It was recently revealed in a 'document dump' that Tor, the browser most favoured by Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, was originally funded by the U.S. government and then was sold to private interests. In the document dump, it stated that the FBI still had inside information to the workings of Tor and allegedly had a say as to when 'issues' with the software would be revealed to the general public.
Tor is a program that alleged to maintain one's anonymity while browsing the internet thereby preventing government agents from spying on you, and many in the alternative scene installed this browser at the recommendation of Assange and Snowden. With these revelations will Assange and Snowden change their minds? Or could it be that they knew about this all along? While on the face of it, one might be inclined to say that they did not because of their situations with the U.S. government; one trapped in a foreign embassy in Britain due to a questionable legal situation, the other having fled to Russia after leaking documents revealing how the NSA spies on American citizens. In the chessboard of world politics, complex ruses should not be a surprise. Still, personally, I do not think that they knew. What do you think?
The revelation came in a book recently published titled Surveillance Valley The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine.
You can read Yasha Levine's blog on the topic here
The Tor files
RT news reportwhereupon I first heard this bit of news.
Thank you for reading.
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Peace
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