Re: [tor-talk] A thought experiment on direct action

[Roger Dingledine <arma@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 10:05:26AM +0100, Just Talkin' wrote:
> All this would be very abusive of other people's paid-for Internet
> connections, and very anti-social!

Sounds to me like a great way to make more people think that Tor exit
relays are immoral antisocial things, and that anything related to Tor
is a criminal plague that any good sysadmin should try to get rid of.

We're in a fight for public opinion here, and anything that makes
more people think that when they discover Tor, it is a malicious
infection that they should get rid of... will hurt the ordinary people
who need Tor for their continued safety.

And if that argument doesn't convince you :), consider also that very
fast Tor relays are much more useful to the network than slower ones.
You're unlikely to sneak a Tor relay into a stable 100mbit connection, or
if you do, it won't very long, and worse, you'll make that ISP hate Tor.

This last point reminds me of my "slash-and burn agriculture" analogy
for relay hosting:
https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2013-November/003240.html

>  But could it be effective as a
> "civil disobedience" campaign to get authorities to permit (and even
> protect) the rights of people to operate exit nodes so we wouldn't
> have to steal other people's connections but could openly operate
> them without harassment?  Or would it just not work?  Or cause a
> backlash?

Ah ha -- I think I've figured out the disconnect. Exit relays aren't
scarce because of governments that don't permit them. Exit relays are
scarce because ISPs are nervous to let people run them. It's a social
(ok, and economic) thing, not a legal thing.

--Roger

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