The so-called Tor project—a software development aiming to help groups, organizations, and individuals alike communicate anonymously in cyberspace, and duck traffic analysis surveillance—has received a big boost from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which says it has become a sponsor of the software project.
"Using Tor protects you against a common form of Internet surveillance known as 'traffic analysis,' the EFF said in a synopsis of the project. "Traffic analysis can be used to infer who is talking to whom over a public network. Knowing the source and destination of your Internet traffic allows others to track your behavior and interests.
"This can impact your checkbook if, for example, an e-commerce site uses price discrimination based on your country or institution of origin," the EFF synopsis continued. "It can even threaten your job and physical safety by revealing who and where you are. For example, if you're travelling abroad and you connect to your employer's computers to check or send mail, you can inadvertently reveal your national origin and professional affiliation to anyone observing the network, even if the connection is encrypted."
Tor project leader Roger Dingledine said in a statement that project developers believe EFF is an ideal organization to work with. "EFF understands the importance of anonymity technology for everyone -- from the average Web surfer, to journalists for community sites like Indymedia, to people living under oppressive regimes," Dingledine said. "With their support and experience, we can focus on making Tor useful and usable by everyone."
EFF technology manager Chris Palmer said in his own statement that Tor fits EFF perfectly because one of the electronic civil liberties group's prime concerns is privacy and anonymity protection in cyberspace.
"Tor can help people exercise their First Amendment right to free, anonymous speech online," he said. "And unlike many other security systems, Tor recognizes that there is no security without user-friendliness -- if the mechanism is not accessible, nobody will use it. Tor strikes a balance between performance, usability, and security."
The EFF said individuals can use Tor to keep remote sites from tracking themselves and their family members while also using it to find resources like news sites and instant messaging services blocked by local Internet service providers.
Groups and organizations, the EFF continued, can use it for protecting their memberships' privacy and security and helping protect online civil liberties. Corporations, the EFF said, hope Tor can be used for safe ways to do competitive analysis and even test new, experimental projects "without associating their names with these projects."
Even the U.S. Navy is believed to be interested in Tor. The EFF said a Navy branch, as yet unidentified, uses Tor for open-source intelligence gathering.
