Threat Model
A structured answer to who your adversary is, what assets you protect, and what failure looks like — the foundation of OPSEC and tool choice.
A threat model is a short, honest document — often just a paragraph — that answers four questions: What must stay secret? From whom? What can that adversary actually do? And what happens if the defense fails? Every serious security decision, from choosing Tor to choosing a phone, is downstream of those answers.
Why tools come second
Tor protects against an observer of the network: the ISP, the local censor, the website logging visitors. It does nothing against an adversary who controls the device, compels a provider, or reads the screen. Someone whose threat is ad tracking needs a different setup than someone whose threat is a state police agency — and the wrong model costs in both directions: exposure on one side, unusable complexity on the other.
The common failure
Copying a checklist written for someone else’s adversary. Checklists encode a threat model without stating it; following one meant for a journalist in a war zone — or for a casual privacy enthusiast — fits most people poorly. Writing the model down first, and revisiting it when circumstances change, is the foundation on which OPSEC and Anonymity tools build.
Category: Security