14 DAY TRIAL // The Tor Project, even if it's not perfect, is the best thing you can rely on to have some protection from nosy governments and companies. Even if doesn't provide complete anonymity, which is probably impossible anyway, it is quite useful.
But, as a tool against NSA spying, it may not be the best choice. For one, anyone with enough resources can eventually pinpoint a TOR user's location, if given enough time.
There's more though, the Department of Defense, which includes the NSA, provides most of the funding for the Tor Project.
The DoD is accountable for 40 percent of the Tor Project's 2012 budget. The US State Department and other government agencies contribute. In total, 60 percent of the funding comes from the US government.
This isn't anything new and it isn't a secret either. What's more, the Tor Project argues that funding comes from the parts of government that need good security tools. What's more, since it's an open source project, open to scrutiny.
"The parts of the U.S. and Swedish governments that fund us through contracts want to see strong privacy and anonymity exist on the Internet in the future," Tor Executive Director Andrew Lewman wrote in an email to users. "Don't assume that 'the government' is one coherent entity with one mindset."
But in the light of the latest revelations, that the NSA is working with most if not all major security software makers to insert backdoors into their products and that it influenced encryption standards to make them vulnerable to NSA attacks, some suspicion is warranted.
Granted, if it wanted to, the NSA would try to alter Tor without actually providing any money, but any change, overt or covert, would probably be noticed by contributors, even given the complexity of the code.
Still, Tor Project members are confident that the NSA won't pressure the organization because, for one, its ready to fight the government, and second, because various parts of the government actually rely on Tor.