6 ms·

If you value Tor, please make a donation

98 points by skilled 3y ago

tiahura 3y ago
I was going to leave a comment on the linked page that a link to the project's budget should be prominent. I couldn't, because to do so, I had to either login via discord or github. Seems a bit ironic.
- cmeacham98 3y ago
  It looks to me like you can create a standalone account with an email address and password?
- bauruine 3y ago
  You can create an account with an email address if you click on "create your account" next to the "Log in" button.
berzzz 3y ago
I tried contributing all of my $40 worth of Brave BAT currency (earned from ads) via contribution button in Brave. However it seems I can not as i'm treated with the following message: "This creator is unable to receive contributions from Gemini"
- diggan 3y ago
  According to https://donate.torproject.org/cryptocurrency/ https://donate.torproject.org/cryptocurrency/ it doesn't seem like they support BAT at all.
  - berzzz 3y ago
    Fair enough. I tried.
    - DANmode 3y ago
      Swapping is (should be?) trivial. You may even be able to give it directly to a contributor.
moffkalast 3y ago
> charitable giving from individuals from the U.S. decreased by 10.5% Well you see it's been a rough year for the CIA, all of their budget is tied up on monitoring the situation in Ukraine so they had to cut some corners.
- yarslan 3y ago
  And now they also have to split some for more for the middle east. Sigh…
unregistereddev 3y ago
Am I wrong to assume that Tor is effectively a US government project at this point? It may allow people to bypass local internet controls (in some cases including government-imposed internet controls), but I would assume it is not truly anonymous.
- thefascistleft 3y ago
  [dead]
- naniwaduni 3y ago
  "At this point"? It was always a US military/intelligence project, it just happened to be useful for their purposes to launder their traffic by making it available to civilians. It's never exactly been a secret, and the project has seen a fair amount of scrutiny for this fact.
  - jowea 3y ago
    Yes but isn't the previous poster more concerned about ownership of the infrastructure that IIRC might allow to identify users and not of the code base which is openly linked to the US government?
    - ls612 3y ago
      The government uses TOR itself so it has some incentive to both operate infrastructure and also try to make sure it actually delivers on its anonymity claims. If they screw that last part up, their HUMINT sources die.
  - throwme222 3y ago
    There was a contract from US government to develop the software that is now known as Tor. That was 20 years ago. The project has been ran in the open by a non profit ever since. No doubt the US agents still use the network but saying it's a "US military/intelligence project" at this point is silly.
  - flembat 3y ago
dilippkumar 3y ago
On iOS, Tor used to recommend using the Onion browser (they probably still do, I haven't checked). Some time ago, the onion browser changed how it connects to the Tor network to use Orbot instead of connecting directly. I can not help but see this as a malicious change. Orbot directs all traffic from my phone through the Tor network. If an iPhone is secretly pinging some backend server for telemetry / looking for automatic updates / etc, then all those pings will now happen from the Tor exit node, effectively completely deanonymizing the user. It's a trivial matter for an adversarial agent to ask apple for lists of all hits from a specifc tor exit node and identifying information from that user, and cross check that against whatever traffic they are trying to deanonymize. I might be misinformed here, but I would love to be corrected about why anyone should trust Tor enough to access it from an iPhone anymore.
- zolbrek 3y ago
  If you're the kind of guy who worries about the kind of entities who can ask Apple for information and get it, you probably should not be using an iPhone to begin with.
  - noman-land 3y ago
    I hate this response. Not wanting your belongings to leak private information about you is not a desire only elite global hackers have. It should be the norm, especially when law enforcement routinely abuses their authority, double especially when the third party doctrine lets them get the data without a warrant, and triple especially in the age of global mass surveillance.
    - zolbrek 3y ago
      It should be the norm, but it is what it is. I hate to have to give a response like this.
      - aaomidi 3y ago
        TBH your response ignored the actual inquiry. And the actual inquiry annoying assumed malice instead of doing a few minutes of research of why this change was made.
WentFullRetard 3y ago
[dead]

98 points by skilled 3y ago

I was going to leave a comment on the linked page that a link to the project's budget should be prominent. I couldn't, because to do so, I had to either login via discord or github. Seems a bit ironic.

cmeacham98 3y ago
It looks to me like you can create a standalone account with an email address and password?
bauruine 3y ago
You can create an account with an email address if you click on "create your account" next to the "Log in" button.

berzzz 3y ago

I tried contributing all of my $40 worth of Brave BAT currency (earned from ads) via contribution button in Brave. However it seems I can not as i'm treated with the following message: "This creator is unable to receive contributions from Gemini"

diggan 3y ago
According to https://donate.torproject.org/cryptocurrency/ https://donate.torproject.org/cryptocurrency/ it doesn't seem like they support BAT at all.
- berzzz 3y ago
  Fair enough. I tried.
  - DANmode 3y ago
    Swapping is (should be?) trivial. You may even be able to give it directly to a contributor.

moffkalast 3y ago

> charitable giving from individuals from the U.S. decreased by 10.5% Well you see it's been a rough year for the CIA, all of their budget is tied up on monitoring the situation in Ukraine so they had to cut some corners.

yarslan 3y ago
And now they also have to split some for more for the middle east. Sigh…

unregistereddev 3y ago

Am I wrong to assume that Tor is effectively a US government project at this point? It may allow people to bypass local internet controls (in some cases including government-imposed internet controls), but I would assume it is not truly anonymous.

thefascistleft 3y ago
[dead]
naniwaduni 3y ago
"At this point"? It was always a US military/intelligence project, it just happened to be useful for their purposes to launder their traffic by making it available to civilians. It's never exactly been a secret, and the project has seen a fair amount of scrutiny for this fact.
- jowea 3y ago
  Yes but isn't the previous poster more concerned about ownership of the infrastructure that IIRC might allow to identify users and not of the code base which is openly linked to the US government?
  - ls612 3y ago
    The government uses TOR itself so it has some incentive to both operate infrastructure and also try to make sure it actually delivers on its anonymity claims. If they screw that last part up, their HUMINT sources die.
- throwme222 3y ago
  There was a contract from US government to develop the software that is now known as Tor. That was 20 years ago. The project has been ran in the open by a non profit ever since. No doubt the US agents still use the network but saying it's a "US military/intelligence project" at this point is silly.
- flembat 3y ago

dilippkumar 3y ago

On iOS, Tor used to recommend using the Onion browser (they probably still do, I haven't checked). Some time ago, the onion browser changed how it connects to the Tor network to use Orbot instead of connecting directly. I can not help but see this as a malicious change. Orbot directs all traffic from my phone through the Tor network. If an iPhone is secretly pinging some backend server for telemetry / looking for automatic updates / etc, then all those pings will now happen from the Tor exit node, effectively completely deanonymizing the user. It's a trivial matter for an adversarial agent to ask apple for lists of all hits from a specifc tor exit node and identifying information from that user, and cross check that against whatever traffic they are trying to deanonymize. I might be misinformed here, but I would love to be corrected about why anyone should trust Tor enough to access it from an iPhone anymore.

zolbrek 3y ago
If you're the kind of guy who worries about the kind of entities who can ask Apple for information and get it, you probably should not be using an iPhone to begin with.
- noman-land 3y ago
  I hate this response. Not wanting your belongings to leak private information about you is not a desire only elite global hackers have. It should be the norm, especially when law enforcement routinely abuses their authority, double especially when the third party doctrine lets them get the data without a warrant, and triple especially in the age of global mass surveillance.
  - zolbrek 3y ago
    It should be the norm, but it is what it is. I hate to have to give a response like this.
    - aaomidi 3y ago
      TBH your response ignored the actual inquiry. And the actual inquiry annoying assumed malice instead of doing a few minutes of research of why this change was made.

WentFullRetard 3y ago

[dead]