Maximize Anonymity Services but Minimize 'Abuse Like' Behaviors...

[Ted Smith]

On Fri, 2009-01-02 at 11:43 -0500, Erik Heidt wrote:
> Tor Gurus -
> 
> 
> So, I have just started running a Tor Relay. Currently I am in
> operating in bridge mode, with a exit policy that rejects all. I
> am concerned about having to deal with DCMA or other complaints, but I
> want to balance that concern with providing real privacy value to the
> people who need it. 
> 
> 
> As, such I am wondering what options there are for providing low-risk
> but high-value services.
> Any ideas ?
> 
> 
> Some (probably naive) ideas I had were:
> 
> 
> - Permitting exit to key informational resources (e.g. wikipedia
> services)
> - Permitting exit to top 5 or 10 web mail services (e.g. google mail,
> hotmail, yahoo, etc.)
> 
> 
> I am curious how others have balanced their desires to contribute to
> Tor...
> 
> 
> Thanks, Erik
> 
The slippery slope here is the definition of "people who need it". I
used to run an exit node that accepted connections to traditional
BitTorrent ports, because I had no way of knowing if someone wanted to
download porn through Tor to be l33t or if someone wanted to share a
video of police brutality or something anonymously (I eventually stopped
because of the desire not to enforce my values on every node leading up
to mine).

Anywhere there is anything, there can be abuse. People can use your
restrictive exit policy to vandalize wikipedia or send spam. People can
use that exit to gmail to send threats to the president. There's no such
thing as "low-risk" anonymity.

That being said, however, you don't have much to fear from that. The EFF
would almost certainly have your back if it came to a legal fight,
you're a DMCA "safe harbor" (to my knowledge IANAL etc), and cops
typically do check to see if an IP is an open proxy before raiding it.

I would encourage you to do whatever exit policy you're comfortable
with. Every little bit helps. But don't be uncomfortable for the wrong
reasons.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/attachments/20090102/f18af171/attachment.pgp>