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Tor Project Aims To Eclipse US Government Funding

Posted by timothy on from the not-the-entire-government's-funding dept.

An anonymous reader writes Developed by the U.S. Navy and the recipient of millions of dollars of government grants, the Tor Project is now aiming to ween itself off dependence of U.S. government funds "including setting a goal of 50 percent non-U.S. government funding by 2016." The initiative comes after months of discussion over what some vocal critics deemed a contradiction in funding and purpose.

53 comments

  1. Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    An outmoded privacy technique hosted on US servers, developed by the US military, and mapped by US intelligence agencies shouldn't get so much money from the US government? I'm all for reduced government spending but as an issue of principle it seems like bailing water out of a sinking canoe with a thimble.

    1. Re:Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, there should be no doubt. It's pretty naive to believe Tor is anything but a honeypot. What's up with freenet? Is it getting any better? Is it any better than Tor? Does it blend in with other noise?

    2. Re: Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Freenet == pedo. Just mentioning it is enough to warrant "attention". Do not install. Do not download. Do not even visit a site that links to it.

    3. Re: Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah well, fuck you. You probably feel the same way about any possibly secure communications you can't invade and search. I just want to know if freenet is more secure than Tor. The content traveling over the network is none of your business. Security of the users is the only relevant matter.

    4. Re: Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      systemd is more secure than all of them put together x 10 . Nothing goes in it , nothing comes out .

    5. Re:Conflict of interest? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      An outmoded privacy technique hosted on US servers, developed by the US military, and mapped by US intelligence agencies shouldn't get so much money from the US government? I'm all for reduced government spending but as an issue of principle it seems like bailing water out of a sinking canoe with a thimble.

      I'd make a slightly more specific distinction: As best we can tell, architectural development of TOR went fairly well as a fed project. It hasn't been wholly without issues; but it has a track record that many projects would envy, and it appears to vex the NSA.

      Operations, though, is a dangerous sore point(even if there were no visible fed money at all): It isn't news that TOR becomes markedly more vulnerable if the adversary has control of a sufficiently high percentage of nodes, nor is it clear that such a flaw can be corrected even in principle. It also isn't news that the TOR network is not terribly large by the standards of somebody with actual money to spend on hosting. The fed money I'd be deeply worried about isn't the Office of Naval Research, or whoever was funding it as a way for diplomats and CIA agents to access the net less obviously, paying a few programmers, it's the potential for a relatively modest amount of spending on boring commercial VPS instances through an array of suitable shell companies bringing the whole place down by brute force.

    6. Re: Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah well, fuck you. You probably feel the same way about any possibly secure communications you can't invade and search. I just want to know if freenet is more secure than Tor. The content traveling over the network is none of your business. Security of the users is the only relevant matter.

      Perhaps it will become more relevant to you when the software itself warrants probable cause.

      Yeah, go ahead and tell me how that's unconstitutional. I could use another fucking laugh today from the ignorant who think we still have rights or logic left in the legal system today.

    7. Re: Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps it will become more relevant to you when the software itself warrants probable cause.

      Well, if that implies that its use can be easily spotted, then you answered my question. It only means we need something better, not so easily detectable.

      The law is an ass. Aside from ballistics theory, I don't even consider it. User security is the only issue. I do not care how it is accomplished, just that it is.

    8. Re: Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do not invade or search anything. I'm merely warning you that being associated with anything pedo-related will have... Unpleasant consequences.

    9. Re:Conflict of interest? by Aighearach · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're just engaging in low-information thinking.

      Tor wasn't created for "privacy," it was created to help political dissidents in authoritarian regimes to communicate with each other and the outside world without their government being able to identify and punish them. Which I guess is a type of privacy. But politics was the goal, not privacy; specifically, encouraging representative government in places where it is banned and discussion of it stifled.

      I'm for privacy, but looking for it in the wrong places is your own fault. Just like, if you have contraband in your pocket that you want to keep private, and you accidentally drop it in front of a cop: that is your own fault, your privacy wasn't violated, you simply didn't defend it rigorously.

    10. Re: Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hitler says 'pedo' and everybody joins him in perfect harmony. Well then, maybe it's time to take it to the next level, and fight back in earnest. Regardless, as I said before, if its use is visible to everyone else, then it is no good.

    11. Re:Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A government divided amongst itself cannot stand!

    12. Re: Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then by all means fight back, internet tough guy. You will be killed before you can even reach for a weapon. But nothing will happen because you're full of hot air, all talk and no walk. I bet you're even afraid of mall cops and crap your pants when you see someone wearing a hoodie.

    13. Re: Conflict of interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you have to ask you must be another jerkoff too lazy to to try it. More like FUCK YOU AND FREENET

    14. Re:Conflict of interest? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      Also, while I'm not inclined to be a grammar Nazi, the word in OP should be "wean". Ween is something altogether different.

  2. Conspiracies by Sarten-X · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...what some vocal critics deemed a contradiction in funding and purpose.

    The project is funded by these guys, to protect those other guys, who are separated by a large number of bureaucratic layers from those different guys, who want to undermine the project so they can snoop on yet-another group of guys.

    Am I the only one who thinks "the government" is actually made up of lots of independent minds, each with their own idealism and morality? A functional conspiracy to secretly undermine a project like Tor would need to involve a significant portion of the American population. Heck, Slashdot's hivemind isn't even that consistent.

    --
    You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    1. Re:Conspiracies by icebike · · Score: 0

      ...what some vocal critics deemed a contradiction in funding and purpose.

      The project is funded by these guys, to protect those other guys, who are separated by a large number of bureaucratic layers from those different guys, who want to undermine the project so they can snoop on yet-another group of guys.

      Am I the only one who thinks "the government" is actually made up of lots of independent minds, each with their own idealism and morality? A functional conspiracy to secretly undermine a project like Tor would need to involve a significant portion of the American population. Heck, Slashdot's hivemind isn't even that consistent.

      If I never see the word hivemind again, it will be too soon. Grow up.

      It doesn't matter how the government is structured. You will never find one agency working at cross purposes with another for very long. Not if someone can play the security theater card.

      Why did NIST use lame random number generators? They aren't even vaguely related to any three letter spy agency! Where was your government fire walls then?

      Those who will not learn from history are bound to repeat it.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:Conspiracies by mysidia · · Score: 1

      A functional conspiracy to secretly undermine a project like Tor would need to involve a significant portion of the American population.

      Or one government department spending a whole lot of taxpayer money on a project intended to negate the success of another department who spent a whole lot of taxpayer money on the project targetted for negation. It wouldn't be the first time.

      They don't need to conspire against ToR... they just need to find as many flaws in the software as possible, keep them secret, exploit them, oh yeah, and produce a large enough DDoS the infrastructure supporting ToR and the software distribution points and development servers continuously to make the network unusuable and quash development.

    3. Re:Conspiracies by shaitand · · Score: 2

      "Am I the only one who thinks "the government" is actually made up of lots of independent minds, each with their own idealism and morality?"

      That is the exact argument always levied against government conspiracies. It has been debunked thanks to the work of wikileaks, Mr. Snowden, and CIA revelation dumps. Anyone who didn't buy that argument, worked from the assumption you could trust those individuals to behave like any random stranger from the private sector showing up at your door at night, was sane, and intelligent would have come to the conclusion that these organizations were likely guilty of just about everything they turned out to be guilty of.

      Government agencies might be populated with lots of independent minds but they are all basically structured like military or corporations with an executive structure. Every single day, every for profit corporation in the US is strategize to save costs, which translates in saving every penny at the expense of their workers they think they can spin without pushback. Year on year companies manage to slash health benefits for example. You don't need a conspiracy, the organization has interests which conflict with those of it's individual members and it's a significant portion of the population that is generally required to distrust the organization and it's spin in order push back against those interests.

      So, get back to me when it proves to take a significant portion of the American population conspiring to prevent the illegal and unconstitutional spying revealed by Snowden from continuing. At this point the government is so corrupt that even the vast majority of the American population finding out about their conspiracies and being pissed about it has had ZERO impact beyond blowing some wind.

      Also, the Navy and the NSA are one government organization. There is a reason the NSA director is always a high ranking military officer. How exactly does it take a significant portion of the American population to undermine a project built by a small group of people and paid for by the organization with interests that conflict with the rest of us?

    4. Re:Conspiracies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you look at encryption as a munition like the US does, then the US funding systems using encryption and organizations devoted to subverting or breaking it isn't as schizophrenic as it seems. After all, the military funds development of weapons while simultaneously funding defenses against such weapons.

    5. Re:Conspiracies by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      If I never see the word hivemind again, it will be too soon. Grow up.

      The Green Brain by Frank Herbert is one of the great works of modern fiction. When you're old enough, you should read it. I'll warn you though, there is a hive mind involved.

    6. Re:Conspiracies by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      They don't even need flaws, since it wasn't designed to offer the privacy people are wishing it provided. They simply need access to enough of the network, and they can see who is doing what.

      The purpose is to facilitate political dissidents under repressive regimes, the design is based on the idea that the repressive regimes are somewhat isolated, and they'd never have the global access in order to figure out who is doing what. Cheap cameras and hard drives probably have tipped that balance, though, since a repressive regime can easily afford to record video in all cyber-cafes and store it indefinitely.

    7. Re:Conspiracies by Shakrai · · Score: 2

      It doesn't matter how the government is structured. You will never find one agency working at cross purposes with another for very long.

      Ah, if only Government was half as organized as you think it is....

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    8. Re:Conspiracies by chihowa · · Score: 1

      Am I the only one who thinks "the government" is actually made up of lots of independent minds, each with their own idealism and morality? A functional conspiracy to secretly undermine a project like Tor would need to involve a significant portion of the American population.

      Your description applies to any organization of any size. The organization that you work for may have taken actions that you don't agree with, despite you possessing your own idealism and morality. You may have even actively participated in these activities, knowingly or not. In many (most?) large organizations, a few people make the big decisions and the ranks below them make those happen.

      It's almost as if the idealism and morality of any organization is largely irrelevant to the actual actions of that organization. Even further, in a highly compartmentalized organization like the military or the intelligence agencies (or any random large company), the individual workers may not be fully aware of the big picture goals of their day's work. No grand conspiracy needed.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
    9. Re:Conspiracies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >mad about hivemind

      somebody has some issues.

    10. Re:Conspiracies by ruir · · Score: 1

      And being the devil advocate here. What if tor was created and they pretend to not see a lot of stuff only to...wait, maintain some level of control of what is done and more importantly, prevent something more evil, or more efficient, and more importantly out of their control comes up?

    11. Re:Conspiracies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      which conflict with those of it's individual members

      the organization and it's spin

      "its".

    12. Re:Conspiracies by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Points for restraint.

  3. Wow, that's a lot of money by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Tor Project Aims To Eclipse US Government Funding

    That's quite an aim, considering how much funding the US Government gets.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Wow, that's a lot of money by davester666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not really. The gov't doesn't actually "get" that much money. It prints new money for most of what it spends.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    2. Re:Wow, that's a lot of money by Aighearach · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      That's pretty derpy. The government prints the bills, but they don't "print money" except in places like Zimbabwe. I'll admit it is a popular theme in right-wing media, though. So perhaps you've just been overly propagandized.

      It is the banks that "print money" in the sense you meant it, not the government.

      http://www.bankofengland.co.uk... is the document that most of us read last year. It was a bit of a bombshell, mostly because it admits things already known but in the past officially denied. But the old public version of how it works still has the banks creating the money, not the government.

      See also: http://moneymyths.org.uk/pdf/W...

    3. Re:Wow, that's a lot of money by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      They don't have to overtake the US government's entire budget, just the amount they're willing to spend on Tor.

    4. Re:Wow, that's a lot of money by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      http://img.pandawhale.com/4653...

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    5. Re:Wow, that's a lot of money by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      It prints new money for most of what it spends.

      The actual federal budget revenue for 2014 was $3.02t, expenditures $3.5t, and a deficit of $483b. Under which accounting system is $483b "most" of $3.5t?

    6. Re:Wow, that's a lot of money by davester666 · · Score: 1

      When it happens on the internets.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  4. Spelling fail! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Wean !- ween

    1. Re:Spelling fail! by bigfinger76 · · Score: 2

      True, but then again, nothing quite equals Ween.

  5. There's no souch thing as a free lunch by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    I would like to know what the US Gov's real objectives are in funding Tor in the first place. Call me cynical but I have a hard time believing its truly altruistic.

    Its already known that the NSA and GCHQ already have found at least partially successful ways to identify Tor users
    http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
    That leak is old, so you can bet they've made progress since then.
    Tor is probably still better than nothing but not much. Or is it? maybe just by using Tor at all you are making yourself more likely to be watched/snooped on.
    Consequently all Tor can really offer at this point is a false sense of security.

    1. Re:There's no souch thing as a free lunch by Aighearach · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The purpose isn't secret and never was. The objective is to allow political dissidents under repressive regimes a method of communicating politically online without getting in trouble by their governments. Hopefully this would lead to grass-roots "regime change" around the world.

      That is called "politics," and altruism isn't the purpose, or the claimed purpose. The claimed purpose is that it is in the national interest of the United States for other countries to adopt similar concepts of democracy and free expression. That it is also believed to be good for the locals is nice, but not the objective.

      Why did some people ever think it was about anything else? I'll bet the slashdot articles about Tor during the time period you signed up explained it just the same way I did; as a thing to enable political speech and encourage Democracy.

      People are sure soft in the head to have just somehow decided it was for some other purpose, with no source document saying it was that other thing. Some guy on the internet says, "it is for privacy, you know, so you can hide from the gubermint." Vaguely true, yes, but not generally true. Which government, and for what purpose? That is the critical part. People who want to avoid the US government should probably avoid projects sponsored BY the US Government for the purpose of spreading American values. ;)

    2. Re:There's no souch thing as a free lunch by davydagger · · Score: 1

      The objective is to allow political dissidents under repressive regimes a method of communicating politically online without getting in trouble by their governments.

      you mean regimes unfriendly to the US

      Hopefully this would lead to grass-roots "regime change" around the world.

      you mean overthrow of regimes unfriendly to US foreign intrests, and nothing else. Why don't you just come out and say "TOR was designed by US intellegence for the sake of helping spies communicate, the the grand goal of trying to overthrow unfriendly governments".

      The US track record on this shows that populist intrest is rarely a motive behind involvement or regime change. Generaly either self-intrest, or intrest of corporate patrons.

      People who want to avoid the US government should probably avoid projects sponsored BY the US Government for the purpose of spreading American values

      At the same token its a Free Software/Open Source project, so the code is in anyones hands. Saying something is strictly bad, or cannot be adopted for other means simply because the it was made with bad intentions.

    3. Re:There's no souch thing as a free lunch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I would like to know what the US Gov's real objectives are in funding Tor in the first place.
      Call me cynical but I have a hard time believing its truly altruistic.

      Its not altrustic. Tor was created to provide cover for spies. The fact that other people can get benefit out of it is actually good for the spies, if only spies used Tor they would stick out like a sore thumb. The more 'normal' traffic, the easier it is for them to blend in.

    4. Re:There's no souch thing as a free lunch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its already known that

      "It's.

    5. Re:There's no souch thing as a free lunch by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      The objective is to allow political dissidents under repressive regimes a method of communicating politically online without getting in trouble by their governments.

      you mean regimes unfriendly to the US

      Don't be silly. If a regime is unfriendly to the US, but allows freedom of expression to their people, then Tor in no way works against them. So no, they would not be the target. Also, if a regime is repressive, but friendly to the US, it would still work against them because the US can't put the cat back in the bag after releasing it.

      I'll stick with, I meant what I said and I said what I meant. It is meant to disadvantage governments that discourage free expression; regardless of their allegiances.

      You're the one saying something is "strictly bad." My assumption is that some people in the world are for oppressive regimes, and that it is actually a major point of contention that people fight to the death over.

    6. Re:There's no souch thing as a free lunch by davydagger · · Score: 1

      I'll stick with, I meant what I said and I said what I meant. It is meant to disadvantage governments that discourage free expression; regardless of their allegiances.

      Except its made by the government in charge of the world's largest prison system, and by far the largest per-capita incarceration rate. Irony being duly noted. Despite what you think, the US Government does not tollerate dissent.

      Nor is the US Government populist, and rarely do they sponser populist regimes overseas unless they are wealthy enough to buy senators. They are notorious for astro-turfing revolutions for gain though.

      I do agree, there are many benefits to TOR. However much of the code should be double checked, and because of the US Government's closeness to the TOR development team, all of which most likely have their personal information documented, heavily, it really wouldn't be hard to manipulate them.

      It also would not be hard to put pressure on tor exit node operators to co-operate with the federal government. Many of them are already run by MITM attacks, many of them are suspected to be NSA already. Not only could the feds get foreign citizens to use TOR to beat their own surivallence, it could set up its own survialence on the same citizens via owning the exit nodes. It could then create profiles and find who it can be best manipulated/used to create an astro-turfed revolution.

      Of course there are work arounds for this, but before the first wave of "pedophile" busts, Freedom hosting also included a hidden site called inspecTOR, which simply looked for, and reported on bad nodes. visitors could generate code to copypasta into their torrc to keep from using them. Among the ban list was a node named NSAFortMeade. Most likely a simple troll, but its odd behavior had intrigued many. This site with the rest of "Freedom Hosting" went down and never came back, and was never re-implemented. Also, things like canada's "pedo bust" last week, was really a indiscriminate TOR server raid. The government had no idea how much, if any of the data they collected actually had kiddie porn if you actually read the article. They did know that they were running TOR. Thats all it really took for Canadian authorities to simply sieze the servers, and then label the event as a "pedophile bust".

      Also, serveral weaknesses in TOR make it vulernble to attack by government. Attack might not always mean "shutdown", but "forced compliance":
      1. Tor Traffic, by design is meant to look like TOR traffic, its only supposed to be indistiguishable from other TOR traffic. Its easy to spot nodes and bridges. Support for anonymizing the "first hop" with a dedicated bridge exists. You also need to have information on the bridge. So it only protects people in target countries that exist outside the bulk of TOR infrastructure. You also need specific information given to you from someone in a reigon accross the globe. Random citizens do not generally share this information with other random citizens, that speak diffrent languages in two countries with hostile to eachother governments. Publicly publishing such data would result in authorities finding and blocking the public nodes. Its only real practicle application is with spies, and those with help on the outside, i.e. recruited assets of an intellegency agency.

      2. Because all casual, non-spy TOR users are already flagged as users, if push came to shove they can all be arrested if need be. Given the fact that pedophiles exist on TOR it would not be unbelievable to anyone that everyone arrested was a pedophile. They would not have to arrest everyone, just enough to scare the rest off, weakening the network further by lack of mainstream usage. Further driving it to the fringes makes it even easier to target, because it will be increasingly run by the people most people don't give a fuck about, and of course, government agents running the fastest nodes, which of course don't get busted. Remember, this is the USA with the highest incarceation rate in

  6. Why is the government funding this? by Billly+Gates · · Score: -1

    Tor has done nothing but enable criminals ...read silk road trial? It costs tax payer money to boot on top of this and is socialistic.

    If the government is honest and can't snoop with secret private keys then it is agaisn't the public interest

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
    1. Re:Why is the government funding this? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "Tor has done nothing but enable criminals ...read silk road trial?"

      While technically silk road is enabling people to break laws it was formed as an act of civil disobedience to protest unjust laws. The fix for silk road is not to shut down privacy and tor, the fix for silk road is to shut down the laws that protect the existence of a black market. The federal government has no right to tell individuals what they can and can't do with their bodies. What is in the interest of the general welfare is to regulate manufacture and distribution in the same way they do with food and that can't happen so long as they outlaw the substances and thereby protect the black market.

      Next you point to insurance costs due to negative health effects. Then I point to knee and hip replacements that are the result of years of excess physical exercise that cost dramatically more. Suggest we outlaw jogging and shut down gyms since it makes far more fiscal sense than outlawing drugs. Then I point to search and rescue, fireman, high rise construction workers, and high rise window washers and suggest we should outlaw people making the reckless decision to enter these jobs as well since we are calling the cumulative result of preventing individuals from taking individual risks the general welfare and bound to do so if we are to remain logically consistent.

  7. Ween? by scottme · · Score: 4, Informative

    the Tor Project is now aiming to ween itself off dependence of U.S. government funds

    I think you mean wean.

    1. Re:Ween? by Detonia · · Score: 2

      Ween on the other hand...

      --
      Comment received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
  8. Secure communications for operatives... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: Answers your question & see "TriangleBoy" too (came BEFORE tor did, same gov't. sponsored deal too)...

    APK

    P.S.=> Whatever the case may be, due to the actions of various governments around the planet lately? TOR's credibility is SHOT imo @ least - who can TRUST it now?... apk

  9. Not ween. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Wean".

  10. So, let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The U.S. government is not happy with how TOR is being used, so the TOR project is seeking alternate funding for a project the U.S. government wanted, funded but didn't quite think about all the probable use cases, correct? Ok, great! Makes perfect sense for a U.S. government funded software project.

  11. Unnecessary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As far as I'm concerned there's no need to wean off U.S. government financial support as long as the source code is open for scutiny. As the article mentions different parts of government have different agendas and they frequently compete against one another. This 'divide and conquer' strategy works in Tor's advantage.

  12. boy am i stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought a project funded by the US gov't would allow me to be private...5 will get you 10, there are all sorts of hidden back doors