And these treats are rapidly growing throughout western countries, i also stopped running an exit node now, guess being relay is all there is left to do now.<br>I started supporting FreeNet now since it is only an internal network there wont be external traffic thats logged or considered illegal anywhere.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 10:09 PM, Eugen Leitl <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:eugen@leitl.org">eugen@leitl.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
<a href="http://calumog.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/why-you-need-balls-of-steel-to-operate-a-tor-exit-node/" target="_blank">http://calumog.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/why-you-need-balls-of-steel-to-operate-a-tor-exit-node/</a><br>
<br>
Why you need balls of steel to operate a Tor exit node<br>
<br>
By calumog<br>
<br>
I became interested in Tor in the spring of 2007 after reading about the<br>
situation in Burma and felt that I would like to do something, anything, to<br>
help. As a geek and lover of the internet it seemed the best thing I could do<br>
was to run Tor as an exit node to allow those under jurisdictions that censor<br>
the internet free access to the information they need. I had a lot of unused<br>
bandwidth and it seemed like a philanthropic use of it to donate that to Tor.<br>
<br>
Tor is a system of anonymizing proxy servers which allows you to visit<br>
resources on the web, not just web sites, without revealing your ip address.<br>
This is extremely useful for those who are compromised in their access to the<br>
internet because it means, rather than attempting to connect directly to the<br>
resource in question, say Wikipedia, which might be filtered by their<br>
government, they connect to a Tor relay which ultimately routes the request<br>
to the resource in question via an exit node. Exit nodes are special kinds of<br>
relays which proffer the request on behalf of the original client revealing<br>
their ip address, not that of the original requestor, to the destination<br>
resource. I sometimes imagine how exciting it must be for soemone in Burma,<br>
say, or China, to load up Tor and browse to a web site they have never been<br>
able to see before. And to know that there is nothing, nothing, that reveals<br>
who it really is who is visiting.<br>
<br>
I totally believe in Tor. I think it is a magnificent force for the<br>
circumvention of internet censorship but there is a problem. I was visited<br>
by the police in November 2008 because my ip address had turned up in the<br>
server logs of a site offering, or perhaps trading in (I was not told the<br>
details of the offence) indecent images of children. The date of the offence<br>
was about one month after I started the server so it looks as though the site<br>
in question had been under surveillance for more than a year. It was what is<br>
known as a ‘dawn raid’ and, amazingly enough, my children were still asleep<br>
when it occured. Thank God. I explained to the officers, who we had heard<br>
threatening to break the door down before we let them in, about Tor but they<br>
had never heard of it. My wife says she thinks they were about to arrest me<br>
before that. I was not arrested. I was told not to touch the computer and it<br>
was placed, considerately, in a black plastic bag and taken away for forensic<br>
examination. I was OK at first. I knew that somebody had gone through my<br>
server to access that material and that I was not guilty of any offence but<br>
as the weeks wore on it started to get to me.<br>
<br>
I was overwhelmed by horror to be implicated in such a thing. I was<br>
desperately worried about my family. One of the officers had told my wife<br>
that Social Services would be informed as a matter of course and there was a<br>
possibility that my children would be taken into care. The low point came<br>
about two weeks after the visit by the police when I totalled my car. I was<br>
distracted, stressed and unable to accurately assess the road conditions. I<br>
ploughed into a hedgerow at speed, destroying the car which we had just<br>
bought, but, luckily, walked out of it with only bruised ribs. I didn’t<br>
have the money to hire a lawyer so I just sat the thing out. From time to<br>
time the police called with an estimate of when the investigation would be<br>
finished but none of that meant very much because those dates came and passed<br>
with no resolution.<br>
<br>
Eventually, four months after the visit, I picked up a voice message from the<br>
police inviting me to call back. When I called I was told that no evidence<br>
had been retrieved and the machine would be returned to me. I think, in<br>
retrospect, I was desperately naive to run a Tor exit server on a home<br>
computer but I didn’t believe that an ip address in a server log would be<br>
enough evidence to warrant seizing equipment. My wife, God bless her, was<br>
absolutely marvellous throughout the whole thing and never doubted me. I<br>
have read with interest about the need to make Tor faster and that that<br>
largely depends on having more nodes but there is no way I can contemplate<br>
offering my ip address as a service to internet anonymity any more. It was<br>
very frightening for me to be implicated in a serious crime. As a parent of<br>
very young children I have an extensive network of friends and contacts in my<br>
neighbourhood who also have children. As we know the subject of paedophilia<br>
is not one that can be debated with any rationality at all in the UK. It is<br>
surrounded by hysteria. I was terrified that people would find out that my<br>
computer had been taken because of that – ‘no smoke without fire’. I don’t<br>
know what can be done about any of this. To my mind running an exit node is<br>
extremely high risk. I think Tor is important but I don’t have any ideas<br>
about how to support it at the moment.<br>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Ciphered/Signed email preferred!<br>GnuPG KeyID: 0x42435F30<br>GnuPG DSA2 KeyID: 0x23286031<br>