On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 07:31:42PM +0000, delber wrote:
What we have found though, is that several smaller (not-for-profits or coops) ISPs would be happy to help the Tor network, provided there is a clear legal boundary. Something that our not-for-profit would create. The downside is that they are small, so the cost of their bandwidth is between a monthly 3??? and 10??? (when it is not even more) for each Mbps (95%ile). But they would stand in case of trouble. And some of them have an economic interest as using more bandwidth would lower their overall cost per Mbps.
One of them is willing to sponsor some of the bandwidth, and it looks like a good place to start an initial set of nodes. But even with their sponsoring, $100/month will not cover hosting+bandwidth expenses.
It might be something desirable though. If external funding does not cover all the costs, then we will have to campaign for other donations. A good habit, as it makes it more likely that at least some of the nodes would survive in case the external funding stops.
This sounds like a great idea. One of our goals here is to give other organizations a chance to start up and be like torservers.net.
It is definitely a smart idea to get your community helping to cover the costs. Having just one sponsor makes you very fragile.
It's also a smart idea to keep talking to ISPs, and find some that want to sponsor some of the bandwidth as you describe above. They're out there if you look hard enough! :)
Be sure to use the resources here (like Julian) for advice too.
--Roger