Most of the downloads occurred just before the Egyptian government ordered a near-total block of the Internet on Thursday night, but usage remains high through the few pathways to the Internet that remain.
It is not the first time that Tor, which was formed in 2001 after two MIT students developed the anonymity software with a US Navy laboratory, has found itself in the center of a political uprising.
Iranian activists downloaded its software en masse during the massive protests after the contested 2009 presidential elections, and China has repeatedly tried to block Tor downloads and denied visas to Tor’s activists, who have trained people from over 20 countries, including China, at workshops in Hong Kong and Europe.
“It is plain that tools like Tor can be enormously value,’’ said John Palfrey, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, who did a study of software that activists use, including Tor. Since only the most tech-savvy know how to use such software, “there is enormous value in trainings and they pay dividends in crisis moments like this,’’ he said.
The group, which employs about 10 people, runs a network of about 2,500 computers around the world manned by volunteers who help the anonymous network run. It registered as a nonprofit in 2006 and receives about 75 percent of its funding from the US government.
About a year ago, Tor set up a special system just for Tunisian activists to protect their identity. So when the Tunisian government began monitoring Facebook pages and Twitter accounts during the recent uprising in Tunisia, “those people were already protected,’’ Lewman said.
In December 2009, Jacob Appelbaum, one of Tor’s main software developers, traveled to Cairo and held workshops for human rights activists on how to use the software to avoid surveillance on the Internet.
