Re: Using Tor at an on-line advocacy org

[Andrew Del Vecchio <firefox-gen@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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Thanks for the insights so far. I have done some documentation work on
the wiki, but I've run out of things to write. What are the areas most
in need of documentation that is also NOT programming side, which I
don't know much about? I also support the project financially already.
Perhaps I can get some of our members to do so as well.

We would be using Tor as a cover for a cluster of e-mail servers which
send constituent messages to Congress. Currently, we do this directly,
but we've had a few isolated "accidents" in the past that were not
explained, and seemed a bit like political censorship, though we can't
prove it due to the usual "plausible deniability" that politicians so
treasure.

I agree that this whole thing may have negative consequences, but
would it be possible to configure Tor so that we had a separate node
network that was not connected to Tor, at least not as far as end
nodes go? This would shift and contain the blame to our participants
and not the entire community. Still, governments are famous for their
tendency toward collective punishment, so perhaps that wouldn't do
much anyway.

Is there any other solution?

~Andrew

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On 03/20/2007 07:05 PM, phobos@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 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!
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