Previously I worked for an Internet startup that was working in B2B ecommerce but that never really got its act together. We’re a nonprofit now, and I’ve been there since before we first incorporated. Is Tor a day job, or a labor of love that you moonlight on? There are a few veto points in the process. Sometimes I use a soft veto on implementation ideas that I think are bad ideas: ultimately, an idea can only go into Tor if somebody builds it and merges it.

But I don’t use it much, because I prefer that we work by consensus.

I tend to have the final word in a lot of its architectural discussions. This week, Mathewson talked to Slice about his creation. In its use both within and without of government walls, Tor has become at times both a rallying cry and an enigma for hackers, bureaucrats, and ordinary citizens the world over. Those who have followed the headlines of the last year know what a remarkable run the free anonymity software has had. The paper was 'Tor: The Second-Generation Onion Router.' Naval Research Laboratory hired him to code. A decade ago this month, Nick Mathewson '00 MEng '00 co-presented a paper at the USENIX Security Conference in San Diego on a project the U.S.

Mit tor relays