The Tor Project has raised $86,000 for a Bug Smash fund that it will use to pay developers that will address critical flaws in the popular anonymizing network.

The Tor Project has raised $86,000 for a Bug Smash fund that was created to pay developers that will address critical security and privacy issues in the popular anonymizing network.

In earlier of August, the Tor Project announced the creation of the Bug Smash Fund with the intent to pay professionals that will support the organization in maintaining the work and smashing the bugs.

“The goal of the Bug Smash Fund is to increase the Tor Project’s reserve of funds that allow us to complete maintenance work and smash the bugs necessary to keep Tor Browser, the Tor network, and the many tools that rely on Tor strong, safe, and running smoothly.” reads the announcement published by the Tor Project.

“When we say maintenance and bugs, we are talking about work that is critical—and that we must pay for. This work includes responding quickly to security bugs, improving test coverage, and keeping up with Mozilla’s ESRs. An entire ecosystem relies on us doing so.”

The organization has added donations it received in August 2019 to the Bug Smash Fund.

Any vulnerability that could be used to de-anonymize Tor users or that could be used by attackers to cause a malfunction to the anonymizing network is considered critical and must be addressed rapidly, and part of the Bug Smash Fund will allow paying developers to do it.

The funding project aims to be transparent, any donors can track how that money is being used by the foundation, the Tor Project will tag any bug tickets that utilize the money of the fund with the “BugSmashFund” tag.

“Want to keep up with the work we’re doing with this fund? There are three ways: (1) Follow the “BugSmashFund” trac ticket tag, (2) watch this blog for updates about the progress of these tickets, and (3) make a donation and opt in for our newsletter to get updates directly to your inbox.” concludes the announcement.

“Want to contribute anonymously, with cryptocurrency , or by mail? Here’s how.”

Pierluigi Paganini

( SecurityAffairs – Tor Project, privacy)

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