[pphysch]

This comment is an incredibly naive attempt at a smear.

> Without them, we’d basically be left with Wikipedia as the only popular entity on the internet outside of corporate control.

Wikipedia is absolutely not "outside of corporate control". It is trivially astroturfed to advance special interests.

> All of these projects are more properly grouped with government funding in other spheres, such as the BBC or PBS in media

Both BBC and PBS routinely publish outright disinformation to advance the special interests of their corporate/government clients, including the intelligence community. For example, look at PBS Frontline's ridiculous puff piece for the violent extremist group HTS last year.

> Levine overlooks basic details, such as reproducible builds

Reproducible builds are also easily circumvented by selectively deploying backdoors and other malware, based on IP or other fingerprints.

If there are good reasons to dispute Levine's investigative journalism, they're not here.

[adamfisk]

Um, ok. All of the above projects use not only reproducible builds for many platforms, but they’re all open source, and they all have public security audits. Those three pillars are about as good as it gets. Is there something you would add?

I’m not claiming PBS and the BBC are perfect entities, but they do offer an alternative source of information that runs against the grain of corporate media. You would prefer…what exactly?

[pphysch]

> Is there something you would add?

Let's start with "not being created/funded by the State Department or Pentagon".

> You would prefer…what exactly?

Again, let's start with "not being blatant propaganda produced by warmongers".

[adamfisk]

First, there’s a vast difference between the state department and the pentagon. Lumping those two together just reflects an unsophisticated understanding of the federal government. Signal has never received any state department or pentagon money. Tor had a significant early contribution from a researcher at Naval Research. That’s the extent of any pentagon funding. They have received significant state department funding, but to call the state department “warmongers” is just not accurate.

[pphysch]

Please stop spreading misinformation. From the Tor Project's public IRS documents:

> WHILE FUNDING FOR TOR ORIGINALLY FOCUSED ON BASIC RESEARCH TO BETTER UNDERSTAND ANONYMITY, PRIVACY, AND CENSORSHIP-RESISTANCE, THE MAJORITY OF FUNDING NOW FALLS INTO THREE CATERGORIES: DEVELOPMENT FUNDING FROM GROUPS LIKE RADIO FREE ASIA AND DARPA TO DESIGN AND BUILD PR OTOTYPES BASED ON RESEARCH DONE BOTH INSIDE TOR AND ALSO AT OTHER INSTITUTIONS; DEPLOYMENT FUNDING FROM ORGANIZATIONS LIKE THE US STATE DEPARTMENT AND SWEDEN'S FOREIGN MINISTRY; AND UNRESTRICTED CONTRIBUTIONS FROM PRIVATE FOUNDATIONS, CORPORATIONS, AND INDIVIDUAL DONORS FOLLOWING IS A BREAKDOWN OF THE TOR PROJECT'S FUNDING SOURCES FOR THE PERIOD ENDED JUNE 30, 2020: FUNDING FROM US GOVERNMENT SOURCES US STATE DEPT - BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RI GHTS AND LABOR 752,154 GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 98,727 RADIO FR EE ASIA/OPEN TECHNOLOGY FUND 908,744 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY - INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SERVICES 101,549 GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY - DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY 392,00 8 FUNDING FROM NON-US GOVERNMENT SOURCES DIGITAL IMPACT ALLIANCE - UNITED NATIONS 25,000 S WEDISH INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION AGENCY (SIDA) 284,697 FUNDING FROM CORPORATE SOURCES MOZILLA 157,500 AVAST 50,000 MULLVAD 50,000 FUNDING FROM PRIVATE FOUNDATIONS OPEN SOURCE COLLECTIVE 23,100 MEDIA DEMOCRACY FUND 270,000 ZCASH FOUNDATION 51,122 MOZILLA OPEN SOURCE SUPPORT MOSS 75,000 RIPE 53,114 CRAIG NEWMARK PHILANTHROPIC FUND 50,000 STEFAN THO MAS CHARITABLE FOUNDATION 50,000 KAO FOUNDATION 10,000 MARIN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION 1,000 IN DIVIDUAL DONATIONS 890,353

[adamfisk]

Yes they’ve received funding from DARPA. I realized I forgot that after I posted. Good catch. To my knowledge, that funding is for new anti-censorship transports to sneak traffic in and out of censored countries.

[pphysch]

And the State Department are definitely warmongers.

SecState Kissinger orchestrated the incineration of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

SecState Powell orchestrated the flattening of Iraq.

SecState Clinton orchestrated the butchering of Libya.

SecState Pompeo tried and failed to orchestrate the annihilation of Iran by assassinating top officials and drawing them into war.

And so on and so forth. These aren't even theories. The State Department is closely involved in destabilizing sovereign governments through the full spectrum of means, including war, to advance Washington's interests.