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A disproportionate amount of traffic seems to be passing through Monrovia, Liberia compared to the rest of African continent and even more developed places like

by mih 11y ago

A disproportionate amount of traffic seems to be passing through Monrovia, Liberia compared to the rest of African continent and even more developed places like Australia. Can anybody shed some light on this ?

ithinkso 11y ago
I'm wondering the same thing, would be interesting to hear if there is some reason behind this.
neerdowell 11y ago
That traffic is from IPredator's relay, which is currently the top exit node by consensus (https://globe.torproject.org/#/top10 https://globe.torproject.org/#/top10). There are less than 50 relays in Australia and none of them come close to IPredator. Every AU relay combined has a middle probability of 0.0246% and an exit probability of 0.0060%. IPredator alone has an exit probability of 2.1961%. (You can see these stats with Tor Compass: https://compass.torproject.org/ https://compass.torproject.org/)
msvan 11y ago
IPredator is a Swedish VPN service that appeared when the "Ipred" law was passed in Sweden, a law that was passed to allow rights holders to find and prosecute people who torrent stuff. So most likely, it's used for piracy.
- niij 11y ago
  Although the people running the relay may be associated with piracy, that doesn't mean this exit node is any different than any other Tor exit node. Traffic on the Tor network is doesn't distinguish by "pirated" content or not. They're simply a company with privacy conscious employees who are probably using their high-bandwidth relay as a form of advertisement.
saosebastiao 11y ago
I also noticed a weird conglomeration somewhere in Kansas near Witchita. Someone's pet project?
- Outdoorsman 11y ago
  Same curiosity here...114 relays...G-Earth shows a house with several outbuildings surrounded by farmland...
  - listic 11y ago
    Must be just the geographical center of the USA. Probably it just puts all the relays which don't have further geolocation than the USA, there. It doesn't do the same for Russia, though...
    - Outdoorsman 11y ago
      Interesting...would be nice to hear from the dev on that...

by mih 11y ago

ithinkso 11y ago

I'm wondering the same thing, would be interesting to hear if there is some reason behind this.

neerdowell 11y ago

That traffic is from IPredator's relay, which is currently the top exit node by consensus (https://globe.torproject.org/#/top10 https://globe.torproject.org/#/top10). There are less than 50 relays in Australia and none of them come close to IPredator. Every AU relay combined has a middle probability of 0.0246% and an exit probability of 0.0060%. IPredator alone has an exit probability of 2.1961%. (You can see these stats with Tor Compass: https://compass.torproject.org/ https://compass.torproject.org/)

msvan 11y ago

IPredator is a Swedish VPN service that appeared when the "Ipred" law was passed in Sweden, a law that was passed to allow rights holders to find and prosecute people who torrent stuff. So most likely, it's used for piracy.

niij 11y ago
Although the people running the relay may be associated with piracy, that doesn't mean this exit node is any different than any other Tor exit node. Traffic on the Tor network is doesn't distinguish by "pirated" content or not. They're simply a company with privacy conscious employees who are probably using their high-bandwidth relay as a form of advertisement.

saosebastiao 11y ago

I also noticed a weird conglomeration somewhere in Kansas near Witchita. Someone's pet project?

Outdoorsman 11y ago
Same curiosity here...114 relays...G-Earth shows a house with several outbuildings surrounded by farmland...
- listic 11y ago
  Must be just the geographical center of the USA. Probably it just puts all the relays which don't have further geolocation than the USA, there. It doesn't do the same for Russia, though...
  - Outdoorsman 11y ago
    Interesting...would be nice to hear from the dev on that...