Security News > 2023 > August > Delivering privacy in a world of pervasive digital surveillance: Tor Project’s Executive Director speaks out

The overarching mission of the US-based non-profit organization the Tor Project is to advance human rights and make open-source, privacy preserving software available to people globally, so that they can browse the internet privately, protect themselves against surveillance and bypass online censorship.

To infosec professionals The Tor Project doesn't need an introduction, but there's always other people out there who have never heard of it.

The Tor Project serves a wide group of people who are concerned with protecting their online activity and privacy - from activists to journalists, human rights defenders, and at risk communities who see their rights restricted, such as LGBTQIA+ people, people seeking access to reproductive and healthcare services, and those offering those services and support systems.

People might be most familiar with Tor Browser, a fortified copy of Firefox that provides anti-fingerprinting protection, does not keep any browsing history, isolate cookies and connects to the Tor network, a decentralized network run by volunteers all around the world which routes traffic through multiple servers and encrypts it each step of the way.

We partner with Guardian Project and Calyx Institute to help bring Orbot to iPhone and OnionShare to both Android and iOS. Besides that, one big benefit of our project to re-write Tor in Rust is a better API to embed Tor on a mobile application.

The Tor Project recently shared the results of a program in several Latin American countries, aimed at collecting on-the-ground information about how users use the various Tor Project products and the difficulties they encounter while doing it.

News URL

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/08/02/isabela-fernandes-tor-project-privacy/