.onion

Rare card · No. 73563

.onion is a special-use top-level domain name designating an anonymous onion service, which was formerly known as a "hidden service", reachable via the Tor network. Such addresses are not actual DNS names, and the .onion TLD is not in the Internet DNS root, but with the appropriate proxy software installed, Internet programs such as web browsers can access sites with .onion addresses by sending the request through the Tor network. The "onion" name refers to onion routing, the technique used by Tor to achieve a degree of anonymity. The purpose of using such a system is to make both the information provider and the person accessing the information more difficult to trace, whether by one another, by an intermediate network host, or by an outsider. Sites that offer dedicated .onion addresses may provide an additional layer of identity assurance via EV HTTPS Certificates or Domain-validated HTTPS certificates. Provision of an onion site also helps mitigate SSL stripping attacks by malicious...

Read on Wikipedia · Image The Tor Project, Inc., CC BY 3.0 us