Re: [tor-talk] "Tor Browsers" on SourceForge

[Zenaan Harkness <zen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 6/7/15, Griffin Boyce <griffin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) - lists wrote:
>> Given that there could be sketchy reasons to distribute Tor Browser
>> unofficially and that Tor it's a copyright of Tor Project, shouldn't
>> the
>> Tor Project ask to SourceForge to act to:
>>
>> a) Or Remove those project
>>
>> b) Or ask to change name and remove any occurrence of "Tor" in the name
>> of the projects, title, sub descriptions that may lead to misleading
>> interpretation that "this is tor browser"
>
>
>    Andrew and others have asked for these to be taken down in the past.
> Most listings are shady and likely contain malware.  I contacted the
> developer of the first listing last year [1] but he never responded.
> While SourceForge might not care about malware*, large US-based
> companies usually care about copyright and trademark violations (which
> was a solid legal basis for Andrew to request takedown).
>
>    I'm not super sure where to go from there though.  This might be a
> better question for Wendy Seltzer.

Thoughts:
- contact Bradley Kuhn of the Software Freedom Conservancy
- contact the Free Software Foundation (USA)
- create competing "projects" on sourceforge - open a new account
"torproject.org" and upload at least one TorBrowser binary - perhaps a
stub which points the user to the official web page
- write some software to auto-create "projects" on all the commercial
sites out there, in a single hit, make your code libre licensed of
course :)

In fact, all existing projects on SourceForge ought (evidently)
maintain their admin-ship of their existing project pages, just to
ensure SF does not fuck them over.

Sadly we live in a world of many financial, and other, predators.

Do Not give up control of your SF or GitHub or
__pick-a-commercial-entity__ project!

If your project gets "mirrored" on one of these types of sites - set
up your own project just to have an official presence on that site.

This is a sad form of "digital thuggery" which ultimately may need a
legislative fix - in the meantime, the consequence is more work for us
(but hopefully minimal) who admin projects.

Good luck,
Zenaan
-- 
tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe or change other settings go to
https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk