Im sure a lot of people know about tor on this site...but let me remind everyone.
Tor is not for criminals. It's for you and me. And happens to be good enough that criminals use it too. This is the two sided nature of technology.
Tor is a networks of peers across the globe volunteering their network bandwidth to support people under oppression by their government.
The amount of privacy that can be gained from tor is proportional to the amount of people using it. The more that people utilize the technology, the more that everyone looks the same, and protects the people that need it the most.
Tor enables me to say no to these things and carry on, without permission.
iCloud private relay has done more in just a few years than Tor ever has, by being opt-out for iOS users instead of opt-in like Tor. Now platforms can’t rely on IP based reputation, instead relying on either a computational challenge (Cloudflare, Anubis) or de-anonymization (recaptcha relying on being signed into a Google account more than anything, especially when using private relay).
I'm using Tor right now! Everyone should. It's too bad that many websites block it, but most of those websites are slop anyway.
Tor is very much for US overseas intelligence operatives, among other things.
Tor is not for criminals. It's for you and me.
No. Tor is for the CIA. It won't work for them unless we use it as well. Criminals also find it useful.
It's easy to verify this. Tor was originally written by Paul Syverson, Michael G. Reed, and David Goldschlag. While all three were working at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.
I think you overestimates the protection Tor provides. We have seen multiple cases of people getting caught on there, and CIA probably owns half the exit nodes anyways.