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...besides the US Government, TOR's largest benefactor by far. In case anyone needed reminding. https://www.torproject.org/static/findoc/2020-TorProject-Form99

by jakear 4y ago

...besides the US Government, TOR's largest benefactor by far. In case anyone needed reminding. https://www.torproject.org/static/findoc/2020-TorProject-Form990.pdf https://www.torproject.org/static/findoc/2020-TorProject-For...

winter_blue 4y ago
I'm not sure which page of the link above (the tax return) I'm supposed to look at... Where does it say the US govt is funding Tor, and if so, by what amount are they funding Tor?
- washmyelbows 4y ago
  page 10 lists over 2 million in government grants
  - Ajedi32 4y ago
    So about half of their revenue in 2020, according to that same page.
blauditore 4y ago
I can totally imagine they're using Tor for some undercover (foreign) operations or similar. I don't think the US Government with all its branches is known to practise exactly what it preaches.
- ouid 4y ago
  I think what you have identified is that the US government is not, in any sense of the word, an it.
- moremetadata 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - huggingmouth 4y ago
    > Ten years ago the US Navy invented Tor, an anonymous web browser. Now the ‘dark net’ is used to trade guns, drugs and child pornography, do its creators have any regrets? I hope they don't. I certainly wouldn't. Despite some of its glaring downsides, I firmly belive that Tor is a net positive for humanity.
  - IntelMiner 4y ago
    For what it's worth, the creators of Tor have stated their philosophy around that problem. Effectively that they shouldn't be the arbiter of what people can access
  - ccooffee 4y ago
    Well, parts of the US government engage in arms trafficking and drug trafficking (sometimes at the same time, as in Iran-Contra). I hope they don't do CSAM trafficking or human trafficking, but I wouldn't be surprised at the least.
    - MSFT_Edging 4y ago
      That's what the mercenaries... er contractors are for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynCorp#Sex_trafficking_of_children_in_Bosnia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynCorp#Sex_trafficking_of_chi...
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    Its creators can't be blamed for this. Just like we don't blame the post office for circulating CSAM and drugs. Unfortunately you can't have near-absolute privacy without some people abusing it. This is just a given. And if the US hadn't supplied tor, the bad actors would have used i2p or invented their own. By supplying the tech at least they have some measure of visibility.
    - notch898a 4y ago
      People here are overwhelmingly against privacy when it enables criminals to hide. Almost every crypto thread is dominated by concerns about KYC and AML.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  Of course, this is basically why they invented it in the first place.
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    And why they open sourced it. All the fancy onion routing would be useless if the fact that you use it already identified you as a CIA spy. They need other people to use it as well for TOR to be useful to them.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > I can totally imagine they're using Tor for some undercover (foreign) operations or similar. I don't think the US Government with all its branches is known to practise exactly what it preaches. The US government has different parts with different goals: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/05/the-nsa-is-trying-to-crack-tor-the-state-department-is-helping-pay-for-it/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/05... (paywalled). IIRC, the NSA has interests in conducting surveillance, and the State Department has interests in allowing liberal foreign dissidents to defeat surveillance.
  - godelski 4y ago
    Ironically meaning that the gov does the cat and mouse game with itself. Self-reinforcement learning. Quite an effective optimization method if we're being honest.
djfobbz 4y ago
[flagged]
- brnt 4y ago
  Because?
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  For me, too.
- IntelMiner 4y ago
  Why?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
DeathArrow 4y ago
And I assume they have no means to spy on TOR traffic. :D
- jakear 4y ago
  Au contraire: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/08/349016/a-dark-web-tycoon-pleads-guilty-but-how-was-he-caught https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/08/349016/a-dark-we...
time_to_smile 4y ago
The US Government also funded and build the Internet (or at least ARPAnet). The government also benefits from Tor being actually anonymous. It is worth being aware of course, but to my knowledge we have no evidence that Federal law enforcement has used anything other than old fashioned detective work to solve any Tor related cases. There's always the possibility of parallel construction, but I would expect some reasonable evidence supporting this in some high profile busts.
- themoonisachees 4y ago
  It would however be common sense that the US gov. Wouldn't burn a TOR 0-day (or other means of breaking tor anonymity) for anything but the highest of high profile cases, especially considering it would end up in court records. They can either spy and let it slide because 1 guy buying weed on whatever replaced the silk road isn't worth that, or they can find the guy, arrest him if he's done something big enough and invent a way they found him. Hell, they could even say they found him on clearnet, the guy isn't gona go "your honor, i sure did buy those illegal drugs online but i used TOR so how did they find out" My current biggest reason to believe TOR isn't breached on a massive scale is that snowden had nothing to show about it.

by jakear 4y ago

winter_blue 4y ago

I'm not sure which page of the link above (the tax return) I'm supposed to look at... Where does it say the US govt is funding Tor, and if so, by what amount are they funding Tor?

washmyelbows 4y ago
page 10 lists over 2 million in government grants
- Ajedi32 4y ago
  So about half of their revenue in 2020, according to that same page.

blauditore 4y ago

I can totally imagine they're using Tor for some undercover (foreign) operations or similar. I don't think the US Government with all its branches is known to practise exactly what it preaches.

ouid 4y ago
I think what you have identified is that the US government is not, in any sense of the word, an it.
moremetadata 4y ago
[flagged]
- huggingmouth 4y ago
  > Ten years ago the US Navy invented Tor, an anonymous web browser. Now the ‘dark net’ is used to trade guns, drugs and child pornography, do its creators have any regrets? I hope they don't. I certainly wouldn't. Despite some of its glaring downsides, I firmly belive that Tor is a net positive for humanity.
- IntelMiner 4y ago
  For what it's worth, the creators of Tor have stated their philosophy around that problem. Effectively that they shouldn't be the arbiter of what people can access
- ccooffee 4y ago
  Well, parts of the US government engage in arms trafficking and drug trafficking (sometimes at the same time, as in Iran-Contra). I hope they don't do CSAM trafficking or human trafficking, but I wouldn't be surprised at the least.
  - MSFT_Edging 4y ago
    That's what the mercenaries... er contractors are for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynCorp#Sex_trafficking_of_children_in_Bosnia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynCorp#Sex_trafficking_of_chi...
- wkat4242 4y ago
  Its creators can't be blamed for this. Just like we don't blame the post office for circulating CSAM and drugs. Unfortunately you can't have near-absolute privacy without some people abusing it. This is just a given. And if the US hadn't supplied tor, the bad actors would have used i2p or invented their own. By supplying the tech at least they have some measure of visibility.
  - notch898a 4y ago
    People here are overwhelmingly against privacy when it enables criminals to hide. Almost every crypto thread is dominated by concerns about KYC and AML.
wkat4242 4y ago
Of course, this is basically why they invented it in the first place.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  And why they open sourced it. All the fancy onion routing would be useless if the fact that you use it already identified you as a CIA spy. They need other people to use it as well for TOR to be useful to them.
tablespoon 4y ago
> I can totally imagine they're using Tor for some undercover (foreign) operations or similar. I don't think the US Government with all its branches is known to practise exactly what it preaches. The US government has different parts with different goals: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/05/the-nsa-is-trying-to-crack-tor-the-state-department-is-helping-pay-for-it/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/05... (paywalled). IIRC, the NSA has interests in conducting surveillance, and the State Department has interests in allowing liberal foreign dissidents to defeat surveillance.
- godelski 4y ago
  Ironically meaning that the gov does the cat and mouse game with itself. Self-reinforcement learning. Quite an effective optimization method if we're being honest.

djfobbz 4y ago

[flagged]

brnt 4y ago
Because?
DeathArrow 4y ago
For me, too.
IntelMiner 4y ago
Why?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

DeathArrow 4y ago

And I assume they have no means to spy on TOR traffic. :D

jakear 4y ago
Au contraire: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/08/349016/a-dark-web-tycoon-pleads-guilty-but-how-was-he-caught https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/08/349016/a-dark-we...

time_to_smile 4y ago

The US Government also funded and build the Internet (or at least ARPAnet). The government also benefits from Tor being actually anonymous. It is worth being aware of course, but to my knowledge we have no evidence that Federal law enforcement has used anything other than old fashioned detective work to solve any Tor related cases. There's always the possibility of parallel construction, but I would expect some reasonable evidence supporting this in some high profile busts.

themoonisachees 4y ago
It would however be common sense that the US gov. Wouldn't burn a TOR 0-day (or other means of breaking tor anonymity) for anything but the highest of high profile cases, especially considering it would end up in court records. They can either spy and let it slide because 1 guy buying weed on whatever replaced the silk road isn't worth that, or they can find the guy, arrest him if he's done something big enough and invent a way they found him. Hell, they could even say they found him on clearnet, the guy isn't gona go "your honor, i sure did buy those illegal drugs online but i used TOR so how did they find out" My current biggest reason to believe TOR isn't breached on a massive scale is that snowden had nothing to show about it.