Re: Using Tor at an on-line advocacy org

[phobos@xxxxxxxxxx]

On Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 09:28:51PM -0700, firefox-gen@xxxxxxxxxx wrote 1.5K bytes in 40 lines about:
: Anyway, we are testing the possibility of using Tor to help prevent
: being blacklisted by Congressional IT bureaucrats. In conjunction with

	What would be blacklisted?  Your current IPs and domains or Tor
	Servers?  Circumventing blocks with Tor will only result in Tor
	being blocked.  Angering Congress IT people doesn't seem smart.
	Perhaps the people with which you interact aren't scientists,
	but I'll assure you these people exist.  Starting an arms race
	with them is a losing proposition.  Chances are they can
	outspend you on solutions.  

: this, we'd like to encourage participants (at least donor
: participants) to help out by running their own Tor exit nodes to
: improve the anonymity and bandwidth capability of the network we've
: all come to know and love. I'm all for doing this, but the question
: is, how do we do this in a proper manner? My fear is that spreading
: the word too much will get us in trouble eventually. Worst case

	"Yay Tor more nodes!"  Helping create more Tor nodes is great.  Doing
	so with a long-term commitment is better.  Your choices really
	come down to funding your own projects or funding Tor to build
	these things (LiveCD, USB Stick, point-click-tor-exit node, tor
	exit node in a box if you will).  There exist a few projects
	similar to these.   Many of these are orphans.  

	Alternatively, helping Tor better document and make it easier to
	create exit nodes is just as big of a help.  Having easy to
	follow instructions and GUIs (such as Vidalia) go a long way
	towards more nodes.  

	As for spreading the word, the horse is out of the barn and
	halfway across the country.  Tor is not a secret.  If you're
	looking to anger the IT dept for Congress, don't use Tor as the
	leverage.  It's bad for Tor, and bad for you in the long run.  

	These are my initial thoughts.  I may have more later on.

	Thanks!
-- 
Andrew