[liberationtech] Open Solicitation for Concept Notes: Open Technology Fund

[Nadim Kobeissi]

On 2013-07-02, at 3:07 PM, Griffin Boyce <griffinboyce at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nadim Kobeissi <nadim at nadim.cc> wrote: 
> Frederick did not call OTF a tool of US oppression, but a tool for aiding U.S. foreign policy. I am very pleased that my project is supported by the excellent people at OTF, but let us not kid ourselves and say that U.S. foreign policy has nothing to do with anything. Even if foreign policy considerations are involved, though, they are not necessarily negative or in any way counter to the goals of developing liberation technology. But they simply affect our landscape.
> 
> NK
> 
>   Well, sure.  And I would go so far as to say that various biases within the US government has a serious negative impact when it comes to funding for important projects.  Much of the non-profit grants funding in the US trickle down from the government in some fashion.  (This is true well outside libtech and the leakosphere).  But even if OTF is impacted by these biases, I don't believe that the projects they fund are.  Which was my point.  I know almost nothing about RFA's *other* projects.  But I disagree with FN's statement that they are somehow "propping up US foreign policy."

Yes, that's pretty much it. I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that OTF is completely independent from U.S. foreign policy considerations, but their support of Cryptocat hasn't affected any of its decisions. With their funding or without it, we would be writing the exact same code for the exact same purpose (just probably a *lot* more slowly, and without the needed funding to hire code auditors).

I assume that the same is true for Tor, GlobaLeaks, RedPhone, and other OTF projects.

NK

> 
>   Just my $0.02.
> 
> ~Griffin
> 
> -- 
> Just another hacker in the City of Spies.
> #Foucault / PGP: 0xAE792C97 / OTR: saint at jabber.ccc.de
> 
> My posts, while frequently amusing, are not representative of the thoughts of my employer. --
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