Announcing the Tor Graphical User Interface Competition

San Francisco - Now information designers can make it easier for people to protect themselves online. The developers of Tor, a software tool for communicating anonymously online, today announced the Tor graphical user interface (GUI) competition. Entrants will create a usable and aesthetically pleasing GUI for the Tor program, which will allow people to install and configure Tor easily and monitor the software's performance while it's running.

"Security depends on knowing what's working correctly and what isn't," said Roger Dingledine, Tor project leader. "A good interface tells users what's going on so they can make smart decisions."

Tor, which is currently being developed with support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, helps anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications that use the TCP protocol. Tor also provides a platform on which software developers can build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features.

The competition has two phases. First, there will be a design competition where entrants can submit mock-up sketches of good interfaces. Second, there will be a competition to create working implementations of good interfaces. People are encouraged to submit to either phase or both phases. Winning entries will be open source, exhibit strong graphic design, and include an intuitive and simple interface. Students, freelancers, and professionals at all levels are encouraged to enter. Everyone who enters will get a free Tor t-shirt, and the best sketches and working implementations will be published on the Tor website.

The competition winners will be announced at the 2006 SOUPS conference.

Contact:

Chris Palmer
Technology Manager
Electronic Frontier Foundation
chris@eff.org