I haven't really had time to go through everything, so I was just going by what I remembered from the interview. The idea that they were sharing zero-days seemed like a big deal but I didn't really see which one he was referring to skimming those earlier, so I didn't bother linking. The other point he harped on a lot was them taking marching orders (for instance, that the application should be localized for Farsi during a time when the US was looking to promote dissenters in Iran).
I am reading the book now so I feel like I'll have a better judgment once I've finished. I didn't find your Twitter exchange very illuminating either way.
Can he give a legitimate source for that very serious claim? Note how he overplays a lot of things that are publicly and openly known. Yes, the Tor Project got funding at various points in time from the state department to improve "human rights" and "freedom of speech" around the world, especially certain countries deemed hostile to the US. So what? Yes, Roger Dingledine publicly stated (in a CCC talk) that he gave a talk at the NSA and another one at the GCHQ. So what? Does that mean that he's suddenly an NSA shill that will try to implement a backdoor in Tor for the simple reason that he gave a talk to them?
If the Internet is such a surveillance threat, and Tor doesn't help, why doesn't this Yasha Levine point to a single alternative?
He's just a FUD spreader, as demonstrated on the other posts, so just move on. If you think Tor isn't a technical solution then please provide alternatives.
He and I discussed them a bit on Twitter: https://twitter.com/itdaniher/status/961307347950940161
I was not impressed by his response.
The "bunch of emails" seemed remarkably banal. I've written similar emails about sponsored open-source work myself.
edit:
email stack 1: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4367176-Tor-BBG-corr...
email stack 2: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4367193-Tor-BBG-corr...