Does the Tor Project Hold Annual Conferences?

The Tor Project does not host a traditional, large-scale public annual conference under its own brand. Instead, the non-profit organization maintains its community and updates the public through a combination of biannual developer gatherings, an annual virtual livestream event, and significant presence at established global privacy and cybersecurity conferences.

Biannual Core Team Meetings

Rather than hosting a public-facing annual convention, the Tor Project organizes two dedicated meetings each year for its core team, active volunteers, and close partner organizations. These closed or invitation-based meetings typically take place in different international locations during the spring and autumn. They serve as strategic working sessions focused on core software development, protocol design, network health, roadmap planning, and organizational governance.

The Annual “State of the Onion”

For the broader public and privacy community, the Tor Project hosts an annual virtual event called the “State of the Onion.” Broadcast toward the end of each calendar year, this multi-hour event brings together the Tor Project’s leadership, developers, and partner projects. It provides comprehensive updates on the network’s technical progress, censorship circumvention efforts, metrics, upcoming features, and financial status.

Participation in Industry Conferences

Because the Tor Project prioritizes open collaboration within the broader digital rights ecosystem, its leadership and developers regularly present research, run workshops, and host meetups at third-party annual conferences worldwide. Key events with strong Tor involvement include:

• Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS): The primary academic venue where Tor researchers present peer-reviewed papers on anonymity, routing, and threat modeling.
• Chaos Communication Congress (CCC): An annual hacker conference in Germany where Tor frequently hosts assemblies, technical talks, and community workshops.
• FOSDEM: The premier European free and open-source software conference, regularly featuring Tor developer talks.
• DEF CON and RightsCon: Industry gatherings where Tor contributes to discussions surrounding human rights, anti-censorship, and defensive security.

Community Hackathons and Local Events

Throughout the year, the Tor Project supports localized hackathons, digital security trainings, and university workshops. These decentralized events allow developers, system administrators who run relay nodes, and end-users to collaborate directly on tools, documentation, and localized translation efforts.