RE: Choose exitnodes in country x

[Wesley Kenzie <wkenzie@xxxxxxx>]

You are correct - this is not just to be a commercial service.

We do not intend to offer a completely anonymous service, but rather to
extend the existing usefulness of Tor to more users and to provide
functionality which we are always being asked about - namely how to spoof
being in a particular geographic location.

We will make it as clear as we can where anonymity can be compromised or
exposed, much as Tor already does on it's download page.

Our server(s) will function as an entry point to the Tor network, but if we
can find a way to afford to scale it then we will distribute these to
various locations so there will be multiple and (relatively) randomly
selected servers and port numbers.

The use of polipo will be optional - again we will make everyone aware of
it's implications.  I have seen how it improves the speed and responsiveness
of using Tor, so would like to make that available to people who want it.

Basically we see that not everyone needs or wants 100% anonymity, and we do
not intend to only target that market.  In fact, is it even possible
anywhere with anything right now?

We're also listening to what our users want, so welcome comments and cat
calls :)

. . .
Wesley  


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-or-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-or-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Cat Okita
Sent: July 4, 2007 4:22 PM
To: or-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: or-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Choose exitnodes in country x



Hi Wesley -

I'm going to presume that your email isn't advertising a commercial service,
which I'd certainly find to be in dubious taste, both from the standpoint of
inappropriate advertising, and from the moral standpoint of profiting from
the goodwill of others.

However - could you say a word-or-five about the privacy and anonymity
implications of connecting directly to your well known site, and then asking
for a specific exit node?

It seems to me that you're not only encouraging people to make highly
identifiable connections to a single location (stunnel or OpenVPN to your
servers), which would then be an excellent target for compromising anonymity
- but you're also then encouraging people to reduce their anonymity by
selecting extremely specific exit nodes, making it again, easier to identify
and target them.

I note that you're saying that Vidalia and Privoxy won't be required - is
your plan to run all of the user traffic through your server, and then
through the Tor network?

A comment on the implications of using a caching web proxy for Tor users on
your server would be interesting as well.

cheers!

On Wed, 4 Jul 2007, Wesley Kenzie wrote:
> pickaproxy.com and geospoofing.com will be offering this functionality 
> as a server-side service - you will be able to choose an exit node in 
> country/state/city/ISP/Org so that the server can then setup a 
> long-lived Tor circuit for you - you will then be advised on how to 
> configure your workstation proxy settings, with regard to port number 
> and domain/host name. This does not require you to install Tor on your 
> machine, or to upgrade it when new versions come around.  Nor will 
> Vidalia or Privoxy be required on the workstation.
>
> We will offer options to use stunnel or OpenVPN connections to our 
> server (your proxy).  And we're looking at using polipo (on the 
> server) to speed things up.
>
> We have multiple sources of geolocation data so they will be more 
> accurate than the open source GeoIP library - we pay for them where 
> the license requires us to.
>
> . . .
> Wesley Kenzie
> WebMaster, showmyip.com, etc.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-or-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-or-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
> On Behalf Of Robert Hogan
> Sent: July 3, 2007 12:58 PM
> To: or-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Choose exitnodes in country x
>
>
> On Tuesday 03 July 2007 15:35:21 you wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> it would be nice to have the ability to choose only exitnodes in 
>> country X. Additional to "ExitNodes nickname, ..." something like 
>> this "ExitCountry country, ..." would be nice. country should be the 
>> official TLD code I think http://www.iana.org/root-whois/index.html
>>
>> There is more and more censorship at websites that only allows 
>> visitors from specific countries or show different content.
>>
>
> As Jonathan Yu pointed out there is no particularly reliable method 
> for choosing by country, geoip is the closest match out there.
>
> TorK uses geoip to offer a 'Citizen Of' feature, where you choose the 
> country you want to 'browse the internet from', i.e. use exitnodes 
> from only that country.
>
> --
>
> Browse Anonymously Anywhere	- http://anonymityanywhere.com
> TorK	- KDE Anonymity Manager	- http://tork.sf.net
> KlamAV	- KDE Anti-Virus 	- http://www.klamav.net
>
>
>

==========================================================================
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid
getting wet.  This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."