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Covid-19’s impact on Tor
- anigbrowl 6y agoWhy isn't there a public open-source fund to finance open projects (ie one to which the donors have no clue or control where the funds will eventually go; they're disbursed on the basis of how widely something is used)?
- burrows 6y agoWhat does “public” mean in this context? And if you want this thing, why don’t you make it?
- samatman 6y agoEveryone knows that there's a huge gap between wanting something to exist, and wanting something to exist, while having the expertise, time, resources, and will, to bring it into existence. Since you know this as well as I do, I want to ask: what is your motive in asking this question?
- anigbrowl 6y agoPublic means non-profit and wholly transparent, explicitly dedicated to the creation and expansion of a software commons. It infuriates me that people who work on important projects like numpy or Tor which are very widely used have trouble paying the bills and keeping a roof over their head. I don't make it because I don't work in the software industry and don't have access to large social or financial capital networks. That sounds a bit like asking why someone who proposes a public policy idea doesn't just run for President.
- burrows 6y ago> It infuriates me that people who work on important projects like numpy or Tor which are very widely used have trouble paying the bills and keeping a roof over their head. Donate money to projects you care about. Persuade your friends to donate. > I don't make it because I don't work in the software industry and don't have access to large social or financial capital networks. What’s the plan for getting the doers onboard? Pay them? Persuade them to work for free? Persuade the government to tax someone else to fund them? Or are we just shouting about things we don’t like? Because let me tell you about low quality leather goods...
- Noos 6y agoThe problem is that this what you get when you make a commons without reciprocity or equality. Reciprocity means the producer/upkeeper and consumer each put something into the commons that balances out mutual needs. if only a few people can create or maintain, the many users must contribute in a lesser fashion to enable them. Equality means that everyone create or maintain, so the burden isn't shared on a small group. If we are all farmers, we can each handle a share of a common field. But this kind of commons is asymmetrical, and that's why you'll never see people pay the bills anywhere near close to the need. This kind of common can really only be noblesse oblige, where people with abundant resources give charity. It isn't, so people struggle.
- burrows 6y agoThe idea of "everyone" owning something, ie a commons, is a contradiction. If everyone owns it, then no one owns it. Assume the thing has exactly one owner. Then "reciprocity" and "equality" are addressed by the owner charging a fee to use the thing. Currency exchanged by consumers compensates the owner-operator's work.
- jzb 6y agoHow many people or organizations are likely to donate to a random project they’ve no idea if it’s something they use or care about?
- anigbrowl 6y agoPromoting free software in general means giving up that kind of micromanagement/ control maximization.
- EamonnMR 6y agohttps://my.fsf.org/donate/ https://my.fsf.org/donate/ https://sfconservancy.org/donate/ https://sfconservancy.org/donate/ https://www.apache.org/foundation/contributing.html https://www.apache.org/foundation/contributing.html https://opensource.org/donate https://opensource.org/donate https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/donate/ https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/donate/
- anigbrowl 6y agoThe FSF's total assets are less than $2m. Apache's under $5m. I mean something with billion $ capitalization instead of peanuts.
- mikeg8 6y agoProbably because the players who can amass a billion $ fund would rather put their money somewhere else. You're basically asking why is capitalism capitalism?
- fierarul 6y agoI assume you are aware Apache does not pay for any kind of software development. They only spend money on some minor infrastructure to have JIRA and the mailing lists and build servers running; plus administrative / legal personnel. All the new "Apache" software is written by volunteers, the mirror system is provided free by 3rd parties, code hosting is almost all on GitHub. So, what would they need the extra money for? Another JIRA instance? By comparison the FreeBSD foundation does hand out grants to fix parts of their OS which they deem relevant and in need. Would be nice to see something similar in other foundations.
- chrisco255 6y agoSee Gitcoin: https://gitcoin.co/landing https://gitcoin.co/landing
- anigbrowl 6y agoThis looks promising, thanks!
- throwaway092837 6y agoIndeed donations are far, far from enough. GPS, GSM, fiber optics, Internet, touchscreens, semiconductors, satellites, most of chemistry and aviation - all were researched and developed using taxpayer money. And it took billions. Now all public R&D is being destroyed and yet FLOSS fits exactly in the category. We desperately need large, global, R&D funding not some people throwing some bucks at patreon.
- justicezyx 6y agoWhat's the founding source of Tor project? I thought people would be more willing to support them in current situations. Assuming they are on some crowd sourced funding sources.
- bigiain 6y agoDARPA, National Science Foundation, and Craigslist - amongst others... https://www.zdnet.com/article/half-of-the-tor-projects-funding-now-comes-from-the-private-sector/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/half-of-the-tor-projects-fundi... (2017 numbers article) https://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors/ https://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tor_Project#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tor_Project#Funding (And people wonder why I'm stocking up on tinfoil millinery supplies...)
- jzb 6y agoI’m sorry to hear this, also surprised. Is the funding for Tor going to be so immediately affected they had to cut staff without a public appeal or anything?
- whoisjuan 6y agoIt can totally happen. Funding commitments are gone fast when a crisis hits. People start cutting costs and start trying to find ways to reduce expenses. Giving away money it's definitely a bad idea during an economic crisis, so non-profits are hit hard. Exhibit from the 2009 Financial Crisis: https://publish.illinois.edu/illinoisblj/2009/09/20/the-impact-of-the-financial-crisis-on-nonprofits/ https://publish.illinois.edu/illinoisblj/2009/09/20/the-impa... A good recent article on the topic: https://www.philanthropy.com/article/As-Coronavirus-Threat/248213 https://www.philanthropy.com/article/As-Coronavirus-Threat/2...
- mc32 6y agoThis got me to think about the ACLU and what they are doing. I see some issues about accommodating justice and other issues affected by the pandemic and the intersection with liberties... it's more about looking at the compounding effect than protecting against fundamental change and fundamental threats to civil rights. But I don’t see any take on any measures governments have taken to kerb civil rights in the time of the pandemic as well as talk about tracking and contact tracing. Also kerbs on the right to assembly and to go out and about, etc. Yes this would abut against the fight against the disease, but that’s not their job. They usually don’t contextualize liberties. But here they seem silent and it’s a bit puzzling.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoThe ACLU has largely transitioned away from civil rights absolutism towards progressive advocacy. They haven't entirely tossed it out the door, and still sometimes defend the civil rights of non-progressive groups, but the modern ACLU definitely feels it's important to contextualize liberties.
- rootusrootus 6y agoAgreed, they have significantly changed over even just the last few years. It makes me a little sad, because we have plenty of progressive advocacy groups, and I appreciated the ACLU trying to be more focused.
- yingw787 6y agoYeah, that is interesting. I donate to the ACLU monthly and I haven't gotten anything related to the pandemic, just regular board of directors voting. ...are they working on the EARN IT act by any chance?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoTheir current efforts are focused on getting lots of people released from jails and prisons, since they might catch COVID-19 if they're in jail.
- cbsks 6y agoI’m confused by this... why are layoffs happening so suddenly? Did they recently lose some large corporate sponsors? How many donations have been cut off over the last few months? Do they not have money in the bank? From my perspective it looks like they have had ongoing financial problems, and are using this as a convenient scapegoat to cut expenses.
- baby 6y agoIt doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Imagine if your company was going through a financially difficult time, and firing becomes the only path forward. This can greatly impact the team's moral and trust in management. Using the crisis as a scapegoat makes it easier to accept the event.
- cbsks 6y agoI’m not saying that it is necessarily a bad thing, just that blaming a few months of decreased donations for laying off 37% of your employees doesn’t pass my sniff test. Why not state the real reason?
- brewdad 6y agoIf your donations were only covering ongoing expenses with nothing left for a reserve fund, then losing a third of your funding and laying off a third of your workforce doesn't seem unreasonable.
- CathedralBorrow 6y agoWait, because you didn't fully understand their reasons, you are now assuming that there is a "real reason" that was deliberately not stated?
- Thorrez 6y agoOn the other hand if you're lying about the real reason that can cause distrust among employees and hurt morale. (Not to mention I consider it unethical.)
- Renaud 6y agoThey are too dependent on government sponsorship. 80% of their funding comes from the US government in some shape. I would imagine that a project of that importance deserves to be able to be self-sufficient. A US$2M budget/year is not that much, (m|b)illionaires making their money from the Internet could easily sponsor the project. Better yet, having grass-root sponsorship is even more important. Maybe they need marketing help more than anything else?
- mhuffman 6y agoThere is no tech company that is going to sponsor a browser that makes it harder for them to track customers.
- Renaud 6y agoCraigslist is a sponsor, so not all tech companies think that way.
- mikeg8 6y agoCraigslist isn’t a tech company. It’s a website. Not trying to disrespect them as I’m sure they do some impressive stuff behind the scenes to handle scale, I just don't feel they’re innovating in a way to be called “tech”.
- LyalinDotCom 6y agoFor a project that is about freedom of information they sure kept this vague. Why not share more details of why you had to fire people, what funding sources dried up, etc?
- tempestn 6y agoFor a project about privacy it seems appropriate though!
- Thorrez 6y agoTo protect the privacy of the users you want the organization to be as transparent as possible about everything not involving user data. If the organization is hiding something, that something could be user-hostile.
- rentnorove 6y agoComparing a recent web archive, the difference in the sponspors page seens to be: - Mozilla - Digital Impact Alliance - Google Season of Docs + RIPE NCC https://web.archive.org/web/20191103152656/https://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191103152656/https://www.torpr... https://web.archive.org/web/20200404101205/https://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200404101205/https://www.torpr...
- RedComet 6y agoHow is their funding in any way affected?
- MikeGale 6y agoI don't understand the background here. There is one thing we can all do, if we care about Tor, donate now.
- jerheinze 6y agoDuplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22907103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22907103
- totalZero 6y agoI was hoping this would be an analysis of changes in usage patterns. System identification may be easier (and privacy thus worse) now that the network topology is more static, as people move around less due to the virus.
- DeathArrow 6y agoTor needs two things: more publicity and a public fund. I think many people would donate if they would find up about Tor and why it is important.
- nbar1 6y agoI use Amazon Smile to donate to Tor. It's not much, but it's something.
- nbar1 6y agoI feel for the people at Tor who were let go. My company was in the same position and I was unfortunately on the list of people who had their position terminated. While I am upset that I am now unemployed I also can understand how a company can be put in a difficult position during this time. I will survive, and I hope they do too.
- wegs 6y agoI feel bad for the spiral here. We're now seeing the second-order of the depression spiral. * First step was laying off people without jobs which could be done remotely. * Second step is laying off people who could still be productive from home, but where there's less demand. Unless we act with boldness and resoluteness, this will just continue to feed in on itself as the nation collapses.
- nbar1 6y agoUnfortunately for me, I was a remote worker already (worked there for a month shy of 6 years). Hopefully, my position (React/Node FS Dev) is in high enough demand after all this to resume working remotely with a comfortable salary. I've already had offers for remote but they require me to relocate after the pandemic is over, which is really clogging up the job boards.
- wdb 6y agoI haven't found much jobs which offer remote working as they mostly based in the US.
- nbar1 6y agoLuckily I am based in the US, but I am unable to travel (for personal reasons) which is also an interview dead-end for a lot of companies that want you to come spend a week for initiation and meet up a few times a year.
- mjayhn 6y agoI'm sorry to hear about that but I'm sure you'll do great w/a react/node background I'm not even involved in front-end but I know quite a few places always hiring good react/node devs (albeit they might be in a freeze right now). Give https://github.com/yanirs/established-remote https://github.com/yanirs/established-remote and https://github.com/remoteintech/remote-jobs https://github.com/remoteintech/remote-jobs a look.
- fierarul 6y agoThis announcement makes no sense. You do not have 35 employees without some sort of stable budget. Seems very unlikely the budget changed so much in the past few months that you have to reduce your headcount by 40%! Then they even mention that they expect Tor to be even more relevant in the coming period. Well, now would be a good time to keep the people, work on the product and show how relevant it is. Very little specific detail considering they are a non-profit. Why not post the numbers?
- maallooc 6y agoThe fact is, they post their numbers every year. You can download their annual audit reports. They just did not state those numbers on this article. And this layoff is not because the budget changed now, it’s to prepare for that. Don’t demand to be spoonfed, just pay attention little more.
- fierarul 6y agoYeah, right. One should expect transparency from little startups showing us their monthly revenue and such. We have to wait for the yearly audited reports to get a small glimpse into the world of non-profits. I've read a few of these reports to know they are generally useless or well hidden. It's early April. I'll just quietly wait another 8 months to see how their financials changed. Or I could hunt down previous reports, see their revenue, infer their operating costs (assuming they didn't hire any new people), then guesstimate how their projected revenue is altered to much as to require a 40% headcount change. Or maybe, just maybe, a non-profit could have posted this info.
- RocketSyntax 6y agowhy are digital companies impacted? i don't understand. do their customers have less $ to spend?
- justlexi93 6y agoMaybe a silly question, but Tor Project is founded only by donation and I guess most employees have jobs that can be done at home, so why such impact that needs to lay off 1/3? Are the donations so much lower than before that it was critical after only a month or so of the crisis? It is pretty tough to find a new job after this pandemic.