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A New Era at the Tor Project
- mfkp 12y agoI didn't know Tor had an Executive Director. Looking now at their staff list [0], I'm now unsure about how they have the money to support all these employees. All I see is a donate button. [0] https://www.torproject.org/about/corepeople.html.en https://www.torproject.org/about/corepeople.html.en
- ta82828 12y agoTor is funded at least partly by the U.S. government. https://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors.html.en https://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors.html.en See: * Radio Free Asia * US Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor * Naval Research Laboratory
- noir_lord 12y agoA fact that in light of all the stuff in the last few years is doubly hilarious.
- ta82828 12y agoI've read that the primary motivation is to allow intelligence assets in other countries to communicate with the agencies they work for. https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/96791ee9-98d5-44a0-b0a9-c2a5b3b6ec31/72b5e81135196815a23eb969d080ddf0 https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/96791ee9-98d5-44a0-b0a9...
- mikeash 12y agoIt's well known that Tor is vulnerable to traffic analysis by an adversary that can basically monitor the entire internet. In the past, this was considered impractical, but now we know the NSA does something like this. Since this is inherent in its design, that means it doesn't really matter if it's funded by the US government, because they don't even need to weaken it in the first place. Not to say that funding diversity wouldn't be a good thing, but there's no particular reason to think Tor is broken any more than is already known because of where the money currently comes from.
- antocv 12y agoWhat about I2P?
- wongarsu 12y agoI2P claims to try to defend against large scale traffic analysis, but they are a underfunded project with few contributors. There was some mention of implementing cover traffic which would solve the issue (at the cost of massively increasing traffic), but I don't think that's happened yet.
- throwaway7767 12y agoI2P, being fully decentralised, is also very vulnerable to a sybil attack. Join thousands of nodes to the network, wait until you are strategically placed, then follow the traffic streams routed through your nodes. Of course, sybil attacks are a concern in any open network. In theory the tor directory authorities are able to deny new nodes so they have some recourse, but in practice if you stagger your new nodes you can still infiltrate the network. :/ The fact is, anonymity systems are a hard and unsolved problem. That's not due to the source of the funding. We take what we get.
- dublinben 12y agoIf you find this fact concerning, please donate to the Tor project.
- liamk 12y ago"The organization consists of many volunteers and a few employees."
- martinald 12y agoIt's a 501(c)(3) organisation so you should be able to see for yourself. I'm not a USian so don't know how to pull them out, would be very interested to know.
- dustcoin 12y agoThey have publicly posted financial reports: https://www.torproject.org/about/financials.html.en https://www.torproject.org/about/financials.html.en
- darkstar999 12y agoIRS form 990 will tell you a 501c3's finances, they are required to release it annually.
- lalos 12y agoAlso Tor Project is available on http://smile.amazon.com http://smile.amazon.com and almost every purchase you make they will receive 0.5% of the total as long as you make it through the smile subdomain.
- webwanderings 12y agohttp://pando.com/2014/07/16/tor-spooks/ http://pando.com/2014/07/16/tor-spooks/
- middleclick 12y agoPlease, if you have to paste something, at least don't paste the absolutely ludicrous Pando article, which has been debunked many many times. It does nothing but say that Tor is compromised just because it was funded by the government.
- webwanderings 12y agoPlease paste the link which debunks Pando's thesis. I'd like to read.
- middleclick 12y agohttp://blog.erratasec.com/2014/11/the-pando-tor-conspiracy-troll.html http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/11/the-pando-tor-conspiracy-t... https://micahflee.com/2014/12/fact-checking-pandos-smears-against-tor/ https://micahflee.com/2014/12/fact-checking-pandos-smears-ag...
- unheaped 12y agoDecidedly non opinionated blog article. Seems more like a general announcement rather than a 'so there, told you so' post. How is this shaking things up? What does this mean for TOR? What's the bus factor after the fact? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
- CatDevURandom 12y ago"Although we are sad to see Andrew leave, Tor is entering an exciting period of growth. " Why not stop at Andrew is leaving? The whole "exciting period of growth" thing feels tacked on and forced. Reminds me of the type of stuff managers say after a layoff.
- bane 12y agoJust wait until "it's been an incredible journey".
- nickysielicki 12y agoThis seems more to me like a small announcement about a tor staff member leaving. Clickbait title = front page of HN.
- cubano 12y agoI guess it would have been nice if they at least hinted at what these new directions may be? As it was, it came off identically to a Fortune 500 press release about the CEO moving on.
- kijin 12y agoEFF-related announcements often have that "Fortune 500 press release" feel to them. I wonder if that's a natural result of EFF being a lawyer-heavy organization.
- antocv 12y agoPerhaps this is a hint. Something is amiss in the Tor project? Infiltrated perhaps? Backdoored? Even worse? All they can do is throw this CEO moving on shit.
- rtpg 12y agoIf you assume that there actually is no issue at Tor, how would the message be different? This could just be that the top guy is leaving, and this is their way of reassuring that it's still business as usual, and everything _isn't_ falling apart. Of course that's the sort of message that you write if it is falling apart as well, so I guess this is basically a contentless press release on that part.
- diminoten 12y agoThis, ladies and gentlemen, is what paranoia looks like.
- patcon 12y ago> Andrew Lewman, our current Executive Director, is leaving The Tor Project to take a position at an Internet services company. Anyone know the name/type of the company? I'm really curious. Hoping it's an ISP or MVNO or some other space that needs good people like him
- hueving 12y agoNetworking Services of America
- goalieca 12y agoSadly, tor is Not Secure Anymore.
- ChristianBundy 12y agoCitation needed.
- maze-le 12y agoTOR has never been "secure". Everyone running an exit-node can intercept all communications going through that node, and since everyone can run an exit-node... So, you always had to take care that you use encryption when using TOR. In Terms of anonymity though TOR seems still to bug NSA and the likes.
- ncza 12y agoApples and oranges. All I want is anonymity, I am fine with the exit seeing things as it does not know who I am.
- middleclick 12y agoTor, not TOR.
- infinity0 12y agoSSL. Also, all ISPs can do this.
- dataker 12y agoSuch a sad announcement. Organizations like this and the Bitcoin Foundation eventually become so self-centered they start to undermine the work of all past contributors. Hope the community works around these issues.
- fabulist 12y agoI rather like the idea that someone from Tor is going to be working at an ISP. If everyone who worked at ISPs shared ideals with the Tor project, perhaps the Internet would be a better place.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- worklogin 12y agoI find it really surprising and frustrating how many paranoid/cynical posts are in this thread. * Is this a hint that Tor has been infiltrated?" * "So sad to see the organization become so self-centered" None of these comments have any basis in the story!