Re: Many Vietnamese exit-nodes: what does it mean?

[Roger Dingledine <arma@xxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 09:30:36AM +0300, James Brown wrote:
> Last weeks I see that my Tor client often connects with exit-nodes
> having Vietnamese ip-addresses.

Often?

Looking at
http://trunk.torstatus.kgprog.com/index.php?SR=CountryCode&SO=Desc
I see two relays in Vietnam. Only one -- hanhphuc -- is of much
consequence. Neither of them are exit relays. So I would expect that
you would never see a Vietnamese IP address as your exit relay.

Perhaps you are confused about what country the IP addresses are
associated with?

...Or perhaps I am? :) (Check out how many nodes on that site are
allegedly affiliated with Namibia, to get a sense of how effective geoip
db's are these days.)

> I think that Vietnam is a backward country with very poor people.
> Can that fact mean that this nodes works under control of Russian
> security services?

I think that's a pretty big leap. Why not first suspect that the
several-dozen relays in Russia are operated by Russian intelligence?

More generally, I think the odds are better that relays (both in Russia
and in Vietnam if we were to get some) are run by good people, and
telephone companies / country-wide networks are monitored by intelligence
services. And then comes the question of where your destination website
is and who's watching *it*. Things get complex quickly.

> P.S. I heard that Putin's secret police mounted many tor-nodes for
> unintelligible purposes.

I'd be surprised. Why run a Tor relay of your own when you can just
watch somebody else's?

I guess it's hard to answer any theory that includes the phrase
"unintelligible purposes". :)

--Roger

***********************************************************************
To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx with
unsubscribe or-talk    in the body. http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/