Tor is funded by the US State Department

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Kosmo

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I found this interesting:

http://eta.securesslhost.net/~pgpboar/viewtopic.php?f=2&start=0&t=563

In short Tor in 2008 was funded by the US government, principally the Department of State to the tune of 86% of its operating costs.

So how were things looking in 2010 for Tor, when the world was gripped by Wikileaks and whistle-blowers?

In 2010 Tor was far better off financially, Applebaum’s salary had increased by a about 30% to an inflation busting $98,980 USD. In 2010 Tor’s total revenues were $1,353,593, of this $1,314,301 we from donations and grants received from various sources. The two primary funding sources for Tor in 2010 were; The InterNews Network and The International Broadcasting Bureau. The same organizations that had provided the majority of Tor’s funding in 2008. By far the largest donor being the InterNews Network via USAID and the Department of State.

So in 2010 just how deep was the Department of State digging into its pockets to support the Tor project and its ongoing operations? In 2010Tor was funded by the US government to the tune of $1,093,153 or 81% of its total operating costs. Since FY2008 the US government has more that doubled its funding for the Tor project.

Now why would the US Government be doing this in the prevailing climate of Assange, Wikileaks, and whistle blowing etc. maybe promoting Tor as a secure conduit for global whistle blowers? Now there is a thought.

Now for the second point:

Tor’s 2010 tax return (attached) shows “Formless Networking LLC” as a registered "consultant" with a remuneration of $88,160. In a recent piece appearing here: http://pastebin.com/qWHDWCre raises concerns about the Freedom Network and its links to “Formless networking LLC”. The Freedom Network is notorious for is involvement with child pornography. Evidently Formless Networking LLC is a shell company of 12 Tor exit nodes run by Tor developer Mike Perry who has been recently criticised by Anon concerning Mozilla add ons and applications.

This matter needs cleaning up and fast. Is the US government unwittingly funding child pornography networks?
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So the US government is funding the nexus of the worst internet sites ever created? Drug and weapon shops, sites where you can hire assassins and hit jobs, sites where murderous pedophiles post details and pictures of the latest kid they've tortured and raped? How the hell does that work?
 
honeypot300.jpg
 
Volimar said:
Literally, the only thing I know about Tor is that people use it for child pornography.

What else is there?
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After learning what TOR was from a co-worker a few months ago, he said "watch this;" and using TOR navigated to 4chan's front page. He quickly cycled through 30 different random TOR IPs, every single one banned for kid porn. Pretty sad. -_-
 
I think what's more likely is that the State Department has a vested interest in funding projects used to bypass state censorship of internet services in non-democratic regimes including China and Middle Eastern regimes.

It just so happens that the same techniques that benefit dissidents abroad also benefit pirates, child pornographers, terrorists, etc.

It is inaccurate to conflate organizations that operate on Tor with the organization that maintains and builds Tor.

confused said:
So, the government wants to clan up the internet yet they fund the darkest, seediest side of it ?
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You are confused.

SOPA/PIPA are congressional bills. The State Department has not publicly expressed a position on them, although both piracy/IP issues and open internet issues are competing and important values within the State Department. The State Department is part of the Executive Branch. The head of the executive branch has opposed SOPA/PIPA publicly. The internal diplomacy / Pennsylvania Avenue democracy / whatever term you want to use to describe intra-branch intra-agency infighting is an important factor to understand in that particular debate.
 
It's good that the State Dept. is using it's funds for the arts and cultural endeavors. TOR Publishing is one of my favorite Publishing houses.

confused said:
So, the government wants to clan up the internet yet they fund the darkest, seediest side of it ?
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Tor isn't the darkest seediest part of the internet. It was a major player in the Egyptian revolution with hundreds of Tor servers being used to circumvent the censorship that was being attempted.
 
It takes time to gather enough evidence to be able to charge and eventually convict people of certain crimes. The US gov perhaps may be just in "evidence-gathering" mode at this point.
 
I can see why funding such a network would be in their interest. It provides anonymity when working in a cyberspace environment. When dealing with sensitive information, there is always a concern about how secure such information really is. Of course it is beneficial to espionage, diplomacy, communicating with dissidents and informants, etc.
 
tor is since its inception funded by us departments.

tor is used by human right activists, reporters and whistle blowers all over the world.
 
Stumpokapow said:
I think what's more likely is that the State Department has a vested interest in funding projects used to bypass state censorship of internet services in non-democratic regimes including China and Middle Eastern regimes.

It just so happens that the same techniques that benefit dissidents abroad also benefit pirates, child pornographers, terrorists, etc.

It is inaccurate to conflate organizations that operate on Tor with the organization that maintains and builds Tor.
.
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Real avatar Stump!

I think I have that same shirt!
 
marrec said:
It's good that the State Dept. is using it's funds for the arts and cultural endeavors. TOR Publishing is one of my favorite Publishing houses.



Tor isn't the darkest seediest part of the internet. It was a major player in the Egyptian revolution with hundreds of Tor servers being used to circumvent the censorship that was being attempted.
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Child porn, assassinations, weapons and drugs aren't the darker side of the internet ?
 
confused said:
Child porn, assassinations, weapons and drugs aren't the darker side of the internet ?
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Child porn, "assassinations" (I dispute that the mere existence of a listing purportedly offering such a service indicates that the service is being performed), weapons, and drugs -- and what you're talking about here is Silk Road, not Tor, is part of the dark side of the internet.

The State Department is not funding Silk Road, even if Tor is the technology currently used to enable Silk Road.
 
WTF kind of site is eta.securesslhost.net and why would I trust any "story" from there. And on that forum post the only other links are to other forums?

Sounds like bullshit.
 
sk3 said:
WTF kind of site is eta.securesslhost.net and why would I trust any "story" from there. And on that forum post the only other links are to other forums?

Sounds like bullshit.
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It doesn't to me. It actually makes a whole lot of sense.
 
I wanted to try TOR once after reading about it on reddit, but after I read about the seedy things people use it for I didn't even want to take the chance.
 
I heard DARPA had something to do with the internet, a network of computers involved in piracy, child porn, rick rolling, those stupid fucking ponies and also something called MRMMNORPGees. This sounds unacceptable to me.
 
Nothing really surprising here, from tors own site :

Tor was originally designed, implemented, and deployed as a third-generation onion routing project of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. It was originally developed with the U.S. Navy in mind, for the primary purpose of protecting government communications.
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Dan said:
That's what I thought.

I have no idea what this other Tor is.
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There's a pretty decent article on it here :

http://thenewsjunkie.com/2011/06/inside-the-deep-web-my-journey-through-the-new-underground/


Volimar said:
Literally, the only thing I know about Tor is that people use it for child pornography.

What else is there?
Click to expand...

Well there's lots of things. Also people about conspiracy theories who are afraid of the government watching them. :p

But as marrec said can also be used to bypass censorship and stuff like that.
 
Tomat said:
I wanted to try TOR once after reading about it on reddit, but after I read about the seedy things people use it for I didn't even want to take the chance.
Click to expand...

There is no "chance" to take. You don't randomly stumble onto "seedy" things. Tor is simply a routing network that includes its own DNS-like service. You only get to "seedy" things if you choose to put in a domain name that involves them, just like the public internet.
 
I always tought this was common knowledge. While it is used to distribute some of the vilest shit you will see and to sell drugs/guns etc. it is also used for good.
 
I'm surprised so many people here aren't familiar with TOR. I thought GAF was more in-the-know about this sort of thing. I was also surprised, after reading the thread title, that the article leaned the way it did. I thought it'd be more about the State Department having logs of TOR activity, which would defeat the entire purpose of TOR. Instead, it went in some crazy direction about child pron and illegal activity. Bizarre.
 
I thought TOR might be some new kind of missile defense system not so cleverly named after Thor... Tactical Operation Railgun or something. This is way less fun.
 
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