30-510: The Open Technology Fund ( OTF ) is an American nonprofit corporation that aims to support global Internet freedom technologies. Its mission is to "support open technologies and communities that increase free expression, circumvent censorship , and obstruct repressive surveillance as a way to promote human rights and open societies." As of November 2019, the Open Technology Fund became an independent nonprofit corporation and
60-493: A grantee of the U.S. Agency for Global Media . Until its formation as an independent entity, it had operated as a program of Radio Free Asia . The Open Technology Fund was started in 2012 by Libby Liu , then president of Radio Free Asia (RFA), as a pilot program within RFA to help better protect reporters and sources for the news organization with enhanced digital security technology. Under U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ,
90-570: A more crucial time." OTF had $ 2 million of funding from the USAGM to assist with the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests , but this funding was frozen by USAGM CEO Michael Pack in June 2020 as China was preparing to introduce a new national security law for Hong Kong . On June 17, 2020, the newly appointed head of USAGM, Michael Pack , fired the board of OTF and CEO Libby Liu . Liu had already tendered her resignation on June 13, 2020, effective July 13, 2020, on
120-559: A separate issue regarding the usage of closed-source software. The new board was named, consisting of Jonathan Alexandre (Senior Counsel, Liberty Counsel Action ), Robert Bowes (Senior Advisor to the Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development), Bethany Kozma (Deputy Chief of Staff, United States Agency for International Development), Rachel Semmel (Communications Director, Office of Management and Budget), Emily Newman (Chief of Staff, USAGM), and Pack as chairman. The next day,
150-540: Is an umbrella term that encompasses digital rights , freedom of information , the right to Internet access , freedom from Internet censorship , and net neutrality . Those who support internet freedom as a human right include the United Nations Human Rights Council , who declared internet freedom a Human Right in 2012. Eric Sterner agrees with the end goals of internet freedom but thinks that focusing on democracy and other freedoms
180-573: Is primarily responsible for maintaining software for the Tor anonymity network. The Tor Project, Inc. was founded on December 22, 2006 by computer scientists Roger Dingledine , Nick Mathewson and five others. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) acted as the Tor Project's fiscal sponsor in its early years, and early financial supporters of the Tor Project included the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau , Internews , Human Rights Watch ,
210-606: Is the best strategy. J. Goldsmith notes the discrepancies in fundamental rights around free speech that exist between Europe and the United States, for example, and how that impacts internet freedom. In addition, the proliferation in certain kinds of speech that spreads false information and weakens trust in the accuracy of content online remains a topic of concern around internet freedom in all countries. Some countries work to ban certain sites and or words that limit internet freedom. The People's Republic of China (PRC) has
240-670: The State Department adopted a policy of supporting global internet freedom initiatives. At this time, RFA began looking into technologies that helped their audiences avoid censorship and surveillance. Journalist Eli Lake argued that Clinton's policy was "heavily influenced by the Internet activism that helped organize the green revolution in Iran in 2009 and other revolutions in the Arab world in 2010 and 2011 ". In September 2014,
270-473: The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent agency of the U.S. government. The OTF is sustained by annual grants from the USAGM, which originate from yearly U.S. Congressional appropriations for State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. According to the OTF, it works with other publicly funded programs to fulfill a U.S. Congressional mandate to sustain and increase global freedom of information on
300-722: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia blocked the findings in an emergency stay, warning that these actions could endanger the work of activists against Internet censorship in countries with repressive government. On October 16, 2020, in a separate case, the DC Superior Court ruled that the changes were unlawful, reinstated the previous board, and ruled that any changes the new board made were invalid. Beginning in August 2020, OTF came under increasing pressure from Pack and USAGM leadership. According to Axios, this
330-554: The University of Cambridge , Google , and Netherlands-based Stichting NLnet . In October 2014, the Tor Project hired the public relations firm Thomson Communications in order to improve its public image (particularly regarding the terms "Dark Net" and "hidden services") and to educate journalists about the technical aspects of Tor. In May 2015, the Tor Project ended the Tor Cloud Service. In December 2015,
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#1732780466120360-549: The Internet with public funds. The OTF funds third-party audits for all the code -related projects it supports. It has also offered to fund audits of "non-OTF supported projects that are in use by individuals and organizations under threat of censorship/surveillance". Notable projects whose audits the OTF has sponsored include Cryptocat , Commotion Wireless , TextSecure , GlobaLeaks , MediaWiki , OpenPGP.js, Nitrokey , Ricochet and Signal . The OTF also matched donations to
390-800: The OTF worked with Google and Dropbox to create an organization called Simply Secure to help improve the usability of privacy tools. In March 2017, the OTF's future was reported as under question due to the Trump administration's unclear positions on Internet freedom issues. However, the OTF continued to receive Congressional funding under the Trump administration . In November 2019, OTF announced it had become an independent nonprofit corporation. The OTF has funded digital privacy and security technology, including The Tor Project , Signal , and other encryption projects. In June 2020, Libby Liu resigned as CEO of OTF (see § Dispute over board ). Initial funding
420-582: The Tor Project announced that it had hired Shari Steele , former executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as its new executive director. Roger Dingledine, who had been acting as interim executive director since May 2015, remained at the Tor Project as a director and board member. Later that month, the Tor Project announced that the Open Technology Fund would be sponsoring a bug bounty program that
450-610: The Tor Project received an award from Mozilla 's Open Source Support program (MOSS). The award was "to significantly enhance the Tor network's metrics infrastructure so that the performance and stability of the network can be monitored and improvements made as appropriate." In March 2011, the Tor Project received the Free Software Foundation 's 2010 Award for Projects of Social Benefit. The citation read, "Using free software, Tor has enabled roughly 36 million people around
480-638: The Tor community. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic , the Tor project's core team let go of 13 employees, leaving a working staff of 22 people. In 2023, the Tails Project approached the Tor Project to merge operations. The merger was completed on September 26, 2024, stating that, "By joining forces, the Tails team can now focus on their core mission of maintaining and improving Tails OS, exploring more and complementary use cases while benefiting from
510-425: The U.S. Agency for Global Media, OTF's impact by 2019 was global, with over 2 billion people using OTF-supported technology daily, and more than two-thirds of all mobile users having OTF-incubated technology on their devices. "As authoritarian states worldwide increasingly attempt to control what their citizens read, write, and even share online," said OTF CEO Libby Liu, "this next stage in OTF's growth could not come at
540-537: The auditing of TrueCrypt . In 2014, the OTF reported that it had funded more than 30 technology code audits over the past three years, identifying 185 privacy and security vulnerabilities in both OTF and non-OTF-funded projects. In 2015, The Tor Project announced that OTF would sponsor a bug bounty program coordinated by HackerOne . The program was initially invite-only and focuses on finding vulnerabilities that are specific to The Tor Project's applications. In October 2019, OTF Technology Director Sarah Aoun discussed
570-418: The board fired president Laura Cunningham. On June 23, 2020, District of Columbia attorney general Karl A. Racine filed suit under the District's Nonprofit Corporations Act to reverse Pack's replacement of the OTF board. The lawsuit alleged that the actions violated the "firewall" clause in federal communications regulations that shield government news agencies from political interference. On July 21, 2020,
600-586: The case. OTF learned in December 2020 that the reason was that McGuireWoods had decided to investigate OTF on behalf of USAGM and Pack instead. The Government Accountability Project , citing records obtained via the Freedom of Information Act , claimed McGuireWoods had billed USAGM $ 1.625 million at an average rate of $ 320 an hour after receiving a no-bid contract to investigate OTF as well as Voice of America employees. Internet freedom Internet freedom
630-560: The complete board of the Tor Project – Meredith Hoban Dunn, Ian Goldberg , Julius Mittenzwei, Rabbi Rob Thomas, Wendy Seltzer , Roger Dingledine and Nick Mathewson – was replaced with Matt Blaze , Cindy Cohn , Gabriella Coleman , Linus Nordberg, Megan Price and Bruce Schneier . A new anti-harassment policy has been approved by the new board, as well as a conflicts of interest policy, procedures for submitting complaints, and an internal complaint review process. The affair continues to be controversial, with considerable dissent within
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#1732780466120660-417: The findings of OTF-funded research into a Chinese government mobile application, telling ABC News that the app essentially amounts to a "surveillance device in your pocket." "The access itself is significant", OTF Research Director Adam Lynn told The Washington Post . "The fact that they've gone to these lengths [to hide it] only further heightens the scrutiny around this." According to its funding agency,
690-623: The larger organizational structure of The Tor Project." As of 2012 , 80% of the Tor Project's $ 2 million annual budget came from the United States government , with the U.S. State Department , the Broadcasting Board of Governors , and the National Science Foundation as major contributors, "to aid democracy advocates in authoritarian states". The Swedish government and other organizations provided
720-426: The new office. On August 20, OTF sued USAGM in the U.S. Court for Federal Claims for withholding nearly $ 20 million in previously agreed grants. On October 15, summary judgment was granted nullifying Pack's attempt to replace the OTF board. In June 2020, OTF had asked law firm McGuireWoods , which had been advising it pro bono, for help in its conflict with the USAGM and Pack. McGuireWoods said it could not help in
750-542: The other 20%, including NGOs and thousands of individual sponsors. Dingledine said that the United States Department of Defense funds are more similar to a research grant than a procurement contract . Tor executive director Andrew Lewman said that even though it accepts funds from the U.S. federal government, the Tor service did not collaborate with the NSA to reveal identities of users. In June 2016,
780-497: The world to experience freedom of access and expression on the Internet while keeping them in control of their privacy and anonymity. Its network has proved pivotal in dissident movements in both Iran and more recently Egypt ." In September 2012, the Tor Project received the 2012 EFF Pioneer Award , along with Jérémie Zimmermann and Andrew Huang . In November 2012, Foreign Policy magazine named Dingledine, Mathewson, and Syverson among its Top 100 Global Thinkers "for making
810-544: The world's largest number of Internet users and one of the most sophisticated and aggressive Internet censorship and control regimes in the world. In 2020 Freedom House ranked China last of 64 nations in internet freedom. The Tor Project The Tor Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) research-education nonprofit organization based in Winchester, Massachusetts . It is founded by computer scientists Roger Dingledine , Nick Mathewson , and five others. The Tor Project
840-487: Was allocated in 2011 from Congress to the Broadcasting Board of Governors , which then provided $ 7 million to Radio Free Asia . The Open Technology Fund operated for seven years as a program of Radio Free Asia, a U.S. government-funded, nonprofit international corporation that provides news, information and commentary in East Asia. Since 2019, the OTF has had its own Board of Directors and receives its funding directly from
870-437: Was coordinated by HackerOne . The program was initially invite-only and focuses on finding vulnerabilities that are specific to the Tor Project's applications. On May 25, 2016, Tor Project employee Jacob Appelbaum stepped down from his position; this was announced on June 2 in a two-line statement by Tor. Over the following days, allegations of sexual mistreatment were made public by several people. On July 13, 2016,
900-495: Was related to OTF's reluctance to extend grants to Falun Gong -related enterprises working on technology directed against China's Great Firewall ; the New York Times noted Falun Gong and its Epoch Times media group often supported the Trump administration. On August 18, USAGM announced it was setting up its own Office of Internet Freedom with less strict grant requirements and began soliciting OTF's grantees to apply to
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