Tor - The Onion Router

Lately Iíve been hearing a lot about Tor (The Onion Router). Tor is an anonymous Internet communication system initially designed and developed as part of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory's Onion Routing program with support from ONR and DARPA. Tor anonymizes web communications including browsing, publishing, instant messaging, IRC and SSH and also provides a platform on which software developers can build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features.
Tor uses a distributed group of network of servers, called onion routers that allow data packets to take a random pathway through a series of Tor servers on the web. These servers anonymously pass traffic between each other so network traffic analysis cannot tell where the data came from or where it's going.
Tor is distributed as free software and could be an interesting student project. Downloads, overviews, links and lots of good Tor information can be found at the website and the source of this blog: http://tor.eff.org/

MentorLinks Deadline June 10, 2005

This is my first blog entry. This blog will be a place to post announcements, give technical updates and keep you posted on what NCTT is up to.
This week I wanted to make you aware of a grant opportunity offered by The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) developed with the support of the National Science Foundation. The program is called MentorLinks and an application can be found at: http://www.aacc.nche.edu/Content/NavigationMenu/ResourceCenter/Projects_Partnerships/Current/AdvancedTechnologicalEducation/MentorlinksRFPhi.pdf
MentorLinks is designed for community colleges that could benefit from technical assistance and networking opportunities to improve undergraduate education that prepares technicians in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. AACC is requesting proposals from colleges interested in working with acommunity college mentor who has successfully planned and implemented amajor change in a program in a high-technology field. This grant is primarily aprofessional development and technical assistance program, with emphasis on a mentoring relationship.
Although not directly involved as a mentor or mentee, I did have the chance to work with mentor (and NCTT Regional Partner) Midlands Technical College (http://www.mid.tec.sc.us/) and mentee Chaffey College (http://www.chaffey.edu/) in 2000. The experience was a very positive one for both schools.
Grant awards will be made for a total of $15,000 for the two-year grant period (October 1, 2005 ñ September 30, 2007) and the application is simple to fill out. Deadline is June 10, 2005 with arrival at AACC by 5:00 p.m. (EST).