The Tor BSD Diversity Project (TDP)

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TDP Seeks Funding Support

The Tor BSD Diversity Project is looking for support through grants, hardware donations or other mediums.

TDP launched in March 2015, and works to strengthen the Tor public anonymity network by increasing operating system diversity with the BSD Unix.

Since our beginnings, TDP successfully achieved a number of significant milestones:

developed Tor Browser for OpenBSD, which now resides in -current and -stable ports trees, and are embarking on porting Tor Browser to FreeBSD
conducted successful presentations at BSDCan 2016, BSDCan 2015 and BSDCon Brazil, engaging with scores of individuals about TDP and the critical importance of involving *BSD users and developers in Tor ecosystem
our advocacy efforts made Brazil a country of one periodic public BSD Tor relay to about a fifth of the relays, accounting for up to a third of public Tor bandwidth in that country*
enlisted New York Internet to donate two high-bandwidth public relays at its facility in Bridgewater, New Jersey, with the aim of replicating Mozilla’s roll-out of Tor relays among firms that employ the *BSDs
started a variety of documentation for building Tor relays on FreeBSD and OpenBSD
created an open source shell-based tool for generating Tor network statistics
documented an array of common PETs–privacy-enhancing technologies–and their status in the various BSD ports systems, encouraging BSD port developers to approach and investigate their adoption
In January 2013, under 4% of public Tor relays were running a BSD Unix, while today the number hovers over the 5% range. While we can’t directly attribute it to TDP, we believe our development and advocacy work impacted this change.

TDP already has a proven track record as a project. But TDP wants to do more. Each and every one of our accomplishments is only a first step in a larger set of goals.

we want to keep Tor Browser on OpenBSD updated on its -stable release
we want to coordinate efforts to port Tor Browser to other BSDs, with FreeBSD the current target
we want to push some of our code changes upstream into the Tor Project and even Mozilla
we want to conduct more presentations, birds-of-feather sessions and public meetings about TDP including a public presentations and Tor relay installfests
we want to target more potential Tor relay operators in countries with few or no relays through our contacts in the *BSD community. BSDCons in places like East Asia and Latin America are events in areas with low numbers of Tor relays
we want to enlist more BSD-using firms to run high-bandwidth Tor relays, employing our networks of contacts around the community
we want our relay guides to be production ready, and translated to languages beyond English, particularly into those common in countries with low relay counts
we want to port more PETs applications to the BSDs, and to facilitate others to join the efforts, particularly with significant ports like obfsproxy missing from OpenBSD
most vitally, we want to enlist more BSD developers into TDP’s efforts, which has already begun

We aren’t limiting TDP to those goals. TDP is a dynamic project aiming to adjust to any opportunity to strengthen the Tor network. TDP has a track record and a trajectory of moving forward.

TDP is proud of the accomplishments so far, but more resources are needed to grow and deepen the project.

Please contact TDP if interested in assisting our efforts to allow us to continue the current objectives, and to expand them.

Updated on 2017–09–03