Tor in Google Summer of Code 2016

by atagar | March 3, 2016

Interested in coding on Tor and getting paid for it by Google? If you are a student, we have good news for you: we have been accepted as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code 2016!

Here's the facts: GSoC gives you the opportunity to work on your own Tor-related coding project with one of the Tor developers as your mentor. Your mentor will help you when you're stuck and guide you in becoming part of the Tor community. Google pays you 5,500 USD for the three months of your project, so that you can focus on coding and don't have to worry about how to pay your bills.

Did we catch your attention? These are your next steps: Go look at the Google Summer of Code FAQ to make sure you are eligible to participate. Have a look at our ideas list to see if one of those projects matches your interests. If there is no project on that list that you'd want to work on, read the documentation on our website and make up your own! Come to the tor-dev@ list or #tor-dev on OFTC and let us know about your project idea. Communication is essential to success in the summer of code, and we're unlikely to accept students we haven't heard from before reading their application. So really, come to the list or IRC channel and talk to us!

Finally, write down your project idea using our template and submit your application to Google before March 25th.

We are looking forward to discussing your project idea with you!

Comments

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Startpage uses Google. I don't care anyway, I use Google because it provides the best seach results which is why I use a search engine; to get what I'm looking for. I use Tor and I block ads and scripts, I don't see a problem with using Google.

1.Startpage does more than TorBrowser+Google. For example, Google inserts redirect links to Google.com into search results so they know what results you click. Also, startpage uses POST requests, so sites don't know what search terms you used to get there.

2. Blocking ads makes your browser fingerprintable even with Tor. Google knows which browsers request ads and which ones don't. Just by blocking JS, Flash, and other plugins, I barely see ads at all. Don't make modifications (install addons) in TorBrowser unless you want to be fingerprintable.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

March 04, 2016

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Why is google constantly asking TOR users to solve an unsolvable captcha when doing a search?

Anonymous (not verified) said:

March 04, 2016

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Coders how about a tor browser like uzbl, etc. - or Vim like commands for all of us who killed the mouse.

Thanks

In what way are keybindings even remotely related to Tor? Installing an addon. Should be fine as long as JS/CSS can't detect it and it doesn't produce network activity.

I agree, personaly I torify uzbl-tabbed and even though I use check.torproject.org, which says I'm OK it would be nice to be really sure.

An alternative to the Firefox Tor browser would be great and create more interest in Onion, which is so important to even us unix types.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

March 04, 2016

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startpage doesn't have a "summer of Code" Google is a company much more than just a search engine, even though they collect everything about you I dont see startage paying people for open source software. Not to be hating on startpage or any other service which cares about your privacy they just dint have the money for shit like this.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

March 05, 2016

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Maybe Google should start looking into not punishing Tor users with excessive CAPTCHAs.

Yes, first things first as they say

Smells like big juicy money here, don't u think ?

WASPs* driving the whole tech stuff showing their endless hypocrisy once again.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

March 06, 2016

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Hey what is torproject.com do you own that as well or is a scam? torproject.org is the correct one, yes?

Anonymous (not verified) said:

March 06, 2016

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Is this open to new comers? Or do participants need to have prior history developing for GSoC (or Tor)?

agree. google is the NSA. Try looking at who the major shareholders are now google is a stock market company. Don't you think buying shares is a good way to get inside knowledge.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

March 08, 2016

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Yes, Google will know that you wrote code for Tor. The more important part is making Tor better so Google doesn't know what you and the rest of the Tor users are searching for. And who else is going to sponsor student developers for working on open source projects? This shouldn't be hard to understand.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

March 08, 2016

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How can Tor pretend to be a tool against network surveillance and traffic analysis while in the same time working with google ...?

They're not working for google; they're an option for a student summer project. Tor related projects have been an option for GSoC for years; this isn't something new.
Google's interest in funding students is to build relationships with upcoming programmers, not to infiltrate the organization the project is for.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

March 10, 2016

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If anything we should be more worried about Google Fiber and Project Fi, combined with the fact that most pages on the Internet link back to Google in some way. It's a world of confirmation attacks waiting to happen.