<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 1:18 PM, Paul Syverson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:syverson@itd.nrl.navy.mil">syverson@itd.nrl.navy.mil</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 10:39:56AM -0700, Jim wrote:<br>
><br>
><br>
> arshad wrote:<br>
> > hi all,<br>
> > forgive me for my ignorance.<br>
> > may i know why governmetns fund TOR. i read 49% funds coming from<br>
> > government. TOR is usually considered for passing government restriction<br>
> > by journalists and activists. so why should governments fund this?<br>
><br>
> I can't speak for all governments but it might be relevant to point out<br>
> that onion routing started (as I understand it -- anybody, feel free to<br>
> correct) as a project of the U.S. Navy and was used by the various<br>
> branches of the U.S armed forces to use the Internet anonymously.<br>
> Trouble was, that although their targets could not tell *exactly* who<br>
> was visiting their website, they could tell it was U.S. military. So,<br>
> as I understand it, they released the technology so they could hide<br>
> among the civilians.<br>
><br>
> Even within a particular govt you can have conflicting goals. Part may<br>
> wish to prevent its citizens from being anonymous while another part may<br>
> find it useful to use civilians for cover.<br>
><br>
> Just my speculation ...<br>
<br>
</div>I'm not speaking for any government, including my employer or my<br>
funders, but I can say something about why we, the inventors of onion<br>
routing and designers of Tor, did what we did. We were as explicit as<br>
possible as to what we intended and why with funders, management and<br>
others. Presumably some of it was agreeable since we received support.<br>
The above is largely correct, so I am only clarifying where I thought<br>
there was room for misinterpretation. The primary purpose for which<br>
we proposed and designed onion routing networks (including Tor, which<br>
started life in some of my NRL onion routing projects) was to separate<br>
identification from routing, as we note in the first onion routing<br>
publication "Hiding Routing Information" in 1996 and at<br>
<a href="http://www.onion-router.net" target="_blank">www.onion-router.net</a>. Jim's speculation on the above cited motivation<br>
was not something we ran across through experience but rather a design<br>
motivation from the very beginning. We argued fifteen years ago that<br>
to protect private traffic when going to and from a public network you<br>
needed to carry traffic for others not just yourself, which meant that<br>
they had to trust the network, which meant that you had to diffuse<br>
trust by letting others run part of the infrastructure and that you<br>
had to let them see the code. I think this is essentially stated in<br>
our early onion routing publications. This was also part of the reason<br>
we sought and received our first publication release for public<br>
distribution of onion routing code in 1996. We were open source before<br>
that phrase was in general use. My comments apply only to the funding<br>
I received and the motivations we had. Other later goals of, e.g.,<br>
censorship resistance and other funding of Tor I have not been part of<br>
and should let others comment.<br>
<br>
HTH,<br>
<font color="#888888">Paul<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5">***********************************************************************<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><div>I like hearing the history of this project, and wouldn't mind hearing more about the challenges you faced back then, who the challengers were, and what their point of view and/or concerns were.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Paul, thank you for all your hard work!</div><div><br></div><div>- K</div>