Which organization created the Tor network’s original onion-routing technology?

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory created Tor’s original onion-routing technology.

Onion routing was developed in the 1990s by researchers Paul Syverson, Michael G. Reed, and David Goldschlag at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. The design sends traffic through multiple relays, wrapping layers of encryption around the message so that no single relay normally knows both the sender and the final destination.

The Tor name originally came from “The Onion Router.” The project was later developed and released more broadly as free and open-source software, allowing journalists, researchers, activists, and ordinary users to protect aspects of their online identity.

Tor does not make users automatically anonymous in every situation. Browser behavior, account logins, malware, and mistakes can reveal identity even when traffic uses the Tor network. Tor also differs from a conventional VPN because traffic is routed through several volunteer-operated relays rather than one commercial provider.

The technology has legitimate privacy uses, although it can also be misused.