Tor was not "designed by the Navy" to protect dignitaries in cars or ships or whatever it is this article is alluding to. It was an academic research project for the NRL's CHACS group (NRL : CHACS :: MIT : Lincoln Lab).
If you look at the project's publication history, it was almost from the jump (and continues to be today) a project intended to frustrate online censorship. The DOD, via both DARPA and the NRL, continues to sponsor the project.
He mentioned that IDEA, not the implementation nor Tor were invented by the Navy.
I have no sources on either, but it does seem plausible that solution similar or exactly the same in the concept was used for communication during warfare.
Tor exists at least in part because the US DOD decided that investing money in countering online censorship was a worthy use of military funding. This seems like an important point; it is not made effectively by the article.
> He mentioned that IDEA, not the implementation nor Tor were invented by the Navy.
Actually a creator and core developer of Tor is from the Navy. The implementation came from this person as much as it did from arma and nickm (the other 2 creators)
If you look at the project's publication history, it was almost from the jump (and continues to be today) a project intended to frustrate online censorship. The DOD, via both DARPA and the NRL, continues to sponsor the project.