Mozilla Research Call: Tune up Tor for Integration and Scale

> Tor faces existential political threats from those (governments, FBI, spooks generally) who wish to ensure that ordinary citizens remain voiceless, powerless, and friendless; with a sufficiently large user base, this threat would be greatly reduced.

Speaking of political threats, I urge Tor Project to join with other groups such as EFF and ACLU to oppose this very bad idea:

cnn.com
Bitcoin-Bashing Democrat Calls for Blanket Ban on Cryptocurrencies
A California Democrat is urging his colleagues to pass a law that would ban cryptocurrencies in the United States. | Source: (i) Shutterstock (ii) Shutterstock; Edited by CCN
Samantha Chang
9 May 2019

> Bitcoin-bashing Democrat Congressman Brad Sherman is urging his colleagues to pass a law that would ban cryptocurrencies in the United States.

This is a very bad proposal from one of many members of Congress who often express very narrow and even bigoted views on complicated technical topics they do not understand and do not wish to understand, which tends to make for awful public policy positions. An intriguing aspect of Chang's article is that she claims Democrats are anti-crypto while Republicans are pro-crypto,

> ... Republicans — who are generally pro-business — are far more open to promoting entrepreneurial ventures. For example, Hester Peirce, one of five SEC commissioners, is so pro-bitcoin that she has been nicknamed “Crypto Mom” (an ironic moniker considering she has no children). Peirce is a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump. Trump has a number of top aides that are pro-crypto, including acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Similarly, CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo has earned the title of “Crypto Dad” for his pro-bitcoin positions. Giancarlo is also a Republican. Unfortunately for crypto fans, he’s retiring soon. But his presumptive replacement, Heath Tarbert, will probably be open-minded about crypto given Trump’s hiring track record.

IMO it would be far more accurate to say that the Republican Party elite and the Democratic Party elite both tend to oppose crypto for ordinary citizens. Hillary Clinton (the Democratic Party centrist candidate in 2016) did, as did former candidate Al Gore, but so does former FBI Director James Comey, Mike Pompeo and a host of others who are either Republicans working in the Drump administration or Republicans opposed to Drumpism. It is true that the 2020 Democratic Party Presidential candidate being heavily promoted in Democratic-leaning mainstream press venues as the "front runner" [sic], Joe Biden, was one of the leading opponents of PGP and a promoter of NSA's Clipper Chip. But Biden is also a leading promoter of big business who consistently has taken pro-big-bank, pro-Wall-Street and anti-union positions, much like old school Republicans.

The truth is, both the Democratic and Republican elites tend to be anti-encryption, anti union, pro-big-business, pro-dragnet, often pro-war, as are most Drump administration figures. Ordinary citizens have few friends outside the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party and, sometimes, the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party. These are important factors to bear in mind when reaching out to reporters who write about Tor, seeking to improve the truthfulness of coverage of our embattled but growing global community.

For example, Tor is perfect for union organizers at companies like Amazon, Google, Lyft and Uber, all of which are working hard to prevent their "gig workers" from unionizing (and are likely hiring shady firms like NSO to attack the more effective union organizers with APT malware). But most Democratic Party MOCs are likely to be covertly hostile to such movements; Republican Party MOCs are likely to be openly hostile. But both those groups may be willing to listen to arguments that Tor can improve national security by improving government, corporate. and citizen cybersecurity.