7 ms·

Tor Challenge

259 points by middleclick 12y ago

tribaal 12y ago
Not a bad idea. I would however add a little spice to the incentive by having some kind of raffle on top of the t-shirt and sticker, just to get some more traction. "Run a tor relay for a year, your chance to get a free free laptop!" I understand many people would enter the raffle just for the laptop, but if they do run their TOR relay for a year to get it, what's the problem? Of course, it might not be well perceived or even legal in some jurisdictions. EDIT: This being the EFF, making the winning laptop a Gluglug would make so much sense it hurts. Then you could say "free free" laptop, too :) https://www.fsf.org/news/gluglug-x60-laptop-now-certified-to-respect-your-freedom https://www.fsf.org/news/gluglug-x60-laptop-now-certified-to... EDIT2: Typoes. Duh!
- ISL 12y ago
  Agreed. To many people, a chance at a substantial prize is worth more than a T-shirt. Those who run exit nodes take tangible risk and provide real value; compensating them is a good thing!
- jlgaddis 12y ago
  Agreed. I already have a Tor t-shirt and I'd certainly love a Tor sticker (even more so than a laptop or whatever) to put on my already "heavily stickered" work laptop but a bigger incentive might certainly convince some others to fire up a relay. The FSF is also a "supporter" of this project so the Gluglug X60 would be very fitting as a "grand prize". I first joined both the FSF and the EFF about a decade ago and I would be quite happy to have my membership dollars going towards something like that. Hell, if EFF/FSF/Tor did a fundraiser just for something like this, I would throw in some money specifically earmarked for the purchase of these prizes. Side note: anyone know where I can get one of those Tor stickers? :-)
jmnicolas 12y ago
Back in the days, I used to have a dedicated Freenet box running permanently. AFAIK I couldn't do this with TOR, my ISP don't allow it.
- droope 12y ago
  Just don't be an exit node.
- jlgaddis 12y ago
  You can run a middle relay which won't generate abuse complaints like an exit node would.
nicpottier 12y ago
I'm actually mildly interested in doing this, keeping Tor healthy is a worthy goal. Anybody run the numbers (and are there legal repercussions?) on the cost of running a relay at 1MB/s on AWS for a year?
- droope 12y ago
  I reckon aws is quite expensive. I'd get a fixed price bandwidth VPS, but I am not sure what hosting to recommend.
  - jlgaddis 12y ago
    Yeah, there are plenty of places cheaper than AWS. From looking into it previously (and following the tor-relays list), it seems that many providers are okay with customers running middle relays (as those don't generate abuse complaints) but frown upon exit nodes (primarily due to the extra workload, AFAICT).
- atmosx 12y ago
  You don't have legal issues for running relays. Traffic is encrypted so can't be analyzed and since you're not an exit node there's no risk of performing illegal actions with your IP address.
- nammi 12y ago
  The Tor Project has a dedicated page for setting up relays on EC2 instances: >The Tor Cloud images have been configured to use no more than 40 GB of bandwidth out per month. We have estimated that customers who do not qualify for the free usage tier will pay up to $20 a month for an instance located in us-east-1 (Virginia). >Customers who qualify for the free usage tier, but who run bridges that use more than 15 GB of bandwidth out per month, will pay up to $3 per month for an instance located in us-east-1 (Virginia). https://cloud.torproject.org/ https://cloud.torproject.org/
chatmasta 12y ago
I'm working on research for monetizing Tor relays, providing an incentive to relay operators. It's called TorCoin. We introduce an alternative cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, to reward relay operators for transferring bandwidth. Rather than being CPU intensive, it's bandwidth intensive -- so one TorCoin represents a certain amount of bandwidth transferred. We will be presenting our research at the HotPETS privacy workshop in Amsterdam in July [1]. Here's a link to the paper if you're interested (I'm Miles). [2] Keep in mind it's an early draft. [1] http://petsymposium.org/2014/hotpets.php http://petsymposium.org/2014/hotpets.php [2] https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7r4osQgWVqKTHdxTlowUVpsVmJRcjF3Y3dtcTVscFhEaW5F https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7r4osQgWVqKTHdxTlowUVpsVmJR... My email is in the paper, but it's miles.richardson@yale.edu
- tribaal 12y ago
  That is not a bad idea either... but: This will be a challenge: the number of people willing and able to run TOR relays is quite small, and the subcategory of those interested in a (new) cryptocurrency is even smaller. Reaching critical mass for the currency to be interesting is going to be hard.
  - kylebrown 12y ago
    I think you are underestimating the size of the market. Seems like there's demand for every flavor of alt-coin: gimmickyCoin, mediocreCoin, memeCoin, yetAnotherCoin, every single one gets 15 minutes or more. Try looking at it from the miners' perspective. The pitch isn't "buy our coin, and use this guide to help yourself install the dependencies needed to run our beta software." Instead, its "get paid coins, all you have to do is leave the relayCoin bandwidth-miner running while you sleep." In the future, proof-of-bandwidth / proof-of-relay "coin" incentives on next-gen layer 3 protocols will bootstrap the transition to a global, p2p wireless mesh network (wireless at the edges and sparse areas, the big pipes and backhauls will still be fiber). It will look something like "leave this wifiMeshCoin nodeBox attached to your cable modem. It will open an unlocked wifi hotspot for anyone nearby. some people will get free access through a metered guest connection, and you might earn a little coin. But if you get lucky and your nodeBox can form a bridge connection to somebody else's nodeBox at a different ISP, that bridge relay will earn a lot of coin. Another option is to invest $2k to get a 4G/5G cellular micro-tower from NextGen Labs, one of those could earn you $500/mo in relayPower if there are enough unlocked CDMA phones in your area. You can resell the unlocked phones as well."
ChrisAntaki 12y ago
Brilliant. Great work EFF!
xwintermutex 12y ago
I would like to run a Tor exit-relay, but I am too afraid to do this, as I live in a what used to be liberal western country called "the Netherlands". Where the police sometimes raid Tor exit-relays on purpose, to discourage people from helping Tor [1]. [1]: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/trip-report-tor-trainings-dutch-and-belgian-police https://blog.torproject.org/blog/trip-report-tor-trainings-d...
- vacri 12y ago
  One of the speakers at Ruxcon last year worked for an enterprise, and mentioned that for fun, he'd spin up a Tor node, then time how long it took for the 'cease and desist' email (not enforceable) to come through. I think he said his best time was 10 minutes.
- wcoenen 12y ago
  "Exit-relay" ? You must mean either "exit node" or "relay node". AFAIK the risk of raids only exists for exit nodes, so you can still run a relay node.
  - ropiku 12y ago
    According to https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/what-is-tor.html https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/what-is-tor.html they call them "middle relays, exit relays, and bridges".
- luxpir 12y ago
  The comments there took a dark turn very quickly. Shame the thread's closed, with no counterpoints offered before doing so. See also these two independent reports, one written, one an audio recording of a presentation, by a Dutch activist I happened across: - http://raided4tor.cryto.net/ http://raided4tor.cryto.net/ [text] - https://archive.org/details/OHM2013-Partyvan https://archive.org/details/OHM2013-Partyvan [audio] EDIT: To sum up, the activist advises that activism is not something to be taken lightly, and there is a real cost to being targeted by law enforcement. I know relays are different to exits, but it's not encouraging when you want to assist!
- 12y ago
na85 12y ago
I'm reluctant to jump on this bandwagon as I don't feel that Tor is as secure as they say. There have already been demonstrated attacks against node anonymity and until Tor gets a public audit I'm not sure it's wise to encourage people to use Tor. As they say, flawed crypto is worse than no crypto at all.
- jlgaddis 12y ago
  You're right that there have been demonstrated attacks as well as many "theoretical" ones. Interestingly, many of the theoretical attacks become even less theoretical when the number of exit nodes (and, in some cases, even middle relays) goes up. An increased number of end users using the Tor network also decreases the chances of many of them being successful. Perhaps someone should start a fundraiser for an audit of Tor. I would certainly toss a few dollars into the jar for that myself and I suspect sufficient funds could be raised pretty easily.
cgag 12y ago
I've run a non-exit node on my linode for a long time, it's easy and a good way to use the massive amount of leftover bandwidth I have. Everyone with a personal vps should do it.
- s_ 12y ago
  One of my linodes have just 1% bandwidth usage. Do you mind sharing your config file.
  - Spittie 12y ago
    Your distro should ship with a sample config file, otherwise you can find one here: https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/blob/HEAD:/src/config/torrc.sample.in https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/blob/HEAD:/src/config/... Tor has some sane defaults, so you don't need to edit much. I've started running a relay (no exit) node for the challenge, and this is what I'm using: ORPort 9001 Nickname RelayName RelayBandwidthRate 6000 KB RelayBandwidthBurst 10000 KB AccountingMax 500 GB AccountingStart month 1 00:00 ExitPolicy reject *:* RelayBandWidthRate and Burst control how much bandwidth the tor daemon is allowed to use (average and burst obviously), AccountingMax is how much bandwidth the daemon is allowed to use over a given period, and AccountingStart definite that period (in my config a period is a month, and it start at midnight of the first day). Also, once you start it, give it an hour or so to appear in the tor swarm. As long as you have "Self-testing indicates your ORPort is reachable from the outside. Excellent. Publishing server descriptor." in your logs, you should be fine and only have to wait.
    - bruo 12y ago
      First, as a latin american activist, thank you for supporting Tor!! Please consider the following... It's better for the Tor network to don't have a limit on the bandwidth and let the relay just hibernate when it reachs the 500 GB. If you are able to do this, please give it a try. Again, thank you!
      - Spittie 12y ago
Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago
MediaCrush runs a relay (72302D1D0BB2C2667DC7DC5E4DA138B547D5C115) as of today, and has run a hidden service for a long time: http://mediacrs5ujufxog.onion/ http://mediacrs5ujufxog.onion/
cottonseed 12y ago
I hope they do a hidden services challenge after this. It would decrease pressure on exit nodes and increase security for Tor uses, as watching exit node traffic is one of the primary Tor attack vectors.
perlgeek 12y ago
Ok, here's the deal. I have a VPS where I don't pay for IPv6 traffic. If there was a way to run a tor (non-exit) node that only relays IPv6 traffic, I'd do it immediately. Last time I looked at the tor documentation (maybe half a year ago?) there seemed to be no way to run an IPv6-only tor node. Has that changed? Is IPv6 support being worked on?
- ChargingWookie 12y ago
  As far as I know IPv6 does work. Check out https://people.torproject.org/~linus/ipv6-relay-howto.html https://people.torproject.org/~linus/ipv6-relay-howto.html
  - perlgeek 12y ago
    That says specifically > There is currently no way of running an IPv6 only relay which makes it unusable for my application.
basiliothecat 12y ago
Nice idea, but doesn't registering your relay in a network made for anonymous communication sound weird? Definitelely does to me.
- cottonseed 12y ago
  Relays are already registered in the public Tor relay directory. There are two sites to search the directory, Atlas [0] and GLOBE [1]. This is how people know how to connect with them. Tor has unlisted relays, known as bridges, primarily to make it harder to block entry into the Tor network. The point is not that Tor relays are anonymous, but the traffic going through the Tor network is anonymized by bouncing between relays. [0] https://atlas.torproject.org/ https://atlas.torproject.org/ [1] https://globe.torproject.org/ https://globe.torproject.org/
conectorx 12y ago
Tor pretty much lost its credibility after the FBI/NSA Exploit last year... Do we want to beat a dead horse?
madaxe_again 12y ago
This strikes me as insanely dangerous? Why would you submit ANY kind of identifying information if you're running a tor relay? Honeypot. Potentially inadvertent honeypot, but honeypot.
- reitanqild 12y ago
  Running a relay is perfectly legal in many (most?) contries, isn't it? (AFAIK it was originally deployed by USA as a way to secure their field agents comms. )
  - madaxe_again 12y ago
    Perfectly legal doesn't mean that TLA agencies won't be interested in who's running the nodes.
- atmosx 12y ago
  Running a relay doesn't mean anything. You're just an extra-node to improve route-mixing and ultimately anonymity. Makes it harder and more expensive for third parties to track back connections. There's no problem, really. The points you mention arise when you run an 'exit node'.
- aendruk 12y ago
  I don't understand—why would you want to be secretive about running a relay? Especially if you're running an exit relay, I'd expect that you'd be best off doing it in the open so that others can correctly interpret the bizarre traffic they might see. The challenge FAQ [1] even has two points addressing this: > Is it a good idea to let others know that I'm running an exit relay? Yes. Be as transparent as possible about the fact that you're running an exit relay... > Should I tell my ISP that I'm running an exit relay? Yes. Make sure you have a Tor-friendly ISP that knows you're running an exit relay... [1]: https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/faq.html https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/faq.html
  - madaxe_again 12y ago
    why would you want to be secretive about running a relay? You're varying the "if you've got nothing to hide" argument. You would want to be secretive because spy agencies quite definitely ARE interested in who's running nodes, as if they know who runs the nodes, and where they are, shutting the thing down becomes possible. This is how they think. Strategic opportunity. Not what they can do with the data today, but what they could use it for tomorrow. What opportunities they might lose if they didn't have it. This is therefore how you need to think too, and why I think that volunteering this information is a bad idea.
BillFranklin 12y ago
EFF at the top of Hacker News? You guys are awesome. Are you taking part in ResetTheNet? Here's the original thread on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7399298 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7399298
atmosx 12y ago
Hm, this probably does not work if you have 'PublishServerDescriptor 0' in your 'torrc' file.
dandare 12y ago
Graphic designer here. I used to run SETI@Home and I would love to contribute by running a Tor relay from my laptop but I have no idea how. The setup process is all but "easy", the project documentation website lists at least 4 download options and if I get it right there is no GUI for OSx. I have downloaded and installed the Browser Bundle but I have no idea where to go from here. If you want more laypersons like me support this good cause you need to make it easier.
- zanny 12y ago
  The config files are really simple - this right here by itself will run you a relay just by running the tor binary: Nickname whateveryouwant ORPort 9001 BandwidthRate 200 KB BandwidthBurst 500 KB ExitPolicy reject : Just make sure port 9001 allows TCP traffic in, and is forwarded from whatever world facing device you have. You can also get the TOR software bundle for Mac: https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en#mac https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en#ma... That includes vidalia, which is a configuration utility that lets you run a relay. It supports UPnP, so you can avoid even needing to port forward with a supported router.
- ChargingWookie 12y ago
  I saw someone talking about this today in tor-dev. It seems that since laptops/smartphones are not normally helpful as a Tor relay, they've made the instructions difficult on purpose. The consensus seems to be that they only want people with enough knowledge to be able to follow instructions at [0] to host relays. [0] https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-relay-debian https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-relay-debian
RankingMember 12y ago
I think many more people would run these if they didn't think their nodes would be used for child pornography and potentially get them into legal trouble as a result.
- mcone 12y ago
  That's only an issue with exit nodes. No one can see the traffic passing through relays, so if you're concerned about this you could run a relay.
wahsd 12y ago
I don't think it's quite well understood how important this is. In many places, especially where they are most important, those relays and exit points are not controlled by whom one would expect, let alone a diverse interest group. When you control a certain number of nodes and exits, Tor becomes a pretty open book.
Afforess 12y ago
I would if I could, but my home IP would get banned from many of the forums I frequent. I know a lot of forum websites now auto-ban tor exit node IPs.
- scott_karana 12y ago
  Fortunately, this challenge is about relays, not exit nodes. I'm sure that the EFF is well aware of the liability issues running exit nodes. :)
  - dsl 12y ago
    Most people don't know the difference. I ran a relay from my home for a while until I started getting blocked from video streaming sites and the websites of things like the Olympics.

259 points by middleclick 12y ago

Not a bad idea. I would however add a little spice to the incentive by having some kind of raffle on top of the t-shirt and sticker, just to get some more traction. "Run a tor relay for a year, your chance to get a free free laptop!" I understand many people would enter the raffle just for the laptop, but if they do run their TOR relay for a year to get it, what's the problem? Of course, it might not be well perceived or even legal in some jurisdictions. EDIT: This being the EFF, making the winning laptop a Gluglug would make so much sense it hurts. Then you could say "free free" laptop, too :) https://www.fsf.org/news/gluglug-x60-laptop-now-certified-to-respect-your-freedom https://www.fsf.org/news/gluglug-x60-laptop-now-certified-to... EDIT2: Typoes. Duh!

ISL 12y ago
Agreed. To many people, a chance at a substantial prize is worth more than a T-shirt. Those who run exit nodes take tangible risk and provide real value; compensating them is a good thing!
jlgaddis 12y ago
Agreed. I already have a Tor t-shirt and I'd certainly love a Tor sticker (even more so than a laptop or whatever) to put on my already "heavily stickered" work laptop but a bigger incentive might certainly convince some others to fire up a relay. The FSF is also a "supporter" of this project so the Gluglug X60 would be very fitting as a "grand prize". I first joined both the FSF and the EFF about a decade ago and I would be quite happy to have my membership dollars going towards something like that. Hell, if EFF/FSF/Tor did a fundraiser just for something like this, I would throw in some money specifically earmarked for the purchase of these prizes. Side note: anyone know where I can get one of those Tor stickers? :-)

jmnicolas 12y ago

Back in the days, I used to have a dedicated Freenet box running permanently. AFAIK I couldn't do this with TOR, my ISP don't allow it.

droope 12y ago
Just don't be an exit node.
jlgaddis 12y ago
You can run a middle relay which won't generate abuse complaints like an exit node would.

nicpottier 12y ago

I'm actually mildly interested in doing this, keeping Tor healthy is a worthy goal. Anybody run the numbers (and are there legal repercussions?) on the cost of running a relay at 1MB/s on AWS for a year?

droope 12y ago
I reckon aws is quite expensive. I'd get a fixed price bandwidth VPS, but I am not sure what hosting to recommend.
- jlgaddis 12y ago
  Yeah, there are plenty of places cheaper than AWS. From looking into it previously (and following the tor-relays list), it seems that many providers are okay with customers running middle relays (as those don't generate abuse complaints) but frown upon exit nodes (primarily due to the extra workload, AFAICT).
atmosx 12y ago
You don't have legal issues for running relays. Traffic is encrypted so can't be analyzed and since you're not an exit node there's no risk of performing illegal actions with your IP address.
nammi 12y ago
The Tor Project has a dedicated page for setting up relays on EC2 instances: >The Tor Cloud images have been configured to use no more than 40 GB of bandwidth out per month. We have estimated that customers who do not qualify for the free usage tier will pay up to $20 a month for an instance located in us-east-1 (Virginia). >Customers who qualify for the free usage tier, but who run bridges that use more than 15 GB of bandwidth out per month, will pay up to $3 per month for an instance located in us-east-1 (Virginia). https://cloud.torproject.org/ https://cloud.torproject.org/

chatmasta 12y ago

I'm working on research for monetizing Tor relays, providing an incentive to relay operators. It's called TorCoin. We introduce an alternative cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, to reward relay operators for transferring bandwidth. Rather than being CPU intensive, it's bandwidth intensive -- so one TorCoin represents a certain amount of bandwidth transferred. We will be presenting our research at the HotPETS privacy workshop in Amsterdam in July [1]. Here's a link to the paper if you're interested (I'm Miles). [2] Keep in mind it's an early draft. [1] http://petsymposium.org/2014/hotpets.php http://petsymposium.org/2014/hotpets.php [2] https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7r4osQgWVqKTHdxTlowUVpsVmJRcjF3Y3dtcTVscFhEaW5F https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7r4osQgWVqKTHdxTlowUVpsVmJR... My email is in the paper, but it's miles.richardson@yale.edu

tribaal 12y ago
That is not a bad idea either... but: This will be a challenge: the number of people willing and able to run TOR relays is quite small, and the subcategory of those interested in a (new) cryptocurrency is even smaller. Reaching critical mass for the currency to be interesting is going to be hard.
- kylebrown 12y ago
  I think you are underestimating the size of the market. Seems like there's demand for every flavor of alt-coin: gimmickyCoin, mediocreCoin, memeCoin, yetAnotherCoin, every single one gets 15 minutes or more. Try looking at it from the miners' perspective. The pitch isn't "buy our coin, and use this guide to help yourself install the dependencies needed to run our beta software." Instead, its "get paid coins, all you have to do is leave the relayCoin bandwidth-miner running while you sleep." In the future, proof-of-bandwidth / proof-of-relay "coin" incentives on next-gen layer 3 protocols will bootstrap the transition to a global, p2p wireless mesh network (wireless at the edges and sparse areas, the big pipes and backhauls will still be fiber). It will look something like "leave this wifiMeshCoin nodeBox attached to your cable modem. It will open an unlocked wifi hotspot for anyone nearby. some people will get free access through a metered guest connection, and you might earn a little coin. But if you get lucky and your nodeBox can form a bridge connection to somebody else's nodeBox at a different ISP, that bridge relay will earn a lot of coin. Another option is to invest $2k to get a 4G/5G cellular micro-tower from NextGen Labs, one of those could earn you $500/mo in relayPower if there are enough unlocked CDMA phones in your area. You can resell the unlocked phones as well."

ChrisAntaki 12y ago

Brilliant. Great work EFF!

xwintermutex 12y ago

I would like to run a Tor exit-relay, but I am too afraid to do this, as I live in a what used to be liberal western country called "the Netherlands". Where the police sometimes raid Tor exit-relays on purpose, to discourage people from helping Tor [1]. [1]: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/trip-report-tor-trainings-dutch-and-belgian-police https://blog.torproject.org/blog/trip-report-tor-trainings-d...

vacri 12y ago
One of the speakers at Ruxcon last year worked for an enterprise, and mentioned that for fun, he'd spin up a Tor node, then time how long it took for the 'cease and desist' email (not enforceable) to come through. I think he said his best time was 10 minutes.
wcoenen 12y ago
"Exit-relay" ? You must mean either "exit node" or "relay node". AFAIK the risk of raids only exists for exit nodes, so you can still run a relay node.
- ropiku 12y ago
  According to https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/what-is-tor.html https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/what-is-tor.html they call them "middle relays, exit relays, and bridges".
luxpir 12y ago
The comments there took a dark turn very quickly. Shame the thread's closed, with no counterpoints offered before doing so. See also these two independent reports, one written, one an audio recording of a presentation, by a Dutch activist I happened across: - http://raided4tor.cryto.net/ http://raided4tor.cryto.net/ [text] - https://archive.org/details/OHM2013-Partyvan https://archive.org/details/OHM2013-Partyvan [audio] EDIT: To sum up, the activist advises that activism is not something to be taken lightly, and there is a real cost to being targeted by law enforcement. I know relays are different to exits, but it's not encouraging when you want to assist!
12y ago

na85 12y ago

I'm reluctant to jump on this bandwagon as I don't feel that Tor is as secure as they say. There have already been demonstrated attacks against node anonymity and until Tor gets a public audit I'm not sure it's wise to encourage people to use Tor. As they say, flawed crypto is worse than no crypto at all.

jlgaddis 12y ago
You're right that there have been demonstrated attacks as well as many "theoretical" ones. Interestingly, many of the theoretical attacks become even less theoretical when the number of exit nodes (and, in some cases, even middle relays) goes up. An increased number of end users using the Tor network also decreases the chances of many of them being successful. Perhaps someone should start a fundraiser for an audit of Tor. I would certainly toss a few dollars into the jar for that myself and I suspect sufficient funds could be raised pretty easily.

cgag 12y ago

I've run a non-exit node on my linode for a long time, it's easy and a good way to use the massive amount of leftover bandwidth I have. Everyone with a personal vps should do it.

s_ 12y ago
One of my linodes have just 1% bandwidth usage. Do you mind sharing your config file.
- Spittie 12y ago
  Your distro should ship with a sample config file, otherwise you can find one here: https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/blob/HEAD:/src/config/torrc.sample.in https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/blob/HEAD:/src/config/... Tor has some sane defaults, so you don't need to edit much. I've started running a relay (no exit) node for the challenge, and this is what I'm using: ORPort 9001 Nickname RelayName RelayBandwidthRate 6000 KB RelayBandwidthBurst 10000 KB AccountingMax 500 GB AccountingStart month 1 00:00 ExitPolicy reject *:* RelayBandWidthRate and Burst control how much bandwidth the tor daemon is allowed to use (average and burst obviously), AccountingMax is how much bandwidth the daemon is allowed to use over a given period, and AccountingStart definite that period (in my config a period is a month, and it start at midnight of the first day). Also, once you start it, give it an hour or so to appear in the tor swarm. As long as you have "Self-testing indicates your ORPort is reachable from the outside. Excellent. Publishing server descriptor." in your logs, you should be fine and only have to wait.
  - bruo 12y ago
    First, as a latin american activist, thank you for supporting Tor!! Please consider the following... It's better for the Tor network to don't have a limit on the bandwidth and let the relay just hibernate when it reachs the 500 GB. If you are able to do this, please give it a try. Again, thank you!
    - Spittie 12y ago

Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago

MediaCrush runs a relay (72302D1D0BB2C2667DC7DC5E4DA138B547D5C115) as of today, and has run a hidden service for a long time: http://mediacrs5ujufxog.onion/ http://mediacrs5ujufxog.onion/

cottonseed 12y ago

I hope they do a hidden services challenge after this. It would decrease pressure on exit nodes and increase security for Tor uses, as watching exit node traffic is one of the primary Tor attack vectors.

perlgeek 12y ago

Ok, here's the deal. I have a VPS where I don't pay for IPv6 traffic. If there was a way to run a tor (non-exit) node that only relays IPv6 traffic, I'd do it immediately. Last time I looked at the tor documentation (maybe half a year ago?) there seemed to be no way to run an IPv6-only tor node. Has that changed? Is IPv6 support being worked on?

ChargingWookie 12y ago
As far as I know IPv6 does work. Check out https://people.torproject.org/~linus/ipv6-relay-howto.html https://people.torproject.org/~linus/ipv6-relay-howto.html
- perlgeek 12y ago
  That says specifically > There is currently no way of running an IPv6 only relay which makes it unusable for my application.

basiliothecat 12y ago

Nice idea, but doesn't registering your relay in a network made for anonymous communication sound weird? Definitelely does to me.

cottonseed 12y ago
Relays are already registered in the public Tor relay directory. There are two sites to search the directory, Atlas [0] and GLOBE [1]. This is how people know how to connect with them. Tor has unlisted relays, known as bridges, primarily to make it harder to block entry into the Tor network. The point is not that Tor relays are anonymous, but the traffic going through the Tor network is anonymized by bouncing between relays. [0] https://atlas.torproject.org/ https://atlas.torproject.org/ [1] https://globe.torproject.org/ https://globe.torproject.org/

conectorx 12y ago

Tor pretty much lost its credibility after the FBI/NSA Exploit last year... Do we want to beat a dead horse?

madaxe_again 12y ago

This strikes me as insanely dangerous? Why would you submit ANY kind of identifying information if you're running a tor relay? Honeypot. Potentially inadvertent honeypot, but honeypot.

reitanqild 12y ago
Running a relay is perfectly legal in many (most?) contries, isn't it? (AFAIK it was originally deployed by USA as a way to secure their field agents comms. )
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  Perfectly legal doesn't mean that TLA agencies won't be interested in who's running the nodes.
atmosx 12y ago
Running a relay doesn't mean anything. You're just an extra-node to improve route-mixing and ultimately anonymity. Makes it harder and more expensive for third parties to track back connections. There's no problem, really. The points you mention arise when you run an 'exit node'.
aendruk 12y ago
I don't understand—why would you want to be secretive about running a relay? Especially if you're running an exit relay, I'd expect that you'd be best off doing it in the open so that others can correctly interpret the bizarre traffic they might see. The challenge FAQ [1] even has two points addressing this: > Is it a good idea to let others know that I'm running an exit relay? Yes. Be as transparent as possible about the fact that you're running an exit relay... > Should I tell my ISP that I'm running an exit relay? Yes. Make sure you have a Tor-friendly ISP that knows you're running an exit relay... [1]: https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/faq.html https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/faq.html
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  why would you want to be secretive about running a relay? You're varying the "if you've got nothing to hide" argument. You would want to be secretive because spy agencies quite definitely ARE interested in who's running nodes, as if they know who runs the nodes, and where they are, shutting the thing down becomes possible. This is how they think. Strategic opportunity. Not what they can do with the data today, but what they could use it for tomorrow. What opportunities they might lose if they didn't have it. This is therefore how you need to think too, and why I think that volunteering this information is a bad idea.

BillFranklin 12y ago

EFF at the top of Hacker News? You guys are awesome. Are you taking part in ResetTheNet? Here's the original thread on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7399298 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7399298

atmosx 12y ago

Hm, this probably does not work if you have 'PublishServerDescriptor 0' in your 'torrc' file.

dandare 12y ago

Graphic designer here. I used to run SETI@Home and I would love to contribute by running a Tor relay from my laptop but I have no idea how. The setup process is all but "easy", the project documentation website lists at least 4 download options and if I get it right there is no GUI for OSx. I have downloaded and installed the Browser Bundle but I have no idea where to go from here. If you want more laypersons like me support this good cause you need to make it easier.

zanny 12y ago
The config files are really simple - this right here by itself will run you a relay just by running the tor binary: Nickname whateveryouwant ORPort 9001 BandwidthRate 200 KB BandwidthBurst 500 KB ExitPolicy reject : Just make sure port 9001 allows TCP traffic in, and is forwarded from whatever world facing device you have. You can also get the TOR software bundle for Mac: https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en#mac https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en#ma... That includes vidalia, which is a configuration utility that lets you run a relay. It supports UPnP, so you can avoid even needing to port forward with a supported router.
ChargingWookie 12y ago
I saw someone talking about this today in tor-dev. It seems that since laptops/smartphones are not normally helpful as a Tor relay, they've made the instructions difficult on purpose. The consensus seems to be that they only want people with enough knowledge to be able to follow instructions at [0] to host relays. [0] https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-relay-debian https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-relay-debian

RankingMember 12y ago

I think many more people would run these if they didn't think their nodes would be used for child pornography and potentially get them into legal trouble as a result.

mcone 12y ago
That's only an issue with exit nodes. No one can see the traffic passing through relays, so if you're concerned about this you could run a relay.

wahsd 12y ago

I don't think it's quite well understood how important this is. In many places, especially where they are most important, those relays and exit points are not controlled by whom one would expect, let alone a diverse interest group. When you control a certain number of nodes and exits, Tor becomes a pretty open book.

Afforess 12y ago

I would if I could, but my home IP would get banned from many of the forums I frequent. I know a lot of forum websites now auto-ban tor exit node IPs.

scott_karana 12y ago
Fortunately, this challenge is about relays, not exit nodes. I'm sure that the EFF is well aware of the liability issues running exit nodes. :)
- dsl 12y ago
  Most people don't know the difference. I ran a relay from my home for a while until I started getting blocked from video streaming sites and the websites of things like the Olympics.