Mozilla Doubles Donations To The Tor Project

The Tor Project has today launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds and Mozilla will double donations to a total of $ 500,000. Every day, 2 million people use the Tor network to protect their privacy and visit censored websites.

According to the Tor Project, the number of online attacks on censorship and privacy was unprecedented this year. "Countries around the world tried to restrict access to the web, to dissolve dissidents and to compromise personal privacy," said Tommy Collison of the Tor Project. Also for next year, the Tor Project expects many governments and companies censorship to make the norm and want privacy to be included in the past.

A large part of the revenue from the Tor Project comes from the US government and the organization wants to reduce it by depending more on individual donations. As there are no restrictions on crowdfunding, the money that is collected can be spent on projects which, according to the Tor Project, are the most important and can be responded quickly to changing circumstances.

Furthermore, the Tor Project praises cooperation with Mozilla. Not only will Mozilla double donations to a total of $ 500,000, both parties will work closely together in software development. For example, there is regular consultation between the engineers of Mozilla and the Tor Project. For example, Tor Browser's privacy enhancements are added to Firefox, and Mozilla engineers have taught Tor developers to program in the Rust programming language. In addition, Mozilla helps the Tor network by running several Tor servers.

Stallman: Windows And Mac OS Are Malware

Much of the software in circulation today is malware. It are programs that treat their users bad, says Richard Stallman, which is Windows, Mac OS and iOS gives specific examples. Stallman is the creator of the GNU operating system.

He uses the definition of malware not only for viruses and Trojans, but for programs that users are treated badly. Stallman Something that has become commonplace, writes in a column for The Guardian. "There are so many cases of proprietary malware reported that we should consider any closed program as suspicious and dangerous." Some of these programs closed spy on users, while others are made ​​to chain users through DRM solutions. Other programs impose censorship on weather and some software is specially designed to sabotage users, Stallman continues.

As an example he mentions malware operating systems like Windows, Mac OS and iOS. This is software that users chains, spies and censors. An Internet that closed out all kinds of software solutions exist is not to be trusted. Stallman calls therefore users to take action. So should software and Web services that spy on users or follow avoided.

It should be collectively invested in free solutions that users do not follow the web. Thirdly legislation must come through democratic ways which prohibits several "malware practices." It is also necessary that there be a democracy, says Stallman.Something which according to him is not the case with trade agreements such as TTP and TTIP those companies actually offer the ability to suppress democracy.

Chinese Government Blocks VPN Services

The Chinese government has all kinds of VPN services blocked in the country, giving consumers no websites like Facebook and Google can visit more and particularly small foreign companies in China can not connect to their servers and enterprise networks can make abroad.

Via a Virtual Private Network (VPN), it is possible to make a computer is part of a network that is located at a different location. The traffic then runs through a specially constructed tunnel. China VPNs are used inter alia to circumvent government censorship. Using a VPN service make Chinese Internet connect on servers in Europe, from where they can then visit various Web sites that are not accessible in China. Because the traffic through the secure VPN tunnel running the Chinese authorities can not view the contents.

VPN provider Golden Frog announced that users of the VyprVPN service problems have to approach certain VPN servers abroad. The problem is as Golden Frog also with other VPN providers. "From a technical standpoint, it is not caused by server problems, but it's a network problem in China." For the time being of the company in the Netherlands and Hong Kong VPN servers would still be accessible for Chinese users.

According to Richard Robinson, a foreign entrepreneur in China, it is especially small and medium-sized foreign companies that makes the VPN blockade. Many larger companies have in fact direct connections to servers outside the country, so let him across the Associated Press know. In recent weeks, the Chinese government also decided to block all access to Gmail.Similarly, a measure which affects small businesses according to Robinson, as they often use the mail service from Google.