EFF: Help Protesters in Iran: Run a Tor Bridge or a Tor Relay | Hacker News Reader

EFF: Help Protesters in Iran: Run a Tor Bridge or a Tor Relay

eff.org

37 pointsuriel25 comments

While I am sympathetic to the cause, the biggest problem with routing anything tor is that you will almost certainly, rapidly lose control over the traffic and its content. The average geek should really know what sort of repercussions a tor node can unleash if things go wrong. The administrator (you) of the exit node has almost no control over this.

I urge anyone who plans to run a tor node to please take the necessary steps, if possible to avoid a situation like http://calumog.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/why-you-need-balls-o...

This is all true, but if A LOT of people suddenly start running will the police knock on everyone's door?

Will the administration take any part in this, will they ask law enforcement to back off on tor exit nodes? They were tech savy enough to ask Twitter to reschedule their planned down time.

In any case, the EFF should publish a legal guide in what to do in case the police do come knocking on your door because your IP showed up in some crime related log.

I'm not sure what the EFF could put in such a guide. If the police believe you are involved in child pornography and get a warrant they will at a minimum come to your house and seize all of your computers to gather evidence. I can't imagine what exactly training the EFF can give people to prevent that from happening once the police show up.

And chances are that if you're tech savvy enough to run a Tor exit node that you'd rather not loose all of your computers for the several weeks or months it might take to get them back.

The EFF could advice people on the legal wall between corporations and individuals. Or how to start a corp. rent a tiny office and run a dedicated tor node from there.

I could be completely wrong, but it doesn't seem like you'd be much better off owning a corporation which is a front for child pornography (which is how it would be portrayed).

Hmm, that sucks. I'd like to do something helpful, and turning your Twitter icon green is truly the least you can do

I was hoping that running a Tor node would be a more viable, more useful alternative.

Showing green only supports one side in the fight. If that's what you want to do, go ahead. But promoting free speech helps everybody.

I was looking for that exact article, I read it a few months back. I'm a bit hesitant to run TOR on my home connection because of it. Would there be an alternative that only allowed twitter or social news/image/blogging sites (I know this may be defeating the purpose of running a filter-less proxy, but it seems a bit safer)?

If you run a Tor middle server, you don't risk anything and you are still helping.

Aside from Slicehost[1], has anyone found a host to be happy to let you run a Tor relay? I'm thinking of emailing the prgmr.com gentleman (who I know is around here somewhere... hi!).

[1] A couple articles about running Tor on your Slicehost slice: http://www.tequilafish.com/2009/06/21/slicehost-setting-up-a... http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3622

I'm running one on Linode. I filed a support ticket first to let them know. This was the answer:

Tor exit nodes are not against our TOS, but we will forward any abuse reports on to you and we do expect them to be handled. Also, keep an eye on your bandwidth though. Tor nodes can burn through bandwidth in a hurry and if you go over you'll end up being charged for it.

> Tor exit nodes are not against our TOS, but we will forward any abuse reports on to you and we do expect them to be handled.

I'm somewhat unclear on what does it mean for "them to be handled'? If you are running a tor node there is nothing you can do about any abuse reports.

Replying to the complainant with an explanation of Tor.

You don't need a host. You can run it in your home computer and throttle it so it doesn't suck your connection. Every bit helps.

For those worried about running a relay and dealing with people abusing you as an exit node, here is a good article from Tor about minimizing abuse of your node: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tips-running-exit-node-mini...

One tip that you should immediately be aware of is that you don't _have_ to run an exit node. You can force your relay to act only as an intermediary, in which case you almost certainly are not going to get any calls about abuse (because you won't exist in any server logs).

If you do I hope you can make sure you aren't part of any illegal activity such as the trafficing of child pornography.

Just like you ask all manufacturers of photographic equipment to make sure they aren't used for any illegal activities, such as photographing nude children?

No because people have had issues because of said reason.

"Issues" is putting it mildly. Prepare to be treated as an accomplice, if not worse, if the traffic is traced to your IP address.

Not quite, it's more like letting people develop film using your equipment. There's a lot more you can do to prevent it at that point.

Actually there is nothing you can do, which is the whole point of Tor.

The DoD characterizes protesters in the U.S. as low level terrorists. I wonder how the U.S. government would feel about foreign nationals helping home grown low level terrorists.

Do you have factual support for your first statement?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526972,00.html

but the answer to the OP's question is that the feds are aware of all this, and they don't mind: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1096#comment-237988

Nokia has had some bad p.r. recently thanks to their products that the Iranian government is using.

I hope Nokia starts running a whole lot of Tor relays soon.

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