- tor-relays - lists.torproject.org

(JAILED) U.S. Tor Operator Persecuted by FBI After Refusing Decrypt Requests
by Adrienne Rockenhaus 16 Sep '25

16 Sep '25

Hello Tor-Relays Community, I’m writing to you because my husband, Conrad Rockenhaus, was a member of your community. He was a long-time Tor relay operator, and he is now in serious danger. I believe you are one of the few groups who will truly understand why. Conrad’s ordeal began when he refused to help the FBI decrypt traffic from his exit nodes. Months later, the government arrested him. Their official reason was a minor, non-violent CFAA charge from a workplace dispute that had nothing to do with Tor. He was convicted of a single count (taking down the network of his former employer, Apple Leisure Group, after they fired their U.S. DevOps team to replace them with cheaper overseas hires). In fact, the statute of limitations was a couple of months from expiration. They clearly used this old charge as a pretext to target him. This minor charge was used to hold him. A U.S. Probation Officer then lied under oath to keep him jailed (pre trial) for three years. She claimed he installed a "Linux OS called Spice" to access the "dark web" and hide his activity. This was a technical lie. The software was just a standard SPICE graphics driver for his Ph.D. program. It was not an operating system and could not disable their monitoring. He now faces retaliation from U.S. Probation in Michigan. They have used fraudulent warrants to jail him again. He is currently in a county jail with a severe head injury from his arrest and has been denied a lawyer, a violation of his constitutional rights. This is a documented case of the government twisting technical facts to prosecute a member of your community. I am not asking for money. I am asking you to please help amplify his story. You understand the technical truth and why this fight is so important. We have all the evidence documented, including the court transcripts and fraudulent warrants. You can see everything here: https://rockenhaus.com Thank you for your time and for everything you do for privacy online. Sincerely, Adrienne Rockenhaus https://x.com/adezero

3 4

Re: tor-relays Digest, Vol 176, Issue 1
by code9n＠pm.me 09 Sep '25

09 Sep '25

On Tuesday, September 9th, 2025 at 13:01, tor-relays-request(a)lists.torproject.org <tor-relays-request(a)lists.torproject.org> wrote: > > > Send tor-relays mailing list submissions to > tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via email, send a message with subject or > body 'help' to > tor-relays-request(a)lists.torproject.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > tor-relays-owner(a)lists.torproject.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of tor-relays digest..." > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: lower relay through-put: consensus or throttling? > (Georg Koppen) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2025 12:51:05 +0000 > From: Georg Koppen gk(a)torproject.org > > Subject: [tor-relays] Re: lower relay through-put: consensus or > throttling? > To: tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org > Message-ID: 814fe4cb-affe-464a-91c2-6c0a52711ece(a)torproject.org > > Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha256; > protocol="application/pgp-signature"; > boundary="------------QI1vquvNwiOUwz7yMKJyMz29" > > Hello! > > code9n via tor-relays: > > > Hi, > > > > For the last 5 months or so my guard / middle relay ( 41D4F82AB54AE5C5FB8D3CD24B4FC84350EFEF03 ) has been moving about 8MB/sec each way which is lower than it had been doing for the 2 years up to that point - it had been averaging around 12MB/sec. > > > > There's been talk on this mailing list of northern European relays getting lower consensus weight recently. (Mine is hosted in the UK). > > > > When my vps was last coming up for annual re-payment I told the admins there (Hostworld) that I was maybe not going to renew my annual subscription and the relay's through-put went up to around 20MB/sec for a while - until I'd renewed. So they do boost / throttle to suit themselves. > > > Could you give us some dates about when you talked to the admins, when > you renewed etc. so we can try to look at the behavior of your relay > during that time and correlate those dates with drops/raises of its > consensus weight? > > > So my question is: Is my last few months lower efficacy likely due to Tor (consensus weight) or throttling by my vps provider? > > > I am not sure yet but I might be able to give you an educated guess > after looking closer at your relay's data with the help of the dates I > asked you about above. > > Georg > > > (It's not my settings in torrc, by the way, they're set way higher than is being used and are unchanged since the earlier, higher, through-put). > > > > Thanks, > > > > Pete > > > > _______________________________________________ > > tor-relays mailing list -- tor-relays(a)lists.torproject.org > > To unsubscribe send an email to tor-relays-leave(a)lists.torproject.org > > >

1 0

lower relay through-put: consensus or throttling?
by code9n＠pm.me 08 Sep '25

08 Sep '25

Hi, For the last 5 months or so my guard / middle relay ( 41D4F82AB54AE5C5FB8D3CD24B4FC84350EFEF03 ) has been moving about 8MB/sec each way which is lower than it had been doing for the 2 years up to that point - it had been averaging around 12MB/sec. There's been talk on this mailing list of northern European relays getting lower consensus weight recently. (Mine is hosted in the UK). When my vps was last coming up for annual re-payment I told the admins there (Hostworld) that I was maybe not going to renew my annual subscription and the relay's through-put went up to around 20MB/sec for a while - until I'd renewed. So they do boost / throttle to suit themselves. So my question is: Is my last few months lower efficacy likely due to Tor (consensus weight) or throttling by my vps provider? (It's not my settings in torrc, by the way, they're set way higher than is being used and are unchanged since the earlier, higher, through-put). Thanks, Pete

2 1

Webtunnels
by gerard＠bulger.co.uk 08 Sep '25

08 Sep '25

I have setup three Webtunnels running for some months, all set to Telegram distribution. Suddenly one of them in Australia has become very popular with 1000 outgoing connections while the two others, EU and USA have just 5-10 outgoing connections at an time. How can encourage a fairer distribution, and my Australian one will start costing + as exceeding data limits of the VPS provider at 6TB a month Gerry

1 0

Urgent: Assistance Regarding BadExit Flag on my Relay
by Dis 08 Sep '25

08 Sep '25

Hello, I noticed that my exit relay has been flagged as a BadExit on the Tor metrics site. I would really like to maintain a healthy exit node to help the network, as I understand there is often a shortage compared to non-exit relays. I would like to contribute to the Tor network in that way specifically. Could you please let me know what issues led to this flag and what steps I can take to resolve them? I’m fully committed to making the necessary changes. If that means updating configuration, improving stability, or upgrading my VPS resources, I'll do it. Here are my node's details: *Fingerprint:* A00EE720829232514D719A0F4C338C806B9F96F0 *OR Addresses:* 45.135.180.154:9001 *Nickname:*nyaa My contact email is listed in the relay configuration, and I’m emailing you from that address currently. Best regards, Dis

2 1

[bridge operators] Fix required for WebTunnel docker bridges
by gus 28 Aug '25

28 Aug '25

Hello bridge operators, During yesterday's upgrade of our WebTunnel docker image, some bridges stopped working due to an operating system issue[1]. Only WebTunnel operators using our official Docker image are affected. If your bridge is affected and you don’t apply this fix, it will remain non-functional and users will not be able to connect. You need to take action now! ### How to check if your bridge is affected Run the command: `docker ps` If your WebTunnel container is stuck in a restart loop (shows `Restarting (1)` or similar message), then your bridge needs fixing: ``` thetorproject/webtunnel-bridge:latest "/usr/local/bin/star…" 22 hours ago Restarting (1) 21 seconds ago webtunnelBridge5a35b7dd47c6 containrrr/ ``` ### How to fix your WebTunnel docker bridge 1. List your Docker volumes: ``` docker volume list ``` 2. Identify the persistent volume for Tor, then run (adjust the volume name accordingly): ``` docker run --rm -it -v root_webtunnel-tor-state:/var/lib/tor debian chown -R 100 /var/lib/tor ``` 3. Restart your bridge: ``` docker compose up -d ``` If you need help, please reach out to us on irc #tor-relays (irc.oftc.net) or matrix: https://matrix.to/#/#tor-relays:matrix.org. Thank you for running bridges! gus [1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/webt… -- The Tor Project Community Team Lead

1 0

(no subject)
by kerem the secondary 20 Aug '25

20 Aug '25

[warn] Your server has not managed to confirm reachability for its ORPort(s) at 31.223.44.45:443. Relays do not publish descriptors until their ORPort and DirPort are reachable. Please check your firewalls, ports, address, /etc/hosts file, etc. hello my relay doesnt work, firewall is not running, my isp did not block port 443, i have tried the official torrc file in the techincal setup page (only changed the log, contact and relay name) which did not work. I have not included the entire notices.log file because its 4 megabytes of the same error message. I have no idea what i did wrong please help. Thanks in advance

2 1

authority bandwidth measurements and latency
by Marco Moock 20 Aug '25

20 Aug '25

Hello! I operate 94DEAD24492D6D01E3DE614E8BE6B4035329A4D7 and I've seen various changes in the measured bandwidth in atlas. At the beginning, more than 10 MB/s were measured, now below 3. The machine itself didn't change, I can reach high up- and download rates if I transfer stuff via HTTP/FTP etc. I see that latency isn't that low (50ms https://atlas.ripe.net/measurements/116107380/results) and want to ask if that might be part of this situation. I dunno about the TCP settings of the authority bandwidth testing machines. Can anybody give some hints what's going on? -- Gruß Marco Send unsolicited bulk mail to 1751988041muell(a)stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

3 4

moria1 unreachable from AS202306
by Marco Moock 19 Aug '25

19 Aug '25

Hello! I cannot communicate with moria1 from 78.153.140.44 and it cannot reach my system. I can communicate with the rest of the world. For me, it looks like a firewall is blocking it, as traceroute clearly indicates a different behaviour for ICMP echo request and TCP. I've tried that multiple times. [m@teufel ~]$ traceroute -P tcp -p 9201 128.31.0.39 traceroute to 128.31.0.39 (128.31.0.39), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 gw.hostglobal.plus (78.153.140.1) 0.460 ms 0.427 ms 0.349 ms 2 10.28.1.6 (10.28.1.6) 210.766 ms 353.511 ms 563.838 ms 3 ae8-209.rt.ad.rix.lv.retn.net (87.245.239.26) 25.299 ms 25.264 ms 25.228 ms 4 * ae1-5.rt.irx.fkt.de.retn.net (87.245.232.244) 51.147 ms 52.203 ms 5 * * * 6 * * * 7 * * * 8 * * * 9 * * * 10 * * * 11 * * * 12 * * * 13 * * * 14 * * * [m@teufel ~]$ traceroute -I 128.31.0.39 traceroute to 128.31.0.39 (128.31.0.39), 64 hops max, 48 byte packets 1 gw.hostglobal.plus (78.153.140.1) 0.286 ms 1.231 ms 0.219 ms 2 10.28.1.6 (10.28.1.6) 1041.847 ms 25.035 ms 25.234 ms 3 ae8-209.rt.ad.rix.lv.retn.net (87.245.239.26) 26.015 ms 26.091 ms 26.084 ms 4 ae1-5.rt.irx.fkt.de.retn.net (87.245.232.244) 61.037 ms 53.253 ms 52.533 ms 5 * * * 6 * ae2.13.ear2.Boston1.net.lumen.tech (4.69.230.138) 135.086 ms 135.092 ms 7 * * * 8 * * * 9 * * * 10 * * * 11 * * * 12 * * * 13 * * * 14 * * * 15 * * * What are your opinions about this? -- Gruß Marco Send unsolicited bulk mail to 1755409526muell(a)stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

2 2

Tor relay back to 1 weight
by tor＠obscurity.app 17 Aug '25

17 Aug '25

ADA11AA7FD14CFE904C7E302CA08EFBC8AFB415D My relay jumped to 13500 weight, then back to 1. Even thought relay is really young, this is (in my opinnion) not normal behavior? Tor notice logs doesnt give any error, and relay got unmettered bandwidth.

2 1