“2021 State of the Onion” will be online on November 17 and will be available for viewing on Tor’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.
Another free online conference, the State of the Onion 2021, is coming up on November 17.
This event is aimed squarely at users and advocates of the TOR (short for The Onion Router) Project, which produces a Firefox-based browser that directs users internet traffic through a free global network of relays to conceal users’ locations from network surveillance or third party traffic analysis. This not only allows users to travel the web unseen, but the ability to conduct unmonitored confidential communications.
Until last year’s arrival of Covid-19, the State of the Onion wasn’t a stand alone event, but consisted of a compilation of updates from different Tor projects that was disseminated at various conferences during the year. When Covid hit in 2020, resulting in mass cancellation of in-person events, the TOR project presented the State of the Onion as a standalone live streaming event.
“Our 2020 State of the Onion was our first time doing livestream iteration, and it was not only a great success because it allowed us to reach thousands of people all around the world, but also because it allowed for more projects from our community to participate, giving an opportunity for them to also share their updates,” the Tor Project’s executive director, Isabela Bagueros, said in a blog announcing this year’s event.
“This year we have another exciting program for you,” she added. “Following last year’s program structure, we will start with updates from the Tor Project’s teams followed by updates from people in our community.”
The event is slated to be presented in two large sections, separated by an intermission during which Roger Dingledine, Tor’s co-founder, will speak. The first will focus on the Tor Project updates, and the second will offer reports from Tor-related community projects. Community speakers will include Conor Schaefer, CTO of Freedom of the Press Foundation who will talk about SecureDrop; Alison Macrina of the Library Freedom Project; Sajolida with the Tor-based Linux distribution; and others.
Bagueros will emcee the entire event.
2021 State of the Onion will livestream on November 17 from 12 pm-2 pm EST (9 am-11 am PST; 17:00 – 19:00 UTC) on Tor’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Questions and comments can be posted using the #StateOfTheOnion2021 or through the Youtube chat feature.
Tor said that additional details about each session will be posted on the Tor Forum discussion post related to the 2021 State of the Onion.
