[tor-relays] Exit Node Geographical Location

Sec INT sec.int9 at gmail.com
Thu Dec 8 11:08:26 UTC 2016


Exit nodes with equal bandwidth may well do. Unfortunately that one is now a Guard do throughput will probably go down.

US just has alot of people trying to exit there - so its always busy - I find Tor follows the money mostly - high concentration in W.Europe and US but drops sharply anywhere else - 
- availability of cheap vps and bandwidth
- open selling no censored or overwatched registration
- decent home bandwidth and internet availability so lots of users
- education - alot of people in censored countries are not always aware or bothered 
(Take the UK - most of my friends not interested in privacy or snooping at all they dont even realise that ISPs block websites en masse) 
Attacks via Tor are mostly from poorer countries to richer countries
Eastern Europe is mostly out connections - US mostly inbound for instance 

As for diversity people want us to geo diverse but the payoff in terms of usuage is low so its up to you 

My relay in Canada is practically melting so usuage seems high - although nodal choice should be random it does seem to select based on the relative location  of desired exit ( might not be true but seems like it) therefore US ,Canada ,France are really busy but Africa / Eastern Europe / Far East less so 

Location doesnt matter it depends where you are based - if your server is in Panama but youre in the UK and unless your are operating a company there then you are liable if they ever decide to pursue exit operators ( doubtful but possible) - as regards prosecution they would have to prove intent which under Tor is pretty impossible to do 

If you are wortied about that relays are the safe bet or do a reduced reduced exit policy which stops most of the 'economic' abuse they are really bothered about 

regards

Mark B


> On 8 Dec 2016, at 10:32, Chris Adams <chris at chrisada.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Interesting...
> 
> Don't exit nodes with equal bandwidth have equal chance of being utilised on a circuit? Why is your US exit being utilised more?
> 
> Looking at the map, I thought Canada could do with a few more exits?
> 
> Should geo diversity be related to numbers of internet users in that country? Ie, Canada, ~1/2 population of UK, so should run approximately 1/2 as many exits at least? Or am I overthinking this?
> 
> Are there other legal advantages to running an exit node in another country? Such as choosing a country with which your own country has no extradition laws? In case something really bad happened.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> C
> 
>> On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 10:06 AM, Sec INT <sec.int9 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Ive got exits in the US, France ,Finland (dead) and Bulgaria but its v difficult to find any exit providers in the Far East - I have relays in Bangalore and Singapore (which gets hit pretty hard) but if you do find a provider out East let us know
>> 
>> P.s Bangalore is under utilised - 60mb/s but has barely used up 1Gb in 2 weeks a as oppsed to US exit which is doing 1TB a day now at 60mb/s with a 1000 connections most of the time
>> 
>> We are supposed to go for geo diversity but usuage remains low for me in more isolated areas  e.g Bangalore,Africa
>> 
>> regards
>> 
>> Mark B
>> 
>> 
>> > On 8 Dec 2016, at 09:53, Chris Adams <chris at chrisada.co.uk> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > I want to start up another exit node. I have a  few choices for which country it's in. I currently live in a country with quite a high exit node/population density.
>> >
>> > Are there any advantages to distributing nodes around the globe in terms of performance/privacy?
>> >
>> > Are there some countries where you definitely shouldn't run exit nodes? (Censored internet is an obvious example)
>> >
>> > C
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Chris Adams
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