[TLAFanBoy]

>the response was pretty hostile.

>who would benefit from not having this conversation?

The companies that have a vested financial interest in mass surveillance, their technical employees, the public communication platform for the investment funds that fund startups in this space (cough) and the intelligence agencies that work directly with, and are sometimes embedded in, those technology companies.

Imagine if someone did find some exploit in Tor code, it would go over the head of 99% of coders anyway, and the accusations of "Russian hacking" would drown out most sensible discussion anyway.

[perl4ever]

It would really advance your viewpoint more, if you waited for someone else to bring up "Russian hacking" and then accused them of "whataboutism".

I don't know anything about the conspiracy that runs everything, but it is hard to believe that it involves the CIA, NSA, or the Russian equivalents, because they are demonized so much. The real rulers of the world must hate those entities. Anyone that is scapegoated by millions must be a diversion.