Tor

Travis Biehn tbiehn at gmail.com
Mon Jun 30 06:11:53 PDT 2014


On Jun 30, 2014 4:28 AM, "Meredith L. Patterson" <mlp at upstandinghackers.com>
wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 02:52:37AM +0200, Lodewijk andré de la porte
wrote:
> > Tor is funded by the US government, not the US military per se. The
same US
> > gov is funding research and efforts of breaking it.
>
> Yup. Not only that, .gov organisations all have their own budgets and
> spending authority, most of them don't talk to each other, and a lot
> of them don't like each other. USG may be a hydra, but it's a hydra
> whose heads are so badly tied in knots that noticeable things only
> happen when one of the heads gets itself some wiggle room.
>
> Also, neither "government funding" or even "DoD funding" *necessarily*
> imply that DoD has any say over what ships. I don't think I'm the only
> Cyber Fast Track participant on this list, but
> https://github.com/UpstandingHackers/hammer was funded through CFT,
> and anyone is welcome to audit the source and read the commit logs; I
> can tell you who all the committers are, most aren't American, and the
> ones who are are me and my partner. Our interaction with DoD (or,
> well, our contract facilitator) consisted of "Here's the latest
> milestone" --> "make && make check worked, here's the money for that
> milestone" every few months. That's all.
>
> I hear some variation on the "Tor is a government op!" drum banged
> every six months or so, so I guess it was time. Can we at least get
> some variation this time, maybe spin some conspiracy theories about
> Paul Syverson instead of falling back on that tired old canard about
> Roger's internship? Or aliens? Working Area51 in would be cool.
>
> (Disclaimer: of course I don't think Syverson is a plant, nor do I
> think Tor is a honeypot. Do not harass Paul Syverson or his family, or
> the least I will do will be to throw a habanero martini in your face.)
>
> Cheers,
> --mlp
Juan,

I totally agree with you - I think its also important to note that there
are some other things nefariously invented by the US military that you
should investigate:
Duct Tape
The Internet

You may find an incomplete list here:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_invention

Please let me know when your research on things I shouldn't use is
complete. Please ensure that your arguments are half baked and
sensationalist... actually I'm not worried. You've got this!

In other news:
It's good that you researched who originally created the technology. The
motivations behind that and individuals involved are important pieces.
Where the money comes from certainly is important. As well as picking up on
the projects governance. This should make you wary of the Tor project - and
prompt additional research.
Should your technical or cultural research raise anything alarming - let
someone know.

This list is comprised of a good many intelligent and wary people who have
carried out the same research - it has informed their use of the tool but
so far not caused any wholesale abandonment.

Travis
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