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Hello list,
I was running a tor exit node until I came across this article:
http://calumog.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/why-you-need-balls-of-steel-to-opera...
While I don't live in the UK, I live in the US, I believe that the situation here has eroded to a point where running an exit node requires the mentioned balls of steel, which I admittedly don't have. Since I do want to support the tor project, I am wondering to what extend running a relay node is putting myself and my family at risk of legal prosecution. My understanding is that my host would simply generated encrypted traffic that is not objectionable to the ISP (because they can't look into it) unless the use of tor itself is outlawed. Is that correct?
Thanks, nick
On Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:17:59 -0700 Nicolas Bock nicolasbock@gmail.com wrote:
I was running a tor exit node until I came across this article:
http://calumog.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/why-you-need-balls-of-steel-to-opera...
While I don't live in the UK, I live in the US, I believe that the situation here has eroded to a point where running an exit node requires the mentioned balls of steel, which I admittedly don't have.
Well, then submitting to chilling effects isn't going to make the situation better. People in the UK continue to run exit nodes, I believe there are now more of them since that blog post.
Since I do want to support the tor project, I am wondering to what extend running a relay node is putting myself and my family at risk of legal prosecution.
In the US, of all places, is probably the safest place to run an exit node. There are organizations out there just waiting for a perfect case where someone is sued for running an exit node to prove that tor exit nodes are perfectly legal.
My understanding is that my host would simply generated encrypted traffic that is not objectionable to the ISP (because they can't look into it) unless the use of tor itself is outlawed. Is that correct?
As a non-exit node, all your ISP will see is encrypted traffic to many IP addresses on the Internet. If Tor is outlawed, then not only have the criminals won, the US will no longer be relevant in the world.
On Mon, 7 Mar 2011 20:25:08 -0500 Andrew Lewman andrew@torproject.org allegedly wrote:
On Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:17:59 -0700 Nicolas Bock nicolasbock@gmail.com wrote:
I was running a tor exit node until I came across this article:
http://calumog.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/why-you-need-balls-of-steel-to-opera...
While I don't live in the UK, I live in the US, I believe that the situation here has eroded to a point where running an exit node requires the mentioned balls of steel, which I admittedly don't have.
Well, then submitting to chilling effects isn't going to make the situation better. People in the UK continue to run exit nodes, I believe there are now more of them since that blog post.
I live in the UK and host (currently) three exit nodes in the UK on VMs at two separate datacentres. I have been running exit nodes in this manner since (initially) June 2009 at one site and latterly since december 2009 (when I moved my first node to a higher bandwidth server). In that time I have had just one complaint (about possible email spam).
I do not run tor on my domestic ADSL line. But that is largely for performance reasons than any other.
I would encourage others in the UK (and elsewhere) to run exit nodes on VMs now. They can be ridiculously cheap. My most expensive node costs £12.00 pcm and the cheapest I purchased recently for less than £50.00 for a calendar year. In addition, it is relatively easy to rent a VM in a country other than the one in which you live. However, if anyone wants to help tor and is concerned about running a node themselves, then I suggest that they take up Moritz's offer to run a node for them at torsevers.net.
Mick
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The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
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http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
In the US, of all places, is probably the safest place to run an exit node. There are organizations out there just waiting for a perfect case where someone is sued for running an exit node to prove that tor exit nodes are perfectly legal.
This is the common 'common carrier' exception. And I don't think it is unreasonable to say that the EFF, in particular, and EPIC, ACLU, etc, are in fact, said organizations. Nor would it be unreasonable to ping your interests in becoming an exit relay past them beforehand. They have publicly stated that, were an operator to be running a relay, and be having a 'clean' life upon the date of the relay's inception, they would be quite interested in evaluating any case brought against such operator. That is very laudable and one worth looking into, especially, and presumably so, if you can provide an independant corporate housing for such service.
tor-relays@lists.torproject.org
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Andrew Lewman -
grarpamp -
mick -
Nicolas Bock