<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div class="">Hey all.</div><div class="">I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for working on Tor over the past year(s). We are entering 2018 in really great shape, and we would not be here without your hard work.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">- The Tor network and browser teams have grown over the past year and are full of amazing talent. They've added new features and tightened security in 2017, and they'll be focused on increasing our usability and mobile adoption in 2018.</div><div class="">- The whole Tor Project staff grew quite a bit, and we hired several long-time contractors and volunteers into employee status.</div><div class="">- Our financials are stable. We've started receiving more funding from non-US government sources, and our end-of-year campaign looks to have been a big success. We won't know the exact totals until we get into the office tomorrow and add in all of the checks we've received over the past week, but even without those checks, this has been our best end-of-year fundraising campaign yet.</div><div class="">- We had two great all-hands meetings in 2017 in Amsterdam and Montreal.</div><div class="">- We have been strengthening our important relationship with Mozilla.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Thanks to everyone who contributes to making Tor so great, whether you are an employee, contractor, or volunteer. I'd like to extend a special thanks to some of you who we don't thank nearly enough--those of you who run the Tor network as relay operators and directory authorities and countless other volunteer roles. We couldn't do this without you!</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I wish you all a healthy and happy 2018!</div><div class="">Shari</div></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class="">
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<br class=""><div class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~<br class="">Shari Steele<br class="">Executive Director<br class="">The Tor Project<br class=""><a href="mailto:ssteele@torproject.org" class="">ssteele@torproject.org</a><br class=""><br class="">public key: 69B4 D9BE 2765 A81E 5736 8CD9 0904 1C77 C434 1056<br class=""><br class="">"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the<br class="">individual who can labor in freedom."<br class=""> - Albert Einstein</div>
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