Great reminder for people to run a node at home. I run 2 nodes at my house along with dozens of relays (including exit nodes) on different VPS providers. It’s not that complicated, you basically just need a spare computer that can run 24/7 and an internet connection. It greatly helps the Tor network and the people in countries like Russia, China, Iran, etc. who rely on Tor in order to bypass censorship and safely browse the open internet. You can watch this video on the topic of running Tor relays at home: https://youtu.be/npg3cBJusnA
I’d gladly run a relay, but an exit on my home ISP? I don’t want to go to jail, no thank you: https://husovec.eu/2014/07/austrian-court-sentenced-tor-exit-node-html/
According to your link, hosting an exit node was not a crime by itself, this person pretty much encouraged the illegal activity
The Austrian Court found that this activity may lead to criminal liability for aiding and abetting of a crime of distribution of child pornography when coupled with other circumstances. Of course, mere provision of Tor Nodes would not be enough to establish at least indirect intent (bedingte Vorsatz), which such aiding and abetting under criminal laws usually requires (§ 5 StGB).
In order to find such circumstances, according to PCWorld, the court cited transcripts of chat sessions uncovered during the investigation in which the Weber told an unidentified correspondent “You can host 20TB child porn with us on some encrypted hdds”, “You can host child porn on our servers” and “If you want to host child porn … I would use Tor.” Weber defended himself against this on his blog saying: “Yes, this logs existed – Yes, i recommended Tor to host anything anonymously, including child pornography – Yes, this is of course taken out of context.”True, I did not read the article carefully. I now read the linked German article. There seems to be some uncertainty in the legal opinion of the lawyers cited there regarding the legality of Tor exit nodes in Austria.
You can also run a obfs4 bridge, it’s an unlisted relay that only serves as entry node. If greatly helps out users in censored countries.
I was talking about middle/guard relays. The guide also refers to middle/guard nodes. I wouldn’t run an exit on my home internet connection either. I use VPS providers for exit nodes.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/npg3cBJusnA
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
last time i used tor i could barely browse shit. most of the internet blocks tor.
I think that has changed. I tried Tor browser several years ago and it was awful. I started again two weeks ago for shits and gigs and haven’t had a single problem.
what websites do you visit for shits and gigs
ShittingWhileGiggling.onion, of course
It was crypto scam wasn’t it?
Edit: it was crypto scam…
That fucking sucks. Tor and crypto go hand in hand, for reasons.
The only thing I ever bought we’re psychedelics, but it’s pretty easy/ safe to do that over the regular web without crypto/ Tor these days. Spore traders are waaaaaaay more reliable.
I really wish we could call it tokens (or scam) and make “crypto” stand for cryptography again…
You have my sword!
Looks like this is for the best. They’re kicking off a set of pretty bad nodes. From BleepingComputer:
The Tor Project has explained its recent decision to remove multiple network relays that represented a threat to the safety and security of all Tor network users.
…Tor Project discovered that some relay operators engaged in a high-risk, for-profit cryptocurrency scheme that promised monetary gains with cryptocurrency tokens without endorsement or approval of The Tor Project.
If the “for-profit” element is to take scale and consume a large percentage of the Tor network’s relays, power from the community would fall into dubious hands, and the network’s safety would be undermined by invasive centralization.
It looks like this was done democratically. From the Tor blog:
[W]e proposed the rejection of those relays to our directory authorities who voted in favor of removing them.
For-profit node networks create perverse incentives towards centralization:
Take a look at Lokinet. They’re trying to create a Tor alternative based on “crypto” and “Web3” stuff.
Lokinet claims that adding a financial incentive will scare sybils, without realizing that some sybils (e.g. China, Russia) are big and rich enough while spying on everyone, whereas ordinary users are locked out from running nodes if they aren’t Rich.
Lokinet is basically a giant Carrier Grade NAT that uses “Web3” and anyone can connect to, and you can host inside the NAT. It’s harder to use than Tor, less secure as you use normal browser and choose exits manually, and doesn’t protect you from Big Data AI-powered advertising.
I don’t get how they intended to make money by running a relay? What was the business plan here?
It’s crypto, you can’t understand it unless you already believe in it.
From the outside, blockchain looks like a spread sheet that’s so difficult to edit, you have to turn it into a slot-machine to incentivize people to try. But I don’t understand blockchain.
Sometimes, informed simplicity is the right way to go. I know more than I’d like to know about blockchain, and you pretty much nailed it. You could fancy the words up and call it an “append-only database”
I don’t know, but they already have a cryptocurrency that will presumably be used to purchase bandwidth over premium nodes or something.
The project is called aTor and trying to figure out what it does is… Tough. It’s like trying to figure out what a Ponzi scheme does, except you’ve never seen a Ponzi scheme before, and you can only get information from the people running it.
Selling the data, presumably
What data? Tor is designed in a way you don’t have any useable data if you don’t control a significant portion of the network. And even if they could control it, how much is that data worth anyways? ISPs don’t get rich selling traffic data afaik. Blackmail maybe?
As I understand it, they have only been deleted from the public lists, right?
Right, Tor project cannot shut down a relay, but can make most of the network not use it.
