I recently made the observation that despite the fact that new nodes join the Tor network at a reasonable rate, other nodes disappear from the Tor network as well, such that the total number of Tor nodes in the system remains relatively constant. I have also noticed in particular that while the number of nodes in Germany seems to be increasing over time, the number of nodes in the United States seems to be decreasing over time. While a few months ago there were roughly eighty US nodes, now there are fewer than sixty. My question, particularly (but not exclusively) to American Tor node operators is: what factors have influenced your decision to remain a participant in the Tor network? If you have shut down your node, then why have you done so? Roger and I can think of several possibile reasons why you (Tor node operators) might allow your nodes to disappear from the system: 1. You lose interest in the Tor project. 2. You become disillusioned with the goals of the Tor project. 3. Tor crashes too often to be useful to you personally. 4. Managing an installation of Tor is too difficult to be worth your effort. 5. Your ISP threatens to terminate your Internet access contract if you do not stop running Tor. 6. Blacklisting by Tor-unfriendly Internet resource providers (such as Wikipedia or Google Groups) is unpalatable to you. 7. Tor crashed while you were not looking, and you forgot about it or otherwise failed to restart it. ---------- What are your thoughts? Which of these possible explanations are most relevant in your case? Am I missing some other explanation, perhaps? Geoff
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