https://www.opentech.fund/results/supported-projects/preparing-tor-browser-android-mainstream-adoption/ I was looking around to see what else USAGM(us agency for global media) funds besides the obv RFE/RFA/VOA. So I looked on USAGM website to see what else they fund, they also fund Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Middle East Broadcasting Network and Open Technology Fund. I never heard of the last few, so I check Tech Fund. I see stuff about supplying internet to areas (I presume giving technology to armed insurgents or something) and other stuff. I look to see who These People are funding, and now I see they fund a shit load of tech projects, donating thousands upon thousands of dollars to each project. One of them is a Tor Browser. This is kinda weird because Tor Browsers market themselves as being more subtle with your info and stuff, yet they are being actively funded by the US Government’s Media Branch. What do you guys think?
Tor was originally created in the DoD, specifically the Dept of the Navy. Some of the lead devs when it became it’s own project are actually gov’t contractors.
https://yashalevine.com/articles/tor-spooks
In fact, in 2004, at the Wizards of OS conference in Germany, Dingledine proudly announced that he was building spy craft tech on the government payroll:
“I forgot to mention earlier something that will make you look at me in a new light. I contract for the United States Government to built anonymity technology for them and deploy it. They don’t think of it as anonymity technology, although we use that term. They think of it as security technology. They need these technologies so they can research people they are interested in, so they can have anonymous tip lines, so that they can buy things from people without other countries knowing what they are buying, how much they are buying and where it is going, that sort of thing.”Edit: another key quote from the article:
In a 2011 discussion on Tor’s official listserv, Tor developer Mike Perry admitted that Tor might not be very effective against powerful, organized “adversaries” (aka governments) that are capable monitoring huge swaths of the Internet.
“Extremely well funded adversaries that are able to observe large portions of the Internet can probably break aspects of Tor and may be able to deanonymize users. This is why the core tor program currently has a version number of 0.2.x and comes with a warning that it is not to be used for “strong anonymity”. (Though I personally don’t believe any adversary can reliably deanonymize all tor users . . . but attacks on anonymity are subtle and cumulative in nature).When you dig into this kind of stuff there’s so much to be suspicious about. It seems like most online privacy projects have links to the US intelligence apparatus. Signal is another big one for example, there’s reason to be suspicious about Proton Mail as well. The journalist Yasha Levine writes a lot about this topic.
Is there a list of donations the open tech fund made?
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