Hi, On Apr 20, 2008, at 1:32 PM, Alexander Bernauer wrote:
[snip] The basic idea is to develop a browser plugin which while active turns the computer into both an Tor client and a Tor exit node. The targetgroup is a Windows XP or Vista user with almost no technical skills butfear of pop-ups asking strange things. We are experienced in providing and promoting security software to them [2] and we beliefe that this solution will be accepted and widely used.
I don't think a browser plugin is a good choice for an application that can act as a Tor exit node. Please note how long it takes for a Tor node to be used by clients, and how often Users close their browsers. I think this will produce a huge amount of overhead when such nodes are sending their descriptors and others will try to use them a few hours later, when they have been shut down again.
There is another reason why I think a browser plugin is ill suited: In my opinion, users want browser plugins for a specific purpose, for example play a movie or block Flash. They don't want a plugin that does arbitrary things they don't quite understand.
If you find a good solution for how to make use of Tor relays behind restrictive firewalls, that'd be most awesome, but I think such an approach should be included in the Tor software.
Note that currently, any relay must be able to connect to any other relay.
Sebastian