this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025

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US cuts funding to F-Droid, Tor Browser, Let's Encrypt and Tails Linux (videos.abnormalbeings.space)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

98 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.abnormalbeings.space/post/952648

TEXT VERSION: https://thelibre.news/trump-cuts-funding-to-foss-projects/

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Imagine trying to explain FOSS to this fucking administration.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 6 days ago (2 children)

If it's free, then why are we paying for it?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I see what you did there... but freedom costs $1.05.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Freedom isn't free as in beer?

[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I can hear ypu americanness from behind the screen darling.

Free means freedom not "no payments" it takes huge money to develop and maintain software and infrastructures like these. So they need funding to survive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

Sarcasm...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Sorry, I was writing that in Trump's voice. I am an American who loves and contributes to open-source :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Plenty of people who (I assume) are smarter than Trump don't understand that FOSS refers to freedom, not price. It's not a very good term and I don't like how widely used it is now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

You sound like a smug a-hole.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

If you use these services, please donate once or regularly if you're able. They are free as in puppy, not beer - dev work costs money. I would guess many people using Tor/privacy tools are tech savvy enough to have financial comfort due to a good career. If you do it you're doing an everyday act of rebellion for the sake of progress!!!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Puppy?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago

"free" when you find it on the side of the road, but expensive to actually maintain without having it die on you.

The download is free, but pay for it or it's going to die.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 days ago

Lets encrypt could run a patreon and stay funded. Plenty of people with money depend on them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

Oh course not. They stop people spying on you.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Does this government funding really ever result in a hands off approach. In the case of Tor I wouldn't be surprised that funding comes with backdoor access.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

TOR fundamentally cannot be backdoored. The US government funds it because more traffic on the network helps mask the traffic coming from CIA agents and the like

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Showing my ignorance here, but would genuinely like an explanation - aren't/weren't compromised exit nodes a thing?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

No system can be proven to have no exploits, but a backdoor is when there is a hidden prepared exploit planted on the inside (in this case presumably because they were funded by the government they assume they would get this in return, even though if that was the case they would do a crypto transaction and not openly fund them)

[–] [email protected] -4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'm not going to outright disagree with your opinion but I honestly have my doubts.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Go look at the code, then.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Backdoor access to what?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The last reply I will make.

From September 19 2024

"In response, the Tor Project acknowledged that one user of an outdated application called Ricochet was likely deanonymized through a “guard discovery attack.” However, they emphasized that this vulnerability has since been patched in current versions of Tor software."

https://cybersecuritynews.com/tor-claims-network-safe/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

but that wasn't his last reply

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Excuse me? Are you saying using guard discovery is a backdoor someone gave to the government? I mean, you can think whatever, but the technology isn't really.. backdoorable? It doesn't make sense in the context. Where will the backdoor lead? It has no where to go.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

(I am a different person, not arguing anything about this particular vulnerability or the government's funding of Tor.)

I think you're defining backdoor too literally. I get your point, but colloquially it just means to get something nefarious in. If someone is saying "the government has a backdoor in an encryption algorithm" it would mean they believe the government has a vulnerability in that allows them to easily break the encryption, not necessarily a separate "door" or something.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago

Yeah the government has an institutional thing I forget what it is called, with massive amount of known exploits. That's not backdoors. A backdoor is a "planted" exploit, not a discovered exploit. It makes no sense to call all exploits backdoors.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Okay buddy keep it going as long as you need to. You might enjoy Reddit more, it's a safe space for people who cannot change their opinions. Bye.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Why? I am trying to understand what you mean so I can change my opinion. I'm not changing it because you are fuming and escalating the aggression, in fact, that has the exact opposite effect

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago

we shouldn't need the government also we have made it fairly far

[–] [email protected] 100 points 1 week ago (2 children)

EFF should GTFOutta US and set up shop in a safer region.

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So I guess funds were cut, but then the courts ruled the president doesn't have authority to do this himself since the funds were allocated by congress, and so as of now they have been restored, although congress needs to approve them every year and there's concern they might not do so for next year.

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Urgh this is so backwards.

Governments need to fund more FOSS not less!

Hopefully the EU can increase its support to compensate.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Or China! Open source is basically digital communism so maybe they'll step in and support it like they did with the World Health Organization

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 days ago

Yeah... Because China is big into encryption

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

They are in order to get away from American products

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I thought the EU was reducing funding to FOSS projects and investing more into AI. I could've sworn I read that somewhere last year.

Edit: https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/17/foss_funding_vanishes_from_eus/

I think it was this event that I read.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

ikr, i can't believe this administration did something backwards this time.

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