Re: more letters from the feds

[Robert Hogan <robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday 08 January 2007 11:42, Alexander Janssen wrote:
> And it also should be pointed out omce again that it would be a rather
> stupid idea to run a TOR exit-node at home, for a dynamic IP-address
> is blinking wildly on their radar. The possible consequences are left
> up to your imagination.
>

I think this is a valid point. I ran an exit-node for a short while at home 
without thinking too much about it. The huge amount of traffic I was 
attracting (even within minutes of booting up) made me shut it off for the 
sake of personal convenience, but I don't think I will ever go back - 
explaining to the authorities why child porn/terrorist manuals/online fraud 
appear to have originated from my home IP is not an edifying prospect, to say 
the least.

These days I generally run a middle-man node but even that has started to feel 
inappropriate for home use. I would be amazed if regular appearances on 
directory servers does not blink wildly on some form of institutional radar, 
low-hanging fruit and all that.

So my questions are:

* From a common-sense, peace-of-mind point of view, is running an exit-node 
strictly for co-located servers? Does anyone here run one at home? If so, 
have you had second thoughts?

* Are tor-at-home users who run middleman servers out of the goodness of their 
heart possibly exposing themselves to unwanted attention? Do we have any 
evidence of such attention, anecdotal or otherwise?

* Is there some good way of helping a user to weigh this all up? 

Sorry for labouring the point a bit but I agree with the OP: I wouldn't 
recommend anyone to run an exit-server from home. Is this received wisdom 
among experienced users, or are we just being alarmist? If not, does this 
need to be spelt out to new users a little better, or do we just assume that 
they are competent enough to grasp all the possible consequences of their 
actions?

-- 

KlamAV - An Anti-Virus Manager for KDE - http://www.klamav.net
TorK   - A Tor Controller For KDE      - http://tork.sf.net