[tor-relays] Supporting TOR: Seeking Affordable and Reliable Server Providers in Eastern Europe

[gus]

Hello Alex,

Welcome to the Tor relays community.

On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 11:48:51AM +0300, Alex Swabbie via tor-relays wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> I’ve been a fan of Tor for many years now, and my affinity for anonymity naturally extends to other interests, such as Monero… 😉
>
> I’ve successfully rallied like-minded individuals who have generously supported our cause through various grants, and we’ve even received a government subsidy from the Czech Republic to promote freedom of speech in oppressive regimes.
> 

Regarding the government subsidy from the Czech Republic that you
mentioned, could you please provide more details and any relevant links?
Transparency is crucial for building a trusted community, and this
information would be beneficial for everyone.

> With a substantial sum of money at our disposal, we’ve chosen to allocate a portion to support the TOR project. Currently, we operate around 60 servers. Our main challenge, unsurprisingly, is with exit servers. Convincing providers to overlook automatic complaint notifications has proven quite tricky. From our original 30 exit nodes, we’re down to about 5—the rest had to be shifted to relay nodes. We could switch them to well-known operators like RDP.sh, but they already host a large number of exit nodes, and we prefer to encourage network diversity.
> 
> We’ve initiated something akin to a cost-sharing model for enabling our servers to run exit nodes, but it hasn’t made a significant impact.

I also wanted to share that we're currently discussing a new policy for
the Tor relay community focused on incentivization models. You can check
it out here: 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/policies/-/issues/22

> We want to spend our funds wisely to support Tor. Do any of you have suggestions for good, affordable providers in less conventional locations (e.g., Eastern Europe like Poland, Hungary, Ukraine)?
> 
> Thanks for any ideas,
> 
> Alex
> https://tor.foundation

Lastly, I noticed that your domain name includes "Tor". 
Please be aware that we request you avoid using "Tor" in your product or
domain name to prevent any potential confusion. Our goal is to ensure
that people clearly understand what is officially associated with The
Tor Project and what is not. 

From our Trademark FAQ:

Q: Can I use the word "Tor" as part of the name of my product or my domain name?

A: Please don't use Tor in your product name or domain name. Instead,
find a name that will accurately identify your products or services.
Remember that our goal is to make sure that people aren't confused about
whether your product or project is made or endorsed by The Tor Project.
Creating a new brand that incorporates the Tor brand is likely to lead
to confusion, and commercial confusion is a sign of trademark
infringement.

https://www.torproject.org/about/trademark/#trademark-faq-3

Best,
Gus
-- 
The Tor Project
Community Team Lead
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