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Covid-19’s impact on Tor

blog.torproject.org

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Re: Covid-19’s impact on Tor

#131

Post by nbar1 »

wegs wrote: post #129
nbar1 wrote: post #125

I feel for the people at Tor who were let go. My company was in the same position and I was unfortunately on the list of people who had their position terminated. While I am upset that I am now unemployed I also can understand how a company can be put in a difficult position during this time. I will survive, and I hope they do too.

I feel bad for the spiral here. We're now seeing the second-order of the depression spiral. * First step was laying off people without jobs which could be done remotely. * Second step is laying off people who could still be productive from home, but where there's less demand. Unless we act with boldness and resoluteness, this will just continue to feed in on itself as the nation collapses.

Unfortunately for me, I was a remote worker already (worked there for a month shy of 6 years). Hopefully, my position (React/Node FS Dev) is in high enough demand after all this to resume working remotely with a comfortable salary. I've already had offers for remote but they require me to relocate after the pandemic is over, which is really clogging up the job boards.

Re: Covid-19’s impact on Tor

#132

Post by throwaway092837 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #2

Why isn't there a public open-source fund to finance open projects (ie one to which the donors have no clue or control where the funds will eventually go; they're disbursed on the basis of how widely something is used)?

Indeed donations are far, far from enough.

GPS, GSM, fiber optics, Internet, touchscreens, semiconductors, satellites, most of chemistry and aviation - all were researched and developed using taxpayer money.

And it took billions.

Now all public R&D is being destroyed and yet FLOSS fits exactly in the category.

We desperately need large, global, R&D funding not some people throwing some bucks at patreon.

Re: Covid-19’s impact on Tor

#133

Post by maallooc »

fierarul wrote: post #130

This announcement makes no sense. You do not have 35 employees without some sort of stable budget. Seems very unlikely the budget changed so much in the past few months that you have to reduce your headcount by 40%! Then they even mention that they expect Tor to be even more relevant in the coming period. Well, now would be a good time to keep the people, work on the product and show how relevant it is. Very little s…

The fact is, they post their numbers every year. You can download their annual audit reports. They just did not state those numbers on this article.

And this layoff is not because the budget changed now, it’s to prepare for that.

Don’t demand to be spoonfed, just pay attention little more.

Re: Covid-19’s impact on Tor

#134

Post by fapjacks »

andrepd wrote: post #128
fapjacks wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Because tin-pot shitholes -- and the people trying to make them -- have, can, and will always find some new "threat" with which to justify taking away civil liberties. Things similar to what you have said here about "nuanced reality" with respect to civil liberties have always been for me a pretty good smell test for underlying authoritarian beliefs. In ANY context, it's possible to point to something as justific…

I'm not familiar with the concept of "tin-pot shithole". >have, can, and will always find some new "threat" with which to justify taking away civil liberties. So slippery slope, is what you're arguing? "First they make a completely reasonable and temporary restriction of right of physical assembly, next we'll be off to the gulags." Isn't really an interesting argument, is it?

Nice use of quotation marks there, considering that is not what I said.

Re: Covid-19’s impact on Tor

#135

Post by wdb »

nbar1 wrote: post #131
wegs wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel bad for the spiral here. We're now seeing the second-order of the depression spiral. * First step was laying off people without jobs which could be done remotely. * Second step is laying off people who could still be productive from home, but where there's less demand. Unless we act with boldness and resoluteness, this will just continue to feed in on itself as the nation collapses.

Unfortunately for me, I was a remote worker already (worked there for a month shy of 6 years). Hopefully, my position (React/Node FS Dev) is in high enough demand after all this to resume working remotely with a comfortable salary. I've already had offers for remote but they require me to relocate after the pandemic is over, which is really clogging up the job boards.

I haven't found much jobs which offer remote working as they mostly based in the US.

Re: Covid-19’s impact on Tor

#136

Post by AndyMcConachie »

justnotworthit wrote: post #37
Renaud wrote: post #19

They are too dependent on government sponsorship. 80% of their funding comes from the US government in some shape. I would imagine that a project of that importance deserves to be able to be self-sufficient. A US$2M budget/year is not that much, (m|b)illionaires making their money from the Internet could easily sponsor the project. Better yet, having grass-root sponsorship is even more important. Maybe they need mark…

I work on a project depended upon and repeatedly promoted by Snowden (tweets) and less-than-public-figures-who-lives-depend-on-it (pastebins). We gave up writing grant proposals. After repeatedly pouring hours into crafting proposals exactly as specified, the big one (no plural) OTF (.gov funding) has never responded. The smaller, more informal ones aren't interested as well (no clue why). What little OTF money there…

Sounds like academia.

Re: Covid-19’s impact on Tor

#137

Post by zipwitch »

tchaffee wrote: post #105
mixologic wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolute freedom of speech is equally as detrimental to society as totalitarian government censorship. Propaganda, misinformation, and outright lies can convincingly be passed off as truth. The vast majority of the populace neither has the time, nor the inclination to properly vet, research, and confirm the information that is presented to them. Humans rarely acknowledge their own confirmation biases, which makes it…

> Propaganda, misinformation, and outright lies Who would decide what is fake news? The federal government? Perhaps a free speech Czar appointed by the president of the US? The current president of the US certainly does talk about fake news a lot. But no thanks.

The facile answer is, "have an educated public who can make those decisions themselves". But it seems clear to me that the "educated public" approach has failed. The spread of memetic hazards has risen to the level where a significant segment of the public have been robbed of their ability to think critically, and the post-Enlightenment consensus that objective reality exists is under attack.

Beyond fighting a Fabian struggle in favor of critical thinking and quality information flows (which are lacking all across our society, even if that lack is particularly obvious with a certain political group) I'm by no means certain what a good, useful, and just response ought to be.

I am confident that the danger is real and needs to be acknowledged. We need to find paths forward if we're to have any hope of keeping our civilization. And that means talking (and doing something) about the "propaganda, misinformation, and outright lies". Sticking our heads in the sand and screaming "Free Speech!" while the tidal wave informational sewage rolls over us isn't going to be sufficient.

Re: Covid-19’s impact on Tor

#138

Post by jacobsenscott »

tchaffee wrote: post #105
mixologic wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolute freedom of speech is equally as detrimental to society as totalitarian government censorship. Propaganda, misinformation, and outright lies can convincingly be passed off as truth. The vast majority of the populace neither has the time, nor the inclination to properly vet, research, and confirm the information that is presented to them. Humans rarely acknowledge their own confirmation biases, which makes it…

> Propaganda, misinformation, and outright lies Who would decide what is fake news? The federal government? Perhaps a free speech Czar appointed by the president of the US? The current president of the US certainly does talk about fake news a lot. But no thanks.

We have a system to filter "real" information from "fake" information where distributing fake information is a lucrative business. It is called peer review, and it can be applied to news as well as science, and doesn't require some nefarious government czar.

Re: Covid-19’s impact on Tor

#139

Post by jacobsenscott »

zipwitch wrote: post #137
tchaffee wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Propaganda, misinformation, and outright lies Who would decide what is fake news? The federal government? Perhaps a free speech Czar appointed by the president of the US? The current president of the US certainly does talk about fake news a lot. But no thanks.

The facile answer is, "have an educated public who can make those decisions themselves". But it seems clear to me that the "educated public" approach has failed . The spread of memetic hazards has risen to the level where a significant segment of the public have been robbed of their ability to think critically, and the post-Enlightenment consensus that objective reality exists is under attack. Beyond fighting a Fabia…

Education != ability to think critically. It is a problem of biology - we are hardwired to believe things in a certain way based on all kinds of cognitive biases, etc. I don't see a way around regulation, and I don't see a path towards effective regulation given the current system benefits those who would design the regulations.

Re: Covid-19’s impact on Tor

#140

Post by mjayhn »

nbar1 wrote: post #131
wegs wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel bad for the spiral here. We're now seeing the second-order of the depression spiral. * First step was laying off people without jobs which could be done remotely. * Second step is laying off people who could still be productive from home, but where there's less demand. Unless we act with boldness and resoluteness, this will just continue to feed in on itself as the nation collapses.

Unfortunately for me, I was a remote worker already (worked there for a month shy of 6 years). Hopefully, my position (React/Node FS Dev) is in high enough demand after all this to resume working remotely with a comfortable salary. I've already had offers for remote but they require me to relocate after the pandemic is over, which is really clogging up the job boards.

I'm sorry to hear about that but I'm sure you'll do great w/a react/node background I'm not even involved in front-end but I know quite a few places always hiring good react/node devs (albeit they might be in a freeze right now).

Give https://github.com/yanirs/established-remote and https://github.com/remoteintech/remote-jobs a look.

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