Roger Dingledine:
Hi Roger,
We're in an interesting situation here, where we can use their bridge funding for other more important things if we don't spent it all on bridges. So maybe the subject should have been the more counterintuitive "Help fund Tor bundle usability by running a fast unpublished bridge".
Another option would be to give it to Moritz et al at torservers.net so they can run more fast exits -- at which point Moritz might end up sending a similar mail saying "Help us run more exit relays by running a fast unpublished bridge".
Now that I think about it, maybe the best way to phrase it would be as a matching donation: "Run a fast unpublished bridge with 2 IP addresses, and we have a funder who will match your donation by giving $200-300/mo to Tor." That's the reasoning that led me to say it's a great way to contribute to Tor if you can't run a fast relay yourself.
Sounds all plausible to me.
Another model I've been pondering is to offer people some funding to run a fast *non*-exit relay along with a pair of extra IP addresses for these unpublished bridges. But on the theory that exits are more scarce than non-exits (and I don't want to muddy the current exit experiment with even more money), I figured it would be better to separate the roles.
Understandable.
This discussion really goes back to a simple question: is it better to use our funding for more design and development, or for strengthening the network? For exit relays, I think choosing "strengthen the network" is a great and worthwhile experiment.
I agree on the exits. Better design and more development could be beneficial to Tor.
But for bridges, since the current Tor transport and current bridge distribution strategies are not great,
In the long run you are right. New fast bridges *might* improve the situation for censored users, but that won't last very long.
I think it's better to use funding for better designs and better code.
Yes, that's much better over time.
I should note that I actually encouraged VoA to want unpublished bridges: if we set up fast bridges and published them via bridges.torproject.org today, they'd get blocked quickly in China.
They have fixed IP addresses which would result in permanently blocked bridges. I wonder how good the manual bridge distribution is.
When VoA is fine with spending their money for other stuff as long as their goal is achieved it's reasonable.
I'm especially hoping to hear from volunteers for whom setting up a few extra bridges is basically free -- for example, those already running fast non-exit relays who have a few more IP addresses nearby. This is also a nice way for students at universities to get involved if they're not ready to run a fast public relay quite yet.
That would be beneficial to Tor.
I hope that helps to explain.
For me it was helpful. I understood the goal in the first place, but was a little concerned. After all I guess spending money for design and code is more helpful than bridges for anyone.
Sorry for exposing the internals of running a non-profit. But I think transparency is especially important here. :)
I don't know why you feel sorry. Transparency is important for non-profit, at least for most I guess.
Sebastian