[tor-relays] [tor-assistants] Call for discussion: turning funding into more exit relays

[Andrew Beveridge]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: TechFix LTD <andrew at techfixuk.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:25 AM
Subject: Re: [tor-assistants] Call for discussion: turning funding into
more exit relays
To: Roger Dingledine <arma at mit.edu>
Cc: tor-relays at lists.torproject.org


On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 5:03 AM, Roger Dingledine <arma at mit.edu> wrote:

> Sounds like you should bump it up to 100mbit then. ;)
>

Heh, I've just done exactly that - well, I've raised the bandwidth limits
in my torrc to values higher than what my ISP caps my connection at. Just
to clarify though, is there any technical reason why it would be better
practice to have a realistic configured limit (like 12.5MB) as the limit
rather than something higher than that which I know will likely never
actually be possible? I simply want to use all the bandwidth available.

I'll monitor the websites I'm hosting from this server closely for a while
and see if they are noticeably affected by this at all. They are hosted
from a separate VM and I'm not sure how the OpenVZ host schedules packets
going through the virtual network adapters, but I'm hoping that tor can run
at maximum capacity most of the time while only adding perhaps a second or
two of load time onto the websites.


> You can see on

http://atlas.torproject.org/#details/FA02311AF49EB663CA2685A8604C403A9E10E6E3

that there are periods where your rate limiting is bottlenecking traffic.


I presume you're referring to the busy periods where the graph clips? Sure,
but as my company pays for the server entirely, if it were to not function
for its intended purpose (basic hosting of small-time client websites) I
would have a problem. I was worried that allowing tor to use all my
bandwidth would cause that, but I hadn't actually experimented with it to
see - I'm doing that now!

>
> I definitely don't want Tor to be in the middle of the transactions --

if Tor pays the bills directly, that's too much like being the relay

operator. One nice situation would be for you to produce receipts showing

expenses, and then we reimburse those costs. It requires fronting a bit

of money on your part, but that's part of saving the world, yes? :)


> Ultimately, we're also going to want to look into reducing overhead on

Tor's side from sending out money. If we have to write and mail 50 checks

every month, that's going to waste a lot of somebody's time. Maybe that

means Paypal is the way to go. Maybe it means we send some money in bulk

to Zwiebelfreunde, and they do intra-Europe wire transfers to the other

Europeans (though I admit maybe that just shifts the time-wasting). Lots

of options there. What would be best for you?


Good point. I guess the solution which seems logical to me would be a
standing order from Tor into my company account for the amount mentioned
above, with my OVH invoice emailed to you as justification. As the amount
would not change from month to month, a standing order could be set up once
and never require any more attention unless I got cut off by OVH.
Presumably that would require a european bank account under Tor's control -
I'm not sure about how your connection with the Wau Holland Foundation
works, but are they perhaps able to help with european transfers?
If that is too awkward, then sure, PayPal (or one of several other
e-Payment systems) is a fairly easy way to go about it, with the loss of a
few % of the payment amount. My business currently uses PayPal for all
payments from US entities, simply because it is easy.


> All of this said, don't go out and start spending money quite yet.

We should figure out these logistics first. And Tor should get a bit

more of a handle on what this diversity thing should mean. And I should

get buy-in from other Tor people for my plans here. :)


> --Roger


>
I'm going to try my best to run my current node as a full 100Mbit node from
now on anyway, even if that means paying for more traffic.
As soon as things are ready at your end, I'm ready to start a second
identical exit as described in my previous mail.
I'm going to try and start looking for other providers, but I don't want to
reinvent the wheel - is
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs kept up to
date by many people here? Perhaps we could develop a slightly better system
for tracking good/bad ISP experiences than a flat wiki page with countries?

So my node has been running without any bandwidth restriction for a few
days now, and I'm not noticing any critical speed problems from the
websites I host. The latency drops significantly when the node is pushing
traffic at max bandwidth, but that doesn't seem to be very often (
https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/FA02311AF49EB663CA2685A8604C403A9E10E6E3
).
So, as it stands right now, I'm happy to run that node for free as I
already have been. If the OVH manager decides I am very close to my initial
10TB traffic cap, I will have to limit the node again unless I can get some
funding (£9-£18) for another 20TB each month.

Out of curiosity, can anyone explain to me why my bandwidth /hasn't/ been
maxed out the past few days? (at least, according to Atlas)

-- 
*
Andrew Beveridge,
**Tor lurker / sympathizer / advocate, exit node maintainer.*
Director / Computer Repair Technician @ TechFix LTD [
http://www.techfixuk.com]
Freelance Web Developer @ [http://www.andrewbeveridge.co.uk]
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