Re: Am I really helping tor

[Roger Dingledine <arma@xxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 12:06:18AM +0300, ivvmm wrote:
> I am running tor-0.2.1.10-alpha bridge on my server.

You're running a bridge. Great. Bridges are designed to not be in any
public directory, though:
https://www.torproject.org/bridges
So it should not be surprising to you that it's not in the directory. :)

> And again after a
> certain period of time it does not appear on
> http://moria.seul.org:9032/tor/status/authority list(at first it did,
> DirPort & ORPort are still reachable).

Btw, you're using the "v2" directory protocol there. It will be phased
out at some point. (Neither the stable 0.2.0.x series nor the development
0.2.1.x series use it.)
https://svn.torproject.org/svn/tor/trunk/doc/spec/dir-spec.txt

> I see _very_ little activity on
> my 9030 port through `tcpdump port 9030`.

DirPorts aren't really used much anymore. Most clients make an encrypted
connection to the ORPort, and do their directory queries from there.

But that said, you probably won't see much traffic on your ORPort
either, yet, since you're a bridge. At this point, bridges are a future
step on the "blocking resistance" arms race:
https://svn.torproject.org/svn/tor/trunk/doc/design-paper/blocking.html
and no country has gotten that far on the arms race yet. So they're more
a strategy that we have in reserve for the time when we need it.

Hope that helps,
--Roger