[tor-relays] Why MyFamily?

Michael Gerstacker michael.gerstacker at googlemail.com
Sun Feb 23 13:06:42 UTC 2020


Am So., 23. Feb. 2020 um 11:51 Uhr schrieb Moritz Bartl <
moritz at torservers.net>:

> On 22.02.20 15:51, Michael Gerstacker wrote:
> > I am the operator of my relays so if i for whatever reason decide to not
> > publish that i run a bigger family then this should be my own decision.>
> > If the torproject needs these information urgently they need to force it
> > for example with a relay registration or should find a better soultion
> > which is not depending on a trust level.
>
> I am sorry, but this is an ignorant perspective. Even though the Tor
> network has no means to force it on to you, you really should configure
> your nodes correctly. This includes a correct MyFamily statement, even
> if it means more work. If you don't want to do that work, then you
> should ask yourself why you contribute relays in the first place. Do you
> really want to do it to weaken the network? Probably not. It is really
> not that much effort to synchronize the statement, even with a large
> number of relays and without willingness to work with "configuration
> management" tools. It took me only a few minutes to put together a bash
> script that logs in, grabs fingerprints, assembles them to a unified
> MyFamily statement, and pushes the updated line to all relays again. [1]
>

Not going with the stream is an ignorant perspective most of the time.
The reason why i run relays is because in my opinion tor is doing exactly
that.

You want my IP address? NO!
We rather build a big non-profit organization, find developers, search
donations, encourage people all over the world to run relays, resist
against all governmental censorship tries and do everything we can because
we believe our IP address is ours.

This is ignorance at its finest and thats one of the reasons why i run
relays.


> On a more general level, do you really want to argue than any rule or
> law that is not enforceable is completely pointless in society?
>

No, no that was not what i meant.

I just didnt understood why i should set MyFamily and brought up my
personal points against it so that hopefully someone can explain me why
other points are more important than mine.
teor explained me that with words i understood so for the future i will set
MyFamily correctly now.


> You seem to think MyFamily is not that relevant because its correct
> configuration relies on the same operator that you need to trust not to
> perform end-to-end correlation in the first place. This is only a minor
> aspect. As an operator, you and your infrastructure becomes a potential
> target. By not configuring MyFamily correctly, you invite attackers, and
> make their lives easier. I can pown you, steal your keys, exploit a
> weakness in your configuration, get a court to give me a wiretapping
> order for a single individual much easier than for many, etc etc, all
> much more interesting if I _know_ that you are a careless operator that
> does not configure their relays correctly. You should make your relays
> less interesting, also for others, not only for yourself.
>
> Cheers, and thanks for trying to run relays in a good fashion :)
>

If my words sounded ignorant or rude or egoistic that was not my intention.
I just wanted to understand why i should waste energy to do steps which i
dont understand.
Now i understand them and i will go with the stream and set MyFamily
correctly today.

Thank you all for that interesting conversation
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