Re: A Few Random Thoughts...

[Roger Dingledine <arma@xxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 08:16:00AM -0400, Michael wrote:
>    What I *am* doing is deploying a couple of heavy iron closed relays 
> on OC3 or better bandwidth. The first is now deployed after a lot of up 
> and down testing, and I'll get to the second in due time.

Sounds great. Let us know if you have any questions or run into any
problems.

Depending on how you're installing, you might like the development
version (currently 0.2.1.16-rc). The 0.2.1.x series is going to become
the new "stable" soon (it's already probably more stable in practice
than 0.2.0.35), and it's way better in a number of other ways.

But either 0.2.0.x or 0.2.1.x is fine, really.

>    On the "Who uses Tor?" section of the website, I see no mention of 
> IT people. I've used the Tor network for many practical uses as an IT 
> Director.

That's a really good point.

Especially since a lot of the people who really hate/fear Tor are IT
folks who don't understand it.

>    Quite frankly Tor is an undervalued IT tool and it's capabilities 
> should be trumpeted loudly on the web page. You might also find IT guys 
> like me throwing up some relays in exchange. After all- who has the 
> bandwidth anyway?

Yep. The next step is to come up with some really good clean simple
example sentences for our new category. Those examples will dictate the
title we give it -- "Security experts use Tor", "Sysadmins use Tor",
"Computer experts use Tor", or something else.

>  So 
> if Tor as an organization had a partnership with a few server rental 
> whores (in multiple countries), it would simplify getting more exits.

If anybody knows good places, please let us know. :) There's a small
list being built here:
https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/GoodBadISPs

Another concern is that if we centralize all the exit relays in a few
places, we reduce the anonymity that the Tor network can provide. But I
don't think we're anywhere near doing that yet, so it's just something
to keep in the back of our minds.

>    I read back about 6 months in the or-talk list and there were a 
> couple of suggestions inferring that *everyone* should be forced to be 
> an exit node. I think this is a very bad idea,

Me too. Don't worry, we won't do it. But see also
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/two-incentive-designs-tor

--Roger