a2 software had a conceptual flaw. If US intelligence services used it, the targets could figure out that anyone visiting a site without an IP address was using TOR software to hide it. If TOR was exclusive used by US intelligence services, the targets could further deduce that all the anonymous visitors were avatars for American intelligence. It would be analogous to undercover police using pink-color cars that civilians did not use. To remedy this flaw, the US government in 2008 made TOR software open-source and freely available to everyone in the world. It even provided funding for its promulgation with the State Department, the National Science Foundation, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors financing TOR’s core developer. The public rationale for this generosity was that TOR could serve as a tool for, as the State Department called it, “democracy advocates in authoritarian states." The result was TOR software became a tool of both intelligence services and their adversaries. As TOR software became widely used by adversaries (as well as common criminals), the NSA sought to find vulnerabilities in it. “It should hardly be surprising that our intelligence agencies seek ways to counteract targets’ that use TOR software to hide their communications, explained a NSA spokesperson. The NSA’s adversaries also took an interest in identifying TOR users. TOR software also took on a cult-like importance to hacktavists concerned with the US government tracking their activities. An illuminating insight into the mind-set of the TOR hacktavists is provided by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick in her 2013 book Privacy For Me Not For Thee. She describes these hacktavists as largely “radical anarchists,” who believe “the state is all- powerful, that law-enforcement is so strong that it will prevail anyway, and that they are a persecuted minority.” As a refuge against the surveillance of the state, and in particular the NSA, they not only hide attempt to their own identity nut use e