With Likhita, Etienne Maynier and John Scott-Railton. Hosted by Roger Dingledine.

Every year, governments, law enforcement agencies, militaries, and corporations invest billions of dollars into building and buying malicious spyware--software designed to silently infiltrate a user's device and allow attackers to view the contents without detection. This year, the Pegasus Project revealed that users of this kind of spyware, known as Pegasus and built by the NSO group, had targeted the phones that belong to thousands of people in more than 50 countries, including business executives, politicians, journalists, and human rights activists. In this edition of PrivChat, join Likhita and Etienne Maynier of Amnesty International and John Scott-Railton of Citizen Lab to discuss how people can protect themselves, what organizations we can support to stop this abuse and who is working on safer, more private software that we can trust?

With Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson, Paul Syverson. Hosted by Gabriella Coleman.

Celebrate 25 years of onion routing with Tor! May 31, 2021 marks the 25th anniversary of the first public presentation of onion routing in Cambridge, UK at Isaac Newton Institute's first Information Hiding Workshop.

მოპატეჟებული ხართ ამ მშვენიერი დღის აღსანიშნავად, რომ ვისაუბროთ Onion-დამისამართების შექმნის საწყის საფეხურებზე, თუ როგორ გარდაიქმნა Tor-ად და როგორ მივიღეთ საბოლოოდ Tor-პროექტი. შემოგვიერთდება პოლ სივერსონი, ერთ-ერთი სულისჩამდგმელი პირველი სახის onion-დამისამართებისა, Tor-პროექტის თანადამფუძნებელ როჯერ დინგლედინთან და ნიკ მეთიუსონთან ერთად.

We'll reflect on the first days of the onion routing network at the U.S. Naval Research Lab (NRL). (Back then, onion router connections went through five nodes instead of Tor's current three-nodes design!) It's no secret that the concept of onion routing originated at NRL (it's on our history page), but there is so much more we want to share about how Tor started and where we've come in the last 25 years.

With Alison Macrina, Berhan Taye and Ramy Raoof. Hosted by Ed Snowden.

The Tor Project's main mission is to advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies. People use our technology, namely the Tor network and Tor Browser, in diverse ways. Tor is used by whistleblowers who need a safe way to bring to light information about wrongdoing -- information that is crucial for society to know -- without sharing their identity. Tor is used by activists around the world who are fighting against authoritarian governments and to defend human rights, not only for their safety and anonymity, but also to circumvent internet censorship so their voices can be heard. Tor allows millions of people to protect themselves online, no matter what privilege they have or don't have. For our third edition of PrivChat, we are bringing you some real-life Tor users who will share how Tor has been important for them and their work to defend human rights and freedoms around the world.

With Felicia Anthonio, Vrinda Bhandari, Cecylia Bocovich and Arturo Filastò. Hosted by Cory Doctorow.

Every year, internet censorship increases globally. From network level blocking to nation-wide internet blackouts, governments and private companies have powerful tools to restrict information and prevent connections between people. Many people, groups, and organizations are doing innovative work to study, measure, and fight back against internet censorship--and they are helping millions of people connect more regularly and safely to the internet. Despite these successes, we're faced with well-funded adversaries that have billions of dollars to spend on censorship mechanisms, and the arms race is ongoing. The second edition of PrivChat with Tor will be about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly that is happening in the front lines of censorship circumvention. In a world where censorship technology is increasingly sophisticated and bought and sold between nations, so is our creativity to measure it and build tools to bypass it, as well as the willingness of people to fight back. But is it enough? What are the barriers facing the people and organizations fighting for internet freedom?

With Carmela Troncoso, Daniel Kahn Gillmor and Matt Mitchell. Hosted by Roger Dingledine.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit most countries around the world, many governments looked for technology to trace the spread of the virus in order to fight the pandemic. Contact tracing practices and technologies raised many questions about privacy, particularly: is it possible to trace the virus while respecting people's privacy? Now amidst the uprising in the U.S. against systemic racism, followed by protests all around the world, the central question about contact tracing, privacy, and surveillance becomes critical. Can the technology used for tracking the virus be used to track protesters? Will it be? For our first ever PrivChat, the Tor Project is bringing you three amazing guests to chat with us about privacy in this context.