Thanks to Andrew & others for their responses. I inquired knowing the norms of research funding in computer science, that various other government agencies have also funded Tor in the past, that Tor originated with Navy input, that there are easier ways for nonprofits to hide DoD funding (like the subsidiary corporation reported on the Tor Project's IRS 990s, for example), and so on.
But I asked because this single grant for $876K is a significant portion of Tor's operating budget, and about a third of the Tor Project's total operating income in 2012. It's also far more than the the sum of salaries and travel funding disclosed in its 2012 IRS 990 forms. So it's not a trivial amount of money and Tor is not a computer science professor at a university. Also note that I didn't ask about any of the other funding Tor receives from the U.S. government, which is more accurately disclosed on the website most people read. But as someone who has donated lots of bandwidth and other resources over the past decade or so to the Tor Project, I'm interested to know whether my contributions to the project might be going into the coffers of an organization for which a third of its funding (and presumably, its activities) exist essentially as a black hole. Not knowing where this funding goes makes it harder to know where my money or bandwidth or code contributions go. Hopefully you can understand why someone might wonder in good faith why a third of the Tor Project's 2012 funding appears to be disclosed only in PDFs that very few people bother to read (let alone understand), or why the Tor Project hasn't updated its website to note that its largest funder--from the tax documents, at least--is a U.S. Navy grant focused on Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance." I accept Andrew's explanation at face value, but I also think it's fair to say that it's a significant oversight. Since Tor itself is used to evade censorship and surveillance and the only available information about this funding mentions "Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance" in conjunction with the U.S. Navy, I hope others on the list understand why someone might ask in good faith what The Tor Project actually does with funding from this grant. I hope that in the future, The Tor Project will consider accepting funding from sources that it can speak to in greater detail and that don't come with the same risk of undermining trust among volunteers and users. > http://i.imgur.com/i7HvtHy.jpg > -- > tor-talk mailing list - [email protected] > To unsusbscribe or change other settings go to > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk > -- tor-talk mailing list - [email protected] To unsusbscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
