Like Apple, Tor Devs Would Quit Their Jobs If Ordered to Backdoor Their Software

After the recent Apple vs. FBI encryption debacle, the Tor Project has come out and issued a statement reaffirming its stance against encryption backdoors, stronger than ever before.

Even if yesterday the FBI had announced it found a way to access the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone without Apple's help, the agency had already started a whirlwind around the issue of government-mandated software backdoors, against which almost all US and international tech companies have advised against.

In a statement regarding software integrity and Apple's recent woes, Mike Perry, lead developer of the TOR Browser said yesterday that because of the project's sensitive nature, their team needed to make a public statement on the issue of software backdoors.

With political dissidents, army personnel, journalists, and many regular people using their browser and proxy network each day to hide their real location and make sure their actions remain private from the prying eyes of local governments, the Tor Project has a huge responsibility on its shoulders.

Tor Project is 100% against backdoors

As so, the Tor team has reassured its users that the project will never honor a government request to backdoor its own software. Additionally, the devs also explain that because of the project's internal structure, this would also be technically impossible.

With Tor and the Tor Browser being open source software, everyone can review the code, and any backdoors would be quickly spotted even before reaching a production browser.

Furthermore, Mr. Perry says that many of the project's engineers have stated to him that they intend to quit their positions, taking the same stance Apple's engineers took a few days back.

"Regardless of the outcome of the Apple decision, we are exploring further ways to eliminate single points of failure, so that even if a government or a criminal obtains our cryptographic keys, our distributed network and its users would be able to detect this fact and report it to us as a security issue," Mr. Perry wrote on the Tor blog.