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How to convince more people to run Tor relays?
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How to convince more people to run Tor relays?

Hello,

The Tor network has a problem with too many relays being run by too few people in too few countries. What would be the best way of convincing more people to run their own relays?

«13

Comments

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    You are certainly not going to convince me for sure.

  • Running tor in most countries is waste of time because of internet censorship and such laws

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited August 2020

    I know relays are safe but I can’t help but feel like I’m in the middle of some serious crime and they’ll eventually find a way to come for me over it.

    You and I both know that there’s nothing “wrong” with TOR and that any access point to the internet is going to be abused by people with bad intent, but I feel like operating any part of that specific network in my country (US) is going to be seen by government entities as enabling the worst behavior on the platform, and that I’ll get no moral support because they’ll frame me as enabling child abuse, etc.

    The desire for self preservation in an unseen future is the overriding one for me. Perhaps others feel the same, and getting through that feeling is the way to success.

  • @jar said:
    I know relays are safe but I can’t help but feel like I’m in the middle of some serious crime and they’ll eventually find a way to come for me over it.

    You and I both know that there’s nothing “wrong” with TOR and that any access point to the internet is going to be abused by people with bad intent, but I feel like operating any part of that specific network in my country (US) is going to be seen by government entities as enabling the worst behavior on the platform, and that I’ll get no moral support because they’ll frame me as enabling child abuse, etc.

    The desire for self preservation in an unseen future is the overriding one for me.

    Exactly this and even using tor browser myself I feel like every website thinks that I am somekind of jerk. I wonder what people use it for as browser fingerprinting can be used to track you always.

    Thanked by 3jar lentro Edmond
  • PUSHR_VictorPUSHR_Victor Member, Host Rep
    edited August 2020

    You can't convince them. I once ran an exit node. It ended up with continuous reports about child pornography. I killed that node and don't want to do anything with TOR since then. Not sure how other exit nodes operators ignore that, but to me it's a no go. Good technologies get abused, and I actually have doubts if TOR is a good thing the way it currently works. With all that abuse, maybe it is more bad than good.

  • @jar said:
    I feel like operating any part of that specific network in my country (US) is going to be seen by government entities as enabling the worst behavior on the platform

    True, but perversely in the same country, operating a gun shop is NOT widely seen as enabling the worst behavior there, despite the abuse side of that trade being rather obvious.

    Both TOR and guns have very conflicted and polarised arguments for/against. For all the drug dealing and child exploitation, there would have been be no Snowden revelations without TOR (CitizenFour) and advocacy for democracy where there's very little would be greatly diminished.

  • MikeAMikeA Member, Patron Provider

    @jar said:
    I know relays are safe but I can’t help but feel like I’m in the middle of some serious crime and they’ll eventually find a way to come for me over it.

    You and I both know that there’s nothing “wrong” with TOR and that any access point to the internet is going to be abused by people with bad intent, but I feel like operating any part of that specific network in my country (US) is going to be seen by government entities as enabling the worst behavior on the platform, and that I’ll get no moral support because they’ll frame me as enabling child abuse, etc.

    The desire for self preservation in an unseen future is the overriding one for me. Perhaps others feel the same, and getting through that feeling is the way to success.

    There's the stuff about journalists using Tor, but realistically, there are many alternatives to supporting journalists for privacy/censorship that are faster and more reliable. I ran relays for a while, of course they all got blacklisted since they're public, and the traffic over time looked like bot traffic. Instead I'd rather just donate to privacy orgs if I want to feel good.

    Thanked by 3jar mrTom chihcherng
  • lentrolentro Member, Host Rep

    @MikeA said: journalists using Tor

    Yeah, and the big question to me is: what cost does it come at?

    (How many malicious people would use it for every one good person? I think the ratio is too out-of-balance)

    Thanked by 1chihcherng
  • @codelock said:
    Running tor in most countries is waste of time because of internet censorship and such laws

    You don't need to run a relay in your own country. I only run bridges within the UK.

    @PUSHR_Victor said:
    You can't convince them. I once ran an exit node. It ended up with continuous reports about child pornography. I killed that node and don't want to do anything with TOR since then. Not sure how other exit nodes operators ignore that, but to me it's a no go. Good technologies get abused, and I actually have doubts if TOR is a good thing the way it currently works. With all that abuse, maybe it is more bad than good.

    To protect journalists and human rights activitst, you have to allow everyone to use the service as if you made a closed system for selected people, they would be very easy to target.

    @lentro said:

    @MikeA said: journalists using Tor

    Yeah, and the big question to me is: what cost does it come at?

    (How many malicious people would use it for every one good person? I think the ratio is too out-of-balance)

    Couldent you say that about any freedom, What about freedom of speech?

    Thanked by 1that_guy
  • @codelock said:

    @jar said:
    I know relays are safe but I can’t help but feel like I’m in the middle of some serious crime and they’ll eventually find a way to come for me over it.

    You and I both know that there’s nothing “wrong” with TOR and that any access point to the internet is going to be abused by people with bad intent, but I feel like operating any part of that specific network in my country (US) is going to be seen by government entities as enabling the worst behavior on the platform, and that I’ll get no moral support because they’ll frame me as enabling child abuse, etc.

    The desire for self preservation in an unseen future is the overriding one for me.

    Exactly this and even using tor browser myself I feel like every website thinks that I am somekind of jerk. I wonder what people use it for as browser fingerprinting can be used to track you always.

    The Tor browser has features to make you blend in with every other Tor user as the browser is designed for every user to have similar fingerprints as each other.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    I did run Tor nodes when I was younger and dumber, both relays and exit. I was running a significant capacity for the time, hundreds of mbps many years ago.

    I stopped doing it because it was too much money spent and trouble for absolutely nothing in return.

    • How to convince me to run relays again? Pay for the servers + bandwidth and I'll maintain them.
    • How to convince me to run an exit again? Difficult after what happened to @William back in the day. I would maybe consider running them anonymously if I had the funding, but again I am not really interested in paying out of my pocket for that.
    Thanked by 2netomx yoursunny
  • .> @Nyr said:

    I did run Tor nodes when I was younger and dumber, both relays and exit. I was running a significant capacity for the time, hundreds of mbps many years ago.

    I stopped doing it because it was too much money spent and trouble for absolutely nothing in return.

    • How to convince me to run relays again? Pay for the servers + bandwidth and I'll maintain them.

    The price of bandwidth is a lot lower than it used to be, for example I have a VPS in Luxembourg that costs less than 5 euros per month and comes with 200Mbits of bandwidth or you could pick up a few smaller VPSs for even cheaper bandwidth (not on Hetzner, OVH or Scaleway).

    • How to convince me to run an exit again? Difficult after what happened to @William back in the day. I would maybe consider running them anonymously if I had the funding, but again I am not really interested in paying out of my pocket for that.

    That is a harder one and one that needs more support from the community but there are cheaper exit allow hosts nowadays.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    @MatthewM said: I have a VPS in Luxembourg that costs less than 5 euros per month and comes with 200Mbits of bandwidth

    Can you actually use that bandwidth? For Tor? Do you have enough CPU in the VPS for that? It is not impossible, but I doubt it.

    Bandwidth is of course cheaper, but traffic requirements to run significant capacity for the network are also higher and not many independent ISPs provide lots of cheap bandwidth.

    @MatthewM said: That is a harder one and one that needs more support from the community but there are cheaper exit allow hosts nowadays.

    In my humble opinion, the safest way to run exists is to do so anonymously. Not hard to do but again, an investment into /dev/null. But big respect to the people and organizations maintaining them.

  • @Nyr said:

    @MatthewM said: I have a VPS in Luxembourg that costs less than 5 euros per month and comes with 200Mbits of bandwidth

    Can you actually use that bandwidth? For Tor? Do you have enough CPU in the VPS for that? It is not impossible, but I doubt it.

    Yes I asked them and they said yes to non-exit Tor relays to be able to use this amount of bandwidth and un my Case the CPU is just about able to push 200Mbits of traffic.

    In my humble opinion, the safest way to run exists is to do so anonymously. Not hard to do but again, an investment into /dev/null. But big respect to the people and organizations maintaining them.

    Yea, hosting anonymously is a lot more expensive.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    @MatthewM said: Yes I asked them and they said yes to non-exit Tor relays to be able to use this amount of bandwidth and un my Case the CPU is just about able to push 200Mbits of traffic.

    Try to do this and then report back after 3 months. Most likely your ISP will not tolerate 100+ terabytes of traffic per month and the CPU will not be enough to push 200 mbps of Tor traffic. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I think that you are being a bit optimistic here.

    @MatthewM said: Yea, hosting anonymously is a lot more expensive.

    Not really, you don't need to aim for shady "anonymous" providers, just host at normal ISPs and pay anonymously.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    A recent study showed that over 99% of TOR traffic was individuals fighting government censorship in their own country and activists yearning to break the bonds of oppression.

    Whoops, sorry, I misread. Over 99% of it is child porn. I always get those two confused.

    I think for FreeNet the number is 100%.

    @Nyr said: How to convince me to run relays again?

    How about a free T-shirt?

    @Nyr said: How to convince me to run an exit again? Difficult after what happened to @William back in the day.

    Exactly.

  • @raindog308 said:
    A recent study showed that over 99% of TOR traffic was individuals fighting government censorship in their own country and activists yearning to break the bonds of oppression.

    Whoops, sorry, I misread. Over 99% of it is child porn. I always get those two confused.

    Link to study?

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    It's simple. I cannot supoort child porn.

    Therefore, I will not run Tor.

    The end of.

    Thanked by 2yoursunny chihcherng
  • @deank said:
    It's simple. I cannot supoort child porn.

    Therefore, I will not run Tor.

    The end of.

    Running a Tor relay does not equal supporting child porn at all. You run a Tor relay to support privacy and anti-censorship.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    Sure, sure, whatever you say. All for the great cause while, in reality, it's not.

    Thanked by 1chihcherng
  • @deank said:
    Sure, sure, whatever you say. All for the great cause while, in reality, it's not.

    Do you not like privacy and anti-censorship or are you one of thoes pro-CCP shills?

  • For me TOR is for criminals , i always block TOR IPS on my servers because nothing good comes from it except abuses ( child porn - terrorists - Violent )

    I hope TOR ends Soon , so the criminals will be left without a way to hide themselves!

    Thanked by 1chihcherng
  • I think the reason you or anyone else not being able to convince people is that the most either do not believe in the idea, or do not want the moral implications. This is a lot tougher just then money or anything, and that’s why I think you’re fighting a lost cause. The people who do believe in it is already in the system one way or another, and those who don’t are just staying clear of it. You can’t change that, and probably a little later you’ll realize it too.

    Thanked by 1tetech
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @MatthewM said: Link to study?

    I was making a humorous exaggeration.

    And while I realize it's not the same thing as general TOR use, there was a study that showed that 80% of traffic to TOR hidden services was child-porn related.

    @Nyr said:

    @MatthewM said: Yes I asked them and they said yes to non-exit Tor relays to be able to use this amount of bandwidth and un my Case the CPU is just about able to push 200Mbits of traffic.

    Try to do this and then report back after 3 months.

    I'm thinking perhaps @MatthewM meant 200mbps, not 200Mbps.

    Thanked by 1chihcherng
  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    I am hoping he meant 200Mbps. Yeah, he meant 200Mbps.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    @raindog308 said: And while I realize it's not the same thing as general TOR use, there was a study that showed that 80% of traffic to TOR hidden services was child-porn related.

    Didn't take a look at the study, but would be interesting to see how those numbers were obtained as one would expect that image and video sites are going to be be abnormally heavier compared to other kinds of sites.

    @raindog308 said: I'm thinking perhaps @MatthewM meant 200mbps, not 200Mbps.

    Still a lot for a small VPS, because Tor relays use a significant amount of CPU, many independent ISPs will be using gigabit ports for their nodes and bandwidth costs would be bigger than what the customer is paying for the VPS anyway.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    The end is nigh.

  • wdmgwdmg Member, LIR

    @momkin said:
    For me TOR is for criminals , i always block TOR IPS on my servers because nothing good comes from it except abuses ( child porn - terrorists - Violent )

    I hope TOR ends Soon , so the criminals will be left without a way to hide themselves!

    This is where I would believe you’re wrong. Tor has many legitimate use cases, and it’s unfortunate that shady actors abuse it with malicious intent.

    Alas, we shouldn’t prevent legitimate use cases (anti-censorship, journalists, etc) from not having a simpler bypass around spying, internet filters/restrictions, etc.

    There’s an unhealthy discrimination against Tor and it’s legitimate users. Let’s face it, even if Tor went away overnight, something would fork and take its place eventually.

    If you preemptively block it, you’re part of the problem.

    Thanked by 1that_guy
  • @wdmg said:

    @momkin said:
    For me TOR is for criminals , i always block TOR IPS on my servers because nothing good comes from it except abuses ( child porn - terrorists - Violent )

    I hope TOR ends Soon , so the criminals will be left without a way to hide themselves!

    This is where I would believe you’re wrong. Tor has many legitimate use cases, and it’s unfortunate that shady actors abuse it with malicious intent.

    Alas, we shouldn’t prevent legitimate use cases (anti-censorship, journalists, etc) from not having a simpler bypass around spying, internet filters/restrictions, etc.

    There’s an unhealthy discrimination against Tor and it’s legitimate users. Let’s face it, even if Tor went away overnight, something would fork and take its place eventually.

    If you preemptively block it, you’re part of the problem.

    Yes it has some legitimate use but i believe 20% usage legitimate and the other 80% is only criminals .

    So i prefer the TOR to vanish it makes more damage than good !

    Thanked by 1chihcherng
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited August 2020

    There's no way to have a free speech platform that isn't abused by those with bad intent. The beautiful and the ugly have to go hand in hand. The ugly doesn't lessen the beauty, but it does make it hard for people to put themselves on the line to back it.

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