The Tor Project Elects New Board of Directors | Hacker News Reader

The Tor Project Elects New Board of Directors

blog.torproject.org

180 pointstshtf28 comments

The interesting part is:

Roger, Nick Mathewson, Meredith Hoban Dunn, Ian Goldberg, Julius Mittenzwei, Rabbi Rob Thomas, Wendy Seltzer are out of the board. Roger and Nick will stay as Tor's research leads.

The new board consists of Cindy Cohn (EFF), Bruce Schneier, Matt Blaze, Gabriella Colemn, Linus Nordberg. Two seats have yet to be filled.

EDIT

Just to avoid confusion: This comment was written before the submission link was changed from a NY Times article that buried the information about the changes in the last paragraph to the Tor Project blog post.

The NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/technology/tor-project-a-d...

It's very unusual to have such a complete change of board membership, isn't it? I'm all for new blood, but I'd worry at the near-total loss of continuity.

I don't know about nonprofits, but replacing a whole board of directors isn't unheard of in corporations.

Not terribly uncommon in nonprofits either -- Often times they're on overlapping terms (3/4/5 year schedules) that occasionally coincide to term-off half the board at once. That's another difference I've noticed actually, many nonprofits have specific terms for their BOD whereas most Corps I've seen have open-ended commitments.

Maybe that's why they keep asking people to write fizz buzz in interviews.

It's common in nonprofits if they wish to change what flavor of board they have. It looks to me like Tor is changing from an executive board to a single executive and an advisory board. This is always a risky move, but very plausibly the right move for Tor right now---and certainly essential some time in the next few years.

> certainly essential some time in the next few years.

Why so?

It's common for boards to have formal and informal transition plans upon seat changes. Brain dumps, "sessions" overlapping incoming and outgoing members, etc. The only time that may not work is if members are ousted on bad terms.

Adding to the likelihood of continuity is the fact that Roger Dingledine and Nick Mathewson remain in senior operational roles so one would expect communication between them and the board to be possible when necessary.

Matt Blaze is a credible and reassuring choice.

Yep. Cindy, too, for different reasons.

And I'm pretty sure everyone not employed by a TLA loves Bruce.

Not to mention all the "Don't Bring Me Down" jokes we'll get to make.

Yeah, I didn't see that coming. He's a practical, experienced cryptographer whose also worked on things like digital voting important to government accountability. Great choice for such a role.

5 policy people, 1 technical person seems like an overly large swing in the other direction, IMO.

Only if your definition of "technical person" is "contributes code to Tor".

Since Roger and Nick knew about the allegations and (in the opinion of some) turned a blind eye to them, Shari may have wanted to to articulate some sort of sea change.

But they probably also knew (from a look at their commit logs, it's pretty obvious) that the technical work could not continue without them. So it strikes me as a pragmatic compromise.

That happens if the original hackers allow a chair force to take over. Sad story in many open source projects.

Since Roger and Nick knew about the allegations

The original NYT article discusses allegations of sexual assault against prominent former TOR employee Jacob Applebaum, in case that's unclear to anyone reading the blog post that's now linked.

I'm sure that Appelbaum craziness was part of it. But it also seems that Tor Project wants to distance itself from the US government, and broaden its funding.

Maybe Roger turned a blind eye on Jacob's behavior, maybe he didn't and tried to bring it up. Roger has many qualities, but handling a diva like Jacob and at the same time maintaining their long-term cooperation, is something that imho very few people can handle.

A clean sheet board I think is another good reason why Roger stepped down.

A few days before Jacob stepped down, Roger was so tired he could barely stand. With Shari Steele as the new director and a new board, it probably is a relieve for Roger and gives more room for a personal live after all these years of dedication to the TOR project.

I'm glad that Roger remains in his role as community manager and core committer. Looking forward to his State of the Onion at 33c3.

The head of the EFF, Bruce Schneier, Matt Blaze...this is an A-list group right here. Color me impressed.

Blog post from the Tor Project: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-project-elects-new-boar...

Thanks, we updated the submission link from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/technology/tor-project-a-d... in the spirit of preferring primary sources.

Seems a little odd not to go for two independent submissions in my opinion.

The NYT article doesn't really bring anything to the conversation that the original source doesn't, seems having 2 different submissions would split the conversation and kill both threads.

The NYT article has much more background information, explaining why this is newsworthy.

Agreed.

I think they're really separate stories and items. Big news events always generate multiple submissions, I think that's ok and that it's fine to let the HN community decide which should rise to the top

Reply on news.ycombinator.com