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- Nos Oignons --- Tor is for everyone and Nos Oignons needs you --------
=========================================================== 2018-07-17 =
Everyone should be able to learn, communicate and create. All without
feeling under surveillance. That’s why Tor Browser is free. As is using
the Tor network. But running all the computers forming the network costs
money. The non-profit Nos Oignons needs your help to fund its relays.
That’s why today we start a new fundraising campaign:
https://nos-oignons.net/campagne2018/index.en.html
Tor is for Everyone
===================
Some months ago, Nos Oignons was contacted by a journalist who wanted to
“explain to our audience how we go into the deep web (through Tor) and
why they might be interested in going there, without talking about
“dark” sites like ones selling weapons”. But after some exchanges, the
topic seems hard to sell to the editors: “At this stage, we frankly
don’t have enough arguments, to the point that I doubt the article will
even be published”. To the best of our knowledge, the article has indeed
never been released.
In our view, this lack of “arguments” stems from a fundamental
misunderstanding: using Tor or (.onion sites) is no different from using
the web or Internet in general. If Internet is meant for everyone, so is
Tor.
On the Internet, we read the press. But the experience is different from
reading the press on paper. Someone grabing the latest edition of a
daily newspaper in a coffee shop does not inform the publishers that
their audience went up. They don’t tell them that they are in a coffee
shop, or the name of the place, or which pages they read, or how long
they spent on each article…
But if the same person goes on the website of the same newspaper, the
publishers will at the very least learn which Internet connection has
been used, which pages have been read and for how long. And this
information will not only be available to the newspaper: their ad broker
will learn as much, as will Google which provides the character fonts,
Facebook with the “Like” button, Twitter with theirs, and these are just
the most common examples.
So let’s be clear: on paper or online, no one reading a newspaper
expects it to be reading them back.
Replacing Firefox or Chrome by Tor Browser makes collecting data against
our will much harder. We regain an Internet better matching our
expectations.
Viewing Tor only as a tool for anonymity or censorship circumvention
marginalises its use and backs it into a corner. It should be the
opposite: Tor gets the Internet a step closer to our most common
intuitions on how it should work.
The time when Internet use was reserved for a select few with a computer
science background is long gone. Most net users are not able to make an
informed choice about what data and traces stored or shared by the
various computers involved in their communications. Even those who
develop applications are not able to measure how much data is leaked to
the vendors of the software development kits they use! Using Tor Browser
allows us to limit the amount of information we communicate to third
parties without our explicit intent.
Controling what information we share when we communicate should not be
the privilege of an elite. That’s why Tor is for everyone.
2018 Fundraising
================
Founded 5 years ago, Nos Oignons is now running enough exit nodes to
transport about one out of fifty connections using Tor to reach an
Internet site. The five servers currently running cost Nos Oignons
slightly more than 800€ per month. With enough regular donations, we
could even add more!
Our goal with this new fundraising campaign is to gather enough to cover
our costs for a whole year: around 12,000€.
To thank you for your support, we’ve printed a new poster and postcards
that we will gladly send your way.
To learn more, visit:
https://nos-oignons.net/campagne2018/index.en.html
If you already do regular donations to Nos Oignons and wish to receive
some postcards or a poster, please write us an email at
campagne(a)nos-oignons.net
========================================================================
- Nos oignons --- 100 Mbit/s additional capacity for the Tor network ---
=========================================================== 2016-06-13 =
Nos Oignons has just set up a new exit nodes to bring 100 Mbit/s
additional capacity to the Tor network. We accepted an offer from
Globenet [1] to host this new relay. Globenet is a non-profit
organization which has been working since 1995 on freedoms of
expression, communication, and association in relation to international
solidarity. However, Globenet is more widely known by the general
public for the creation of no-log.org [2], a (misleadlingly named)
internet access provider created in 2001 who nowadays is still hosting
many email accounts.
The relay is named AlGrothendieck—a name suggested last summer during
the Adopt an onion campaign [3]—as a reference to the mathematician and
ecologist Alexandre Grothendieck [4], a long time apatrid who died in
France at end of 2014. Anticonformist and antimilitarist, we can for
example hear him give a talk (in French) at the European Organization
for Nuclear Research in 1972 [5] questionning the social value of
scientific research when it now threatens survival of all human lifes,
or even life as a whole. The Internet allowed his autobiography [6] to
be made available when he had not found a publisher in 1985. While last
month the University of Montpellier decided to give back 20,000
handwritten pages to the family for inventory [7], the issues raised by
Alexandre Grothendieck regarding the social aspects of science and
technology are more relevant than ever.
This new relay [8] raises Nos Oignons’ total contribution to the Tor
network to a theoritical capacity of 725 Mbit/s [9]. Thanks to all who
made this new relay possible. The actual position of Nos Oignons in the
Tor network, a probability of 2% to use one of our exit nodes, gives
room to set up more relays. Every single donation [10] is useful to
enhance the Tor network and defend our freedoms in a world of pervasive
electronic communications!
[1]: http://www.globenet.org/What-is-Globenet.html
[2]: http://www.no-log.org/ (fr)
[3]: https://nos-oignons.net/Actualit%C3%A9s/20150619_adopte_un_oignon/index.en.…
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Grothendieck
[5]: https://archive.org/details/AlexandreGrothendieck-UneVieDigneDtreVcue (fr)
[6]: http://lipn.univ-paris13.fr/~duchamp/Books&more/Grothendieck/RS/pdf/RetS.pdf (fr)
[7]: http://www.liberation.fr/debats/2016/06/08/les-inestimes-grothendieck-paper… (fr)
[8]: https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/8E6EDA78D8E3ABA88D877C3E37D6D4F0938C7…
[9]: https://nos-oignons.net/Services/index.en.html
[10]: https://nos-oignons.net/Donnez/index.en.html
========================================================================
- Nos oignons --- Fruitful harvest and non-conformist mathematicians ---
=========================================================== 2015-09-15 =
Nos Oignons' fundraising for 2015 has now reached its term after three
months, gathering more than 5500€.
Before starting this campaign, we were talking about closing one of our
relays. We now have enough to cover our current expenses until June
2016!
Almost a fifth of the donations were given in-person during on of the
many conferences that we attended this summer. Meeting people committed
to support freedom of expression is always heartwarming.
During this month, our supporters were given the chance to “adopt an
onion” by proposing names for our next relay. The winner is…
AlGrothendieck [1]. Alexander Grothendieck was a genius mathematician
who died last year. His huge and original lead to revolutionary advance
in many area of pure mathematics. Stateless, he lived mainly in France.
He has rejected institutions, honors and awards. He was a convinced
anti-militarist and ecologist, and he lived in accordance with his
principles.
Now that we have a name, we hope to be able to use it soon for a new
relay. Of course, we still welcome more donations [2]. Although we want
to keep diversity in the Tor network, there is room to increase Nos
Oignons' bandwidth.
~
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[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Grothendieck
[2]: https://nos-oignons.net/Donnez/index.en.html
========================================================================
- Nos Oignons --- Five days left to pick the name of our next relay ! --
=========================================================== 2015-09-10 =
We have reached the final days of our donation run for 2015 [1]. It's
still time to take part in the competition to pick the name of the next
relay that Nos Oignons will setup.
Adopt an onion!
---------------
For any donation [2] above 2€, you can send an email to
<adopte.un.oignon(a)nos-oignons.net> with your proposal for a name. Don't
forget to mention the date and the donated amount.
The name for our next relay will be picked between 3 randomly chosen
proposals, and will be announced on September 15th.
For inspiration, you can elaborate on our current homages to political
philosphy (Marcuse) [3], an universe in which humans help each others
through an interplanetary communication network (Ekumen) [4], or to a
character fighting against a life of boredom (Marylou) [5].
Today, Nos Oignons brings more than 500 Mbit/s of bandwidth to the Tor
network [6], a bit less than 4% of its exit capacity.
Help us continue to protect online communications!
[1]: https://nos-oignons.net/campagne2015/
[2]: https://nos-oignons.net/Donnez/
[3]: https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/EFAE44728264982224445E96214C15F9075DE…
[4]: https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/9BA84E8C90083676F86C7427C8D105925F137…
[5]: https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/578E007E5E4535FBFEF7758D8587B07B4C8C5…
[6]: https://nos-oignons.net/Services/
"Adopt an onion [1]" campaign
(part of :
"Contibute to Tor network with Nos oignons"
https://nos-oignons.net/campagne2015/index.en.html )
>From June 15th to August 15th, for any donation above 2 €,
you can propose a name of our next Tor relay !
For the records, our current relays are named : "Marcuse", "Ekumen" and
"Marylou".
Herbert Marcuse was a 20th century marxist philosopher and sociologist.
In "One-Dimensional Man" he critics consumerism
as a form of social control.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Dimensional_Man
This name has been chosen to claim the wish of an Internet
that is not only a space for consumption.
Ekumen is an intergalactic political organisation in
the Ursula Le Guin science-fiction work.
>From Wikipedia :
Ekumen was made possible thanks to the invention of the "ansible",
a machine capable of instantaneous transmission of information.
The physical trip nevertheless still subject to classic physical
principles, meaning there is no way to go faster than light speed.
This constraint renders the creation of a military force impossible.
Such force would not make any sense : most of the protagonists of a
conflict would die before they get there. It is then mostly a space
of sharing knowledge for the common good.
Marylou is a character from the novel "Mocking Bird" by
Walter Tevis. In this novel, the robots handle all the labor,
and mankind is reduced to consuming government-provided tranquilisers.
Marylou is a rebel woman in this system, who illegaly lives
in a Zoo by exploiting the robots' flaws. There, she meets Paul
Bentley, one of the few who still knows how to read, and Spoffort, an
android desperatly looking for a way to commit suicide.
Marylou leads those two others characters through a search
for liberty and meaning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockingbird_%28Tevis_novel%29
To contribute, send an email to adopt.an.onion(a)nos-oignons.net,
with the day, hour, amount and mean of payment
(transfer, cash, paypal, bitcoin) of your donation,
along with your suggestion.
We will choose between 3 proposals, picked up randomly
(and, if we like some of the non-chosen proposals, we won't forget them
for our followings relays :) )
We are waiting for your ideas !
Nos oignons
[1] : About the name: in French the idiom for “mind your own business”
is “mind your own onions”. So, we are minding ours, and these are your
onions.
See https://nos-oignons.net/%C3%80_propos/index.en.html
--
Contribute to Tor network with Nos oignons.
-> https://nos-oignons.net/campagne2015/index.en.html
Billions of people are nowadays using the Tor network to protect their
privacy. At least one connection over fifty will exits by one of our Nos
oignons relays [1]. We need you to continue.
In a context of renew threats on our freedom, Tor is a way to protect
our privacy in the digital world.
An exit node costs us a bit less than 300€ per month. We have currently
3 months of cash advance. One-time givings will allow Nos oignons to
maintain currents relays. Regulars donations will allow us to see
further and set up new relays !
You can donate with cash donations, bitcoins, flattr, paypal and
transfer. You can obtain our RIB by mailing at donate(a)nos-oignons.net .
Thanks for your help,
Nos oignons.
[1]: https://nos-oignons.net/Services/
--
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- Nos oignons --- 500 Mbit/s added to the Tor network ------------------
=========================================================== 2015-02-05 =
A year after the first nodes [1] run by Nos oignons, we have launched a
new node [2], hosted by a French non-profit Tetaneutral [3].
This new relay, running since Saturday November 15th 2014, will be
moving more and more traffic until it gets to its theoretical capacity
of 500 Mbit/s.
We named this new node Marylou with reference to the character of the
novel Mockingbird [4] written by Walter Tevis. Thus Marylou is joining
the 3 other nodes [5] set up by Nos oignons.
In order to limit the use of physical space and the power consumption,
Marylou is running on an Intel NUC I5-4520, 8GB of RAM DDR3 so-dimm and
a SSD Crucial M500 of 120GB.
We would like to thank all the people who helped to make possible its
implementation.
Thanks to the membership fees and the other numerous donations, Nos
oignons has enough funds to run the nodes for 6 months.
We want to set up more exit nodes and every donation counts [6]. Get
involved to help Tor development in France and defend our electronic
communications freedoms!
[1] :
https://nos-oignons.net/Actualit%C3%A9s/20131127_125_mbits_de_plus_pour_le_…
[2] :
https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/578E007E5E4535FBFEF7758D8587B07B4C8C5…
[3] : http://tetaneutral.net/
[4] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockingbird_%28Tevis_novel%29
[5] : https://nos-oignons.net/Services/index.en.html
[6] : https://nos-oignons.net/Donnez/index.en.html