News! After 8 years @torproject, I'm stepping away from my role as Director of Fundraising this month.

Working to fund privacy and anti-censorship technology has been an *actual* dream. The incredibly smart people at Tor and in the ecosystem have taught me so much about the link between the software we use and our personal freedoms. I'm proud of building out a team, successfully diversifying our funding base, and being able to experiment with innovative new methods of funding digital public goods along the way.

I will be taking a short break after my time and Tor and then on to new adventures. I'll share more soon! 💜 🪩

The Tor Project (@torproject) is hiring a UX Team Lead! Come help shape the user experience of our user-facing tools, Tor Browser, Tor VPN, and Tails OS. Plus lead a team of incredibly talented, super smart designers and researchers. https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/ux-lead/

#GetFediHired / #FediHire

@defcon

Last year, a stable source of internet freedom funding was unceremoniously cut off, grants rescinded, and organizations left in the lurch—with users in peril and programs shut down.

So far this funding has not re-materialized. If we want a free internet, if we want a private internet, if we want nonprofit internet (meaning, no extractive profit model), we have to collectively support the tools and software that makes that possible.

Today, @torproject has launched a funding campaign to support 10 internet freedom + privacy projects using the quadratic funding formula. The more individual donors participate, the more match funds each organization will receive!

This is an experiment, an optimistic pilot, a way to use Tor's platform to help the ecosystem. I hope you'll take a look!

https://internetfreedom.torproject.org

@torproject My favorite fact from this analysis: In 2023-2024, the Tor community contributed $768,413 in donated services or goods. That's an estimated 7,614 hours of software development, 1,894,720 words translated, cloud hosting services for 23 servers, and 26 certificates. 🤯 💟

I do a lot of work synthesizing information. Much of fundraising is taking what exists in the world and connecting the dots of how a person or institution and their philanthropy aligns with an organization's goals and values. This involves a lot of reading and listening and sorting data. It's tempting to use LLMs to outsource this work, because that's what the hype machine says it can do! But it cannot *actually* do this reliably.

We need help translating the documentation on support.torproject.org. It's currently available in Spanish, Farsi, German, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Japanese, Arabic, and Simplified Chinese. Can you help us expand the languages offered? https://blog.torproject.org/new-user-support-portal-tor-tails/

A friend tried to send me a gift from Etsy — a $7 patch. She wasn't aware that it would be shipping from Canada, and Etsy made no note of the potential tariff charges. The UPS guy showed up at my door and told me I needed to pay UPS $45 in tariffs, or I had to refuse the package. lol. Honestly the poor UPS guy was like, "thank you for not being mad at *me*, directly..."

People take me seriously, though, and I've realized that it's time to drop these bombs in the middle of pottery class. Why am I making a piece of art that just says BAD NEWS? Because I'm afraid for my life, and I wonder every day if I should leave.

Someone said to me, "they can't do that, you're a U.S. citizen!" I'm not saying this to shame people, but because there's a real under-awareness of how deep we are into anti-trans action. I think a lot of well-meaning people can brush off drag bans as ridiculous and out of touch. They might think that most of these actions are really just about people being mad they were asked to gender someone properly. We know that's not true -- aggressive, hateful legislation is happening everywhere.

Anemic reporting is part of the problem, but so is the information environment, the information overwhelm, and the (perhaps naive, but genuine) faith that many people have in the rule of decency and the value of human rights. The extreme nature of a lot of the laws and orders makes them sound fake or over-stated, so it can be difficult to communicate the real harm and have that land successfully instead of being written off as hysterical.

Exciting stuff from internet freedom land: the Tor Project and Tails have joined forces. This process is the result of a ton of work, due diligence, and many thoughtful and difficult conversations. I think working together in one organization is going to benefit users in many ways, and I'm so happy to finally announce this news after almost a year of work to make it a reality! https://blog.torproject.org/tor-tails-join-forces/

In an obvious next step, Florida is now considering a bill that will prohibit insurance companies from covering gender-affirming healthcare to people *of all ages.* "Won't someone please think of the children" is always a lie, a means to crack open the door. https://erininthemorn.substack.com/p/florida-rep-says-trans-people-are

one of the implications of the legislation being passed that targets trans people right now is the undertow its had on my ability to feel stable and safe and sane. being constantly labeled a harm to society is fucking taxing. living in a "blue" state with good trans protections is a good thing but it doesn't insulate one from the rabid, genocidal focus with which these pundits are promoting extermination, and it makes me wary of everyone around me, which is a horrible way to live.

I'm traveling a lot for work (and fun) in 2023. What are some travel upgrades you've made to your gear that have really improved the generally unpleasant experience of flying?

But unlike other similar programs, AmazonSmile donations don't involve "rounding up" or customers paying an extra premium. Amazon just gives a percentage of *their* profits, as dictated by the customer. There was just a bit of human agency in the interaction. A human got to select their favorite nonprofit and Amazon would make their donation out of company's own cut. That's relatively unique and it's kind of sad to see it go.

AmazonSmile is fairly unique. With every purchase made by a participating customer, Amazon donates a fraction of a percent of that revenue to the customer's selected nonprofit. (Obviously this is a feel-good mechanism for Amazon to do its charitable giving and get the tax relief that entails, no hiding that.)

Based on the anecdotal data I'm seeing, donations to nonprofits were way down in 2022. Small orgs you love, little nonprofits that are doing good work that you believe in or rely on may need some extra support. If you have it to give, making a small monthly donation goes a very long way in helping plan for the future.

I think Mastodon makes me believe in the internet again?

I learned recently that Octavia Butler died when she was 58 close to Seattle. I was talking about this at my friend's dinner table. My friend's kid looked at me and said, "Is that old? Are you 58?" ☠️