The program was initially invite-only and focuses on finding vulnerabilities that are specific to The Tor Project's applications. Later that month, The Tor Project announced that the Open Technology Fund would be sponsoring a bug bounty program that was coordinated by HackerOne. Roger Dingledine, who had been acting as interim executive director since May 2015, remained at The Tor Project as a director and board member. In December 2015, The Tor Project announced that it had hired Shari Steele, former executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as its new executive director. In May 2015, The Tor Project ended the Tor Cloud Service. In October 2014, The Tor Project hired the public relations firm Thomson Communications in order to improve its public image (particularly regarding the terms 'Dark Net' and 'hidden services') and to educate journalists about the technical aspects of Tor. International Broadcasting Bureau, Internews, Human Rights Watch, the University of Cambridge, Google, and Netherlands-based Stichting NLnet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) acted as The Tor Project's fiscal sponsor in its early years, and early financial supporters of The Tor Project included the U.S. The Tor Project was founded in December 2006 by computer scientists Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson and five others.

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