacted by governments worldwide. Governments that may have a cold relationship with the U.S., such as Iran, have blocked the CIA's normal URL, which means that the Tor website is an alternative for citizens in those countries to contact the CIA.

It also eases the concerns of those citizens who may fear that their internet service provider (ISP) could be tracked if they contact the agency to share tips.