The organizations behind two popular privacy technologies are merging to advance their product development efforts.
The Tails Project and the Tor Project announced the move today. According to Ars Technica, the merger follows a years-long collaboration between the groups.
The Tor Project is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that develops Tor, a network privacy technology. The software helps users block attempts to eavesdrop on their internet traffic. In the process, Tor also makes it more difficult for hackers to identify the location of the user’s device.
The technology, whose full name is The Onion Router, works by applying three “layers” of encryption to every web request. Tor then routes the request through three different servers, each of which removes one of the encryption layers. The request exits the third server in a decrypted form and proceeds to its original destination.
Tor’s encryption mechanism not only blocks attempts to eavesdrop on web traffic but also makes the traffic more difficult to trace. The servers tasked with removing a Tor-powered web request’s encryption layers have no way of determining if it came from the user’s device or another intermediary server. As a result, identifying the exact source of the web traffic becomes more difficult for hackers.
The Tails Project develops a privacy-focused version of Linux called Tails. It’s not based directly on the Linux kernel but rather a popular distribution of the operating system called Debian. The latter software extends the kernel with a number of additional features, most notably tools that make it easier to install and uninstall applications.
Tails expands upon Debian’s feature set with several capabilities designed to protect users’ privacy. The operating system can be booted from a USB stick and doesn’t store any data in the hard drive of the computer to which the stick is attached. By default, Tails uses Tor to power network connections.
The Tails Project and the Tor Project first started discussing a merger last year. The motivation behind the move is that Tails’ developers have found it challenging to manage the administrative tasks involved in running an open-source project.
“Rather than expanding Tails’s operational capacity on their own and putting more stress on Tails workers, merging with the Tor Project, with its larger and established operational framework, offered a solution,” the projects’ maintainers said in a joint statement. “By joining forces, the Tails team can now focus on their core mission of maintaining and improving Tails OS, exploring more and complementary use cases while benefiting from the larger organizational structure of the Tor Project.”
The groups said that the move will create opportunities to expand the training and outreach programs they offer users. Additionally, the Tails Project and the Tor Project plan to more closely align their development roadmaps following the merger. That could potentially help strengthen the integrations between their respective technologies.