TL;DR - Have you got official permission to operate Tor exit nodes
within an university campus/network? Relay nodes, even? Please
share me how this permission was achieved! (or even if it was
denied, please tell me!)
Hi,
I know this list is mostly technical in nature, so sorry for
presenting a very different kind of topic here; I will send a very
similar message to the tor-teachers list, but I believe the population
of this list to be interesting..
I am trying to get my university's (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México) OK to run an exit node from our campus' network. I currently
operate one relay, am willing to set up some extra relays, and have at
least one colleague in a different research institute with a relay of
his own, but I believe we should aim for exit nodes.
Now, I don't want to set it up in a rogue fashion, as I'm sure that
the university's NOC or CERT would not take long to get complaints and
require me to shut it down. I have already made an official request
for the permission to run an exit node and (as expected) it was turned
down. Quoting (translation mine) the reasons for rejection,
1. This assignation is not factible because the Tor network is not
compatible with the Acceptable Usage Policies of RedUNAM, being
this infrastructure oriented to the service of institutional
goals.
2. While the Tor network can have reseearch purposes, due to its
nature and the hiding of IPv4 addresses and anonymous
connectivity, it is susceptible to be used by third parties from
outside the University with purposes conflicting with those
specified in item 1, without any possibility of control or
regulation from the University's part or from your project.
3. Even more so: The Tor network, due to its definition and
structure, can potentially incorporate third people with
malicious or even delictive intentions, which would affect not
only the computers or networks in your Institute or all of the
University, but also networks outside the institution's control
So, I want to gather experiences from operators in different
universities or research institutions. Which way did you have to
argue? How hard was to get this OK? Did you ask a permission for a
specific project, or as part of your networking infrastructure in
general? Did you ask this before setting up the exit node, or as a
"fait accompli" gathering not-too-ill results for a given time period?
Any help and pointers are welcome!