Tor: It’s not just for drugs anymore. One million people used the privacy service to access Facebook in 30 days, the highest number since Facebook started offering Tor access to its service at facebookcorewwwi.onion and on Android devices.
“In June 2015, over a typical 30-day period, about 525,000 people would access Facebook over Tor,” said an announcement from Facebook engineer Alec Muffett, who helped built Facebook’s Tor compatibility. “This number has grown – roughly linearly – and this month, for the first time, we saw this ’30-day’ figure exceed 1 million people.”
Tor is a service that lets users browse the Web anonymously, or at the very least with an obscured IP. The protocol works by routing users’ traffic through “nodes,” computers offered by volunteers as access points for traffic. Traffic is routed through three nodes, and encrypted every step of the way, meaning no single node could possibly decrypt the traffic.
Try to access facebookcorewwwi.onion on a standard browser and you’ll see only an error message. This is because using Tor requires a Tor-compatable browser, the best known of which is (unsurprisingly) called Tor. If you’ve used Firefox before, the interface will be familiar, but there are a number of built-in security features.
It may seem strange to use Facebook, a service built around users’ real-world identity, on Tor, a service built on the concept of anonymity. Facebook sees this simply as an added layer of security, a way to access the site with protection, as well as a usability feature for enthusiastic Tor users.
One million users in a month represents a tiny fraction of Facebook’s 1.59 billion monthly users, but that kind of user base means even a tiny fraction adds up to a lot. Whatever you think of Facebook, a huge number of people wanted to access the site through Tor.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.