Tor Project and Tails cooperate for more privacy on the Internet

The people behind the anonymizing Tor network and the creators of the privacy-focused Linux system Tails have joined forces to extend freedom on the Internet. This is the result of a recent announcement. They want to join forces to protect users worldwide from surveillance and censorship. Among other things, the cooperation is intended to divide up processes more effectively and thus optimize them.

The merger

For anonymous surfing, Tails relies on the Tor browser, which provides access to the internet via the Tor network. This network anonymizes connection data, making it more difficult for governments to analyse data traffic. In countries with strong censorship, for example, this is often the only way journalists can use the internet for their work. Tails, in turn, wants to guarantee that the operating system is secure and that anonymity is guaranteed. To this end, the system resets itself after every restart, for example, so that no traces remain in Tails.

In the press release, those responsible state that the Tails makers approached the Tor network operators at the end of 2023 with the idea of a cooperation. By joining forces, both parties hope to achieve a more efficient division of labor: The Tails developers will be able to focus more effectively on their Tails OS and benefit from the larger organizational structure of the Tor network.

According to a Tails OS team leader, it is not the implementation of the technology that takes up most of the time, but rather business processes such as finance and human resources. This is where the business structures of the Tor project should help. Finally, both parties hope that the cooperation will enable them to reach more people.

Only recently, however, the de-anonymization of Tor users by criminal investigators made headlines.

(des)