I don't believe it's right that trolls get the right to basically accuse Conrad of violating the principles of the Tor network just because he wants to offer donation based FreeBSD VMs to run Tor Exits. He has stated that he is unable to post to the lists and he is not being provided a reason on why he is unable to post to the lists.
I can understand somewhat that he might be advertising but I don't understand why he's publicly reprimanded then banished yet now we're allowing people to trash someone who has actually contributed somewhat decently to this community. This action or inaction is disgusting and unacceptable and fosters and unwelcoming and hostile user climate all because Conrad wanted to HELP.
So I'm including his full reply he sent me and I'm sending it anonymously because that's what seems to be popular these days:
Hello,
I'm sure that this original email was a personal attack and trolling, but given that it has aroused some interest in some of the emails I have received off-list, and the fact that Herbert did make the comment that keeping things below the surface may destroy trust, I will answer your points in question, Mr. Revolution.
You worked at the National Reconnaissance Office of the United States
which is the most secretive branch of the United States Intelligence Community
You worked at the Naval Security Group Activity which is the United
States Navy's version of the National Security Agency
I was previously stationed at the NRO/SPAWAR Washington DC and Temporarily Attached to NSGA/NIOC and NRL on several occasions while I was on Active Duty in the Navy. I was stationed at various places, attached to various commands, served in various capacities and I haven't kept my previous affiliation with the US Government a secret by any means at all. I have no reason to, in fact, I'm very proud of what I've done in service of my country. That being said, I've been retired from Active Duty as of February 25, 2015 and in civilian employment since and I haven't had any employment affiliated with any government agency. This point is kind of moot.
I've never kept my Naval Service Hidden, in fact, I brought it up as examples of Government/Military uses of Tor on the mailing list.
You have a Security Clearance but you don't specify what type but I
wonder why someone with a SECURITY CLEARANCE would want to work with Tor
My security clearance serves no purpose at this point other than making criminal background checks easier and allowing me, as a cybersecurity professional, easier trusted access through organizations that utilize the Federal Government's security clearance adjudicative standards the ability to grant me access faster. This point is moot.
Teor called you out months ago as a US Government Spy and I'm glad that
the Tor Community Council is calling you out with. People can post all of the advertising in the world but as long as you're called out Mr US Federal Government Spy then they're doing the right thing.
I have no idea what you're talking about with Teor, I do know that when a bunch of the users of the previous iteration of GreyPony were posting about their relay speeds and what not he asked for the list to remain on topic, but I don't remember any pointed calls of Teor accusing me ever being a US Government Spy. I don't care for the Tor Community Council, because I believe it's quite odd of them to repeatedly condemn me yet be completely chill with this. Strange.
You are probably trying to push hacked FreeBSD or that hacked HardenedBSD
stuff that no one cares about anyway.
You should probably do a little research on how BSD operating systems, especially FreeBSD or HardenedBSD work, to realize how impossible it is for this to work. FreeBSD it's hard, HardenedBSD, I think it's about impossible, but I like the fact you're reaching who shot JFK? levels in your analysis here.
If people cared about more FreeBSD on Tor they would do it but obviously
it's not a big issue!!!
You see, people do care, because what's going to prevent the big bad spies like me from finding that exploit in all of the cool l33t Ubuntu b0xes you're running Tor on and bringing down 2/3s of the overlay network? That's why we have network diversification to prevent such a failure - if there's a bug or an anomaly that effects Linux for example, it won't effect the BSD, MacOS, and Windows relays, and we'll still have a functioning overlay network. That's the point of diversification. That's the point of promoting it. I'm sorry that you don't want to see that, but that's what it is - we have the resources up to prevent a problem prior to a problem occuring.
It's not a big issue to spin up our Hetzner exits at least we know that a
spy not you isnt doing it!!!
Cool, and when Hetzner finally decides to pull the plug on Tor exits because they had enough, what then? It never hurts to try to diversify AS assets either.
Your characterization of me being a spy is completely illogical because if I were to act in such a capacity, I would just do it. I have the bandwidth to do it, I don't need people to do it for me, I would just set up relays and go for it. The question is - what would I be spying on? I mean, you make it sound like that the exit operator has the full picture in his/her view....except they don't. I see connections from other relays. Oh, don't we default to HTTPS-Everywhere in the Tor Browser package as well by the way? What exactly am I trying to spy on Mr. Revolution?
In the end, here's what I think is going on.
Several newbies started using GreyPony. Everything was fine, in fact, there was support for it on the mailing list until they started bragging about speeds in excess of 1 Gbit/s. Then the following things occurred (and if you look back at the mailing list history, you can see this):
1. There were complaints that said newbies were lying about their exit relay speeds, even though speeds are measured by the bwauths, so user reported speed really doesn't matter anymore, so this wasn't a valid complaint. 2. There were complaints that the relays should all be in the same MyFamily, even though we don't expect relays hosted on OVH, Hetzner, etc. to be reported on the same MyFamily, after all, I didn't have access to any of these relays, so this wasn't a valid complaint, as I was just hosting the relays. 3. Excess traffic was being generated about GreyPony, which Teor asked everyone to stop bringing up GreyPony until October because of all of it. This was a valid complaint. Due to all of the newbie bragging and honestly, because I was proud of the fact that I was helping out several people, I let myself get out of hand and replied to the emails as well, so I understood and cooled it.
Now, again, I wind up back in the hospital, things go a little south for the project because I'm not around, but I come back and the project is ready to start again. Now GreyPony is back to the way that we originally intended it to be - a donation only project to provide FreeBSD/HardenedBSD exits to Tor. Most of the same guys that were running relays with the original one want to come back to the new one, plus some new people.
I'm sorry that people wanting to help the Tor network by providing high performance FreeBSD Exit Relays angers you and some other of your fellow travellers so much. If it makes you happy, the project will go on with or with out your support.