[liberationtech] Assange's claim about Tor losing US government support due to WikiLeaks

[James S. Tyre]

>can you explain why this news is such a big deal? who cares what cryptom thinks?

 

Because John Young has been a key infosource for things not otherwise available since before WL was a twinkle in Assange’s eye.

 

--

James S. Tyre

Law Offices of James S. Tyre

10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512

Culver City, CA 90230-4969

310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)

jstyre at jstyre.com

Policy Fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation

https://www.eff.org

 

From: liberationtech-bounces at lists.stanford.edu [mailto:liberationtech-bounces at lists.stanford.edu] On Behalf Of SiNA
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2012 12:29 PM
To: Evgeny Morozov
Cc: liberationtech at mailman.stanford.edu
Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Assange's claim about Tor losing US government support due to WikiLeaks

 

can you explain why this news is such a big deal? who cares what cryptom thinks?

Why do so many people hate Jake and Tor?

On Feb 19, 2012 10:41 AM, "Evgeny Morozov" <evgeny.morozov at gmail.com> wrote:

Those of you who've read Assange's recent interview with The Rolling Stone <http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/julian-assange-the-rolling-stone-interview-20120118?print=true>  may have noticed this claim (in response to a question about forms of pressure that US government exerted on WikiLeaks and their supporters): 

 

The Tor Project, which protects people around the world from being spied on or censored, lost some $600,000 to the U.S. government, as a result of one of their people, Jacob Appelbaum, having filled in for me once at a conference in New York. This type of indirect pressure has been applied to a great many people.

 

I was a bit puzzled by it. So were people at Cryptome <http://cryptome.org/2012/01/0053.htm> , who asked Tor about it. Here is what Andrew Lewman (who's on this list) wrote to them: 

 

I read this statement as well. It is news to me that we were penalized

for Jacob. Maybe wikileaks has unreleased information from one of our

USG funders. If so, they should publish it for all to review.

 

Now, Andrew's statement is carefully worded, i.e. it does allow for the possibility that Tor lost the USG money but they think it was not Jacob/WikiLeaks-related. 

 

So it would be good to know whether a) Tor did lose some or all of USG support between late 2010 and early 2012? and b) there is any evidence to link this to WL, as Assange did? 

 

Whatever the motivation, USG cutting support to circumvention tools is a big news item all in itself, regardless of the link to Assange. I wonder why it wasn't more widely reported, if true - perhaps, by Tor project itself?-  because ultimately this would all be visible on Tor's financial statements. 

 

Evgeny

 


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