[tor-relays] Help the Tor Project by running a fast unpublished bridge

[Roger Dingledine]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 09:58:54AM +0200, Sebastian G. <bastik.tor> wrote:
> You ask volunteers to achieve a funders goal. Those might run a bridge
> already, but "un-publish" it. Less bridges for the rest. They could run
> relays and turn them into unpublished bridges. Less relays for anyone.
> 
> Running a relay or bridge (published) would be a better contribution IMO.

Hi Sebastian,

Thanks for starting the discussion.

I totally agree that running a big relay (exit or non-exit) is more
directly useful to the Tor network than running one of these unpublished
bridges.

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"Help fund Tor bundle usability by running a fast unpublished bridge".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a fast unpublished bridge".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a matching donation: "Run a fast unpublished bridge with 2 IP addresses,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.

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these unpublished bridges.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.

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. But for bridges, since the current
Tor transport and current bridge distribution strategies are not great,
I think it's better to use funding for better designs and better code.
I should note that I actually encouraged VoA to want unpublished bridges: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.

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.

I hope that helps to explain. Sorry for exposing the internals of running
a non-profit. But I think transparency is especially important here. :)

--Roger