Elliptic Curve

A generative artwork created from the first "shared random value" created by Tor Project for v3 onions on 2016-12-22 00:00 UTC

My last piece was based on the very first onion address key, in part to recognize that V2 services are being replaced by the V3 Onion Service. Hence the previous title Dreaming at Dusk, which reflects the nostalgia of leaving behind many decades of development, to evolve and start anew.

For more than 15 years version 2 developed into a strong stable product, however the continued research and evolution of cryptography made this service susceptible to cyber atttacks. Transitioning this vital service to V3 ensures better cryptography by implementing ECC ( Elliptic Curve Cryptography) rather than RSA, and has an improved hidden service directory protocol.

Tor built a random number generator, that now generates a "Shared Random Value" every day and makes it public. It's been doing this since 2016 non-stop.

Something that makes me very proud is to realize that the same project that offers security and freedom to so many, also believes in the power of automation and art. One of the core Tor developers makes generative art with the daily "Shared Random Value" which you can see here: https://twitter.com/torsrv

This value represents the beginning of v3 Onion Services, a huge upgrade in security and privacy for Tor and a special milestone for me and Pleasr DAO, to continue supporting this project which is more than just software. It is a labor of love produced by an international community of people devoted to human rights.

To give context on how PLeasr DAO and Tor became a force in the NFT Space, i'd like to highlight how the funds raised from Dreaming at Dusk helped this project improve the security of the network by deploying v3 onion services. These large donation helped make onions more resilient against anonymity and DoS attacks , continue work with grassroots communities in the Global South, work on Arti, a rewrite of Tor in Rust which improves Tor's security, makes it more sustainable, easier to improve, and lighter-weight for mobile integration and keep Tor strong for whistleblower solutions like SecureDrop and GlobaLeaks used by sources to communicate about important stories with journalists without sacrificing their anonymity. Proceeds from this auction will be directed towards Tor to continue funding the tools of change created by this project.