[tor-talk] Almost everyone involved in developing Tor was (or is) funded by the US government

[Jonathan D. Proulx]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 09:43:50PM -0400, krishna e bera wrote:

:Tor Project had to refuse funding from a donor who was deemed some kind
:of enemy of the US govt[1].  This should raise suspicions that the
:project may not be developing in its most productive direction(s) for
:the other parties that could or do use Tor (e.g. hidden service
:operators, copyright pirates, anti-capitalists, whistleblowers, enemies
:of the US govt).  (Despite the idealism, good reputation and best
:intentions of various Tor Project members.)  It isnt just a matter of
:looking for bad code or design decisions, we should look at what code
:isnt there or what other non-code aspects of the project arent covered well.

This isn't becasue Tor had US government funding but because Tor is a
US based entity.  

If there's another location where a similar yet independent anonymity
foundation could do similar work with fewer restrictions (or a roughly
equivelent but different set) I'm all for it, modulo some worries
about split/duplicate effort, but it's not an issue of
funding==control or other conspiracy.

-Jon