If I am using tor for anonimity, does this prevent staff at a place of employment or an educational institution from remotely viewing my desktop and seeing what I am doing on Tor? If so how can I get around this?
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3Tor masks your traffic as it leaves your computer, it doesn't protect you from applications installed on your computer by other administrators. If you are looking for an answer to the second part of your question, I suggest removing the Tor bit as it is irrelevant.– David HoudeDec 13, 2014 at 18:40
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2 Answers
If someone else has software installed on the computer you are using that allows them to view your screen than Tor will not prevent them from doing so.
If used correctly Tor will make it very difficult to associate your internet traffic with you and people snooping on that traffic will not know you are the one it is directed to. But, if an attacker has spyware on your computer that wont matter. They will presumably already have access to your computer and be able to see and record everything you are doing.
Potential alternatives are to use Tor on your own computer that doesn't have spyware installed on it by an educational institution. However, if you are using a school computer and internet connection there is no real way to garuntee that you aren't being snooped on.
In general, if you can't trust the computer that you are using, you should expect no privacy whatsoever. Just as Tor cannot protect you against someone looking over your shoulder at your screen, it cannot protect you against an administrator viewing through Remote Desktop, or the "commercial spyware" programs that many institutions install on their computers which are capable of taking screenshots and logging keystrokes.
The main purpose of Tor is to make it hard for the websites you are accessing to figure out who or where you are, and for your ISP/anyone watching your network traffic to see what websites you're trying to access. It does not protect you against software on your own computer.
There is really no way around this other than to use Tor (or VPN) on a computer that you own and trust, preferably one on which you've fresh-installed the operating system yourself.
