Re: Paid performance-tor option?

[Scott Bennett <bennett@xxxxxxxxxx>]

     On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:45:52 +0700 Roy Lanek <lanek@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote, quoting me without attribution:
>>      Why, to the administration at the university (or the bosses at the
>> company) one works for or to one's ISP, of course. Perhaps also to a judge.
>> Wasn't that obvious?
>
>No, it was not obvious. And it STILL is not.

     Oh.  Okay.  Let me attempt to clarify.  First, let me say that I do
not know which country's/countries' environment(s) inform(s) your perspective,
so I will try to explain what a tor server operator here in the U.S. may well
be up against.
     tor server operators generally fall into one or both of the following
categories:  those who run their servers using their employers' resources
and those who run their servers using their own private resources.  Those
who use their employers' resources do so either with their employers'
official or tacit approval or without approval, in the latter case perhaps
following the ancient maxim that it is better to ask forgiveness than to
ask for permission.  In either situation, the server operator who wishes
to continue to be allowed to run the server should avoid drawing unwanted
management attention to the server.  Server activities that cause complaints
that may result in legal hassles for the employer are especially likely to
get the server shut down, and in some situations might even result in some
sort of disciplinary action against the server operator.
     A partial exception to this is likely to be found in academic
institutions and some kinds of non-profit and/or advocacy organizations.
Colleges, universities, and public research insititutions (DOE-operated
national labs excepted, of course), for example, have a strong traditional
streak of support for the freedoms of press and speech--yes, those very same
ones found in the first ratified article of amendment to our now discarded
Constitution--and may well be more likely than businesses to stand up for the
freedom of electronic communication fostered by tor, but that doesn't
mean that they would be happy about devoting their limited legal counsel
resources to defend an employee's pet tor server's configuration.  They
may also not wish to devote potentially 80% - 90% of their bandwidth
budget to people stealing copyrighted movies, etc., rather than to uses
that are normally part of the institutions' missions.  That may still go
on, of course, but not identifiably so if their is no open exit for it.
     tor server operators using their own private resources for their
servers face a related reality.  Most are running their servers on their
computers at home over an ISP's link to the Internet and are thus at the
mercies of their ISPs.  In many areas, there is only one ISP to choose
from, so if a tor server's activities cause the ISP to drop the customer's
service, that tor server is effectively shut down permanently.  Where more
than one ISP is available, service levels and prices typically differ from 
one ISP to the next.  If a server operator is currently getting the best
deal available in the area, then there is a strong incentive not to allow
one's exit server's activities to drop the account.
     In some countries, e.g., Germany, tor server operators have been
arrested and their equipment (and data!) have been confiscated because of
some of their servers' exit activities.  A typical home server operator
is not going to be well prepared to afford the time, stress, or money to
face such situations.
>
>Besides, what are you trying to say, that one--example--as a soldier [I have
>been in the army], or, more in general, as a pawn needs to let go a slap on
>the butt of the waitress bringing food or a drink at a restaurant so to become
>accepted by his "bosses" and the others?

     I have no idea what that is about, much less how it is supposed to be
relevant to the discussion.
>
>If so, are you writing from a *free country*? Or: are you Ch1n3s3?
>(Accordingly to a *cliche'*, Chinese can't lose face.)
>
     No, to both questions.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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* Internet:       bennett at cs.niu.edu                              *
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