[tor-talk] A forwarded response

[Anonymous Tormaster <anyonymoustormaster@xxxxxxxxx>]

I don't believe it's right that trolls get the right to basically accuse
Conrad of violating the principles of the Tor network just because he wants
to offer donation based FreeBSD VMs to run Tor Exits. He has stated that he
is unable to post to the lists and he is not being provided a reason on why
he is unable to post to the lists.

I can understand somewhat that he might be advertising but I don't
understand why he's publicly reprimanded then banished yet now we're
allowing people to trash someone who has actually contributed somewhat
decently to this community. This action or inaction is disgusting and
unacceptable and fosters and unwelcoming and hostile user climate all
because Conrad wanted to HELP.

So I'm including his full reply he sent me and I'm sending it anonymously
because that's what seems to be popular these days:

Hello,

I'm sure that this original email was a personal attack and trolling,
but given that it has aroused some interest in some of the emails I
have received off-list, and the fact that Herbert did make the comment
that keeping things below the surface may destroy trust, I will answer
your points in question, Mr. Revolution.

> You worked at the National Reconnaissance Office of the United States
which is the most secretive branch of the United States Intelligence
Community
> You worked at the Naval Security Group Activity which is the United
States Navy's version of the National Security Agency

I was previously stationed at the NRO/SPAWAR Washington DC and
Temporarily Attached to NSGA/NIOC and NRL on several occasions while I
was on Active Duty in the Navy. I was stationed at various places,
attached to various commands, served in various capacities and I
haven't kept my previous affiliation with the US Government a secret
by any means at all. I have no reason to, in fact, I'm very proud of
what I've done in service of my country. That being said, I've been
retired from Active Duty as of February 25, 2015 and in civilian
employment since and I haven't had any employment affiliated with any
government agency. This point is kind of moot.

I've never kept my Naval Service Hidden, in fact, I brought it up as
examples of Government/Military uses of Tor on the mailing list.

> You have a Security Clearance but you don't specify what type but I
wonder why someone with a SECURITY CLEARANCE would want to work with Tor

My security clearance serves no purpose at this point other than
making criminal background checks easier and allowing me, as a
cybersecurity professional, easier trusted access through
organizations that utilize the Federal Government's security clearance
adjudicative standards the ability to grant me access faster. This
point is moot.

> Teor called you out months ago as a US Government Spy and I'm glad that
the Tor Community Council is calling you out with. People can post all of
the advertising in the world but as long as you're called out Mr US Federal
Government Spy then they're doing the right thing.

I have no idea what you're talking about with Teor, I do know that
when a bunch of the users of the previous iteration of GreyPony were
posting about their relay speeds and what not he asked for the list to
remain on topic, but I don't remember any pointed calls of Teor
accusing me ever being a US Government Spy. I don't care for the Tor
Community Council, because I believe it's quite odd of them to
repeatedly condemn me yet be completely chill with this. Strange.

> You are probably trying to push hacked FreeBSD or that hacked HardenedBSD
stuff that no one cares about anyway.

You should probably do a little research on how BSD operating systems,
especially FreeBSD or HardenedBSD work, to realize how impossible it
is for this to work. FreeBSD it's hard, HardenedBSD, I think it's
about impossible, but I like the fact you're reaching who shot JFK?
levels in your analysis here.

> If people cared about more FreeBSD on Tor they would do it but obviously
it's not a big issue!!!

You see, people do care, because what's going to prevent the big bad
spies like me from finding that exploit in all of the cool l33t Ubuntu
b0xes you're running Tor on and bringing down 2/3s of the overlay
network? That's why we have network diversification to prevent such a
failure - if there's a bug or an anomaly that effects Linux for
example, it won't effect the BSD, MacOS, and Windows relays, and we'll
still have a functioning overlay network. That's the point of
diversification. That's the point of promoting it. I'm sorry that you
don't want to see that, but that's what it is - we have the resources
up to prevent a problem prior to a problem occuring.

> It's not a big issue to spin up our Hetzner exits at least we know that a
spy not you isnt doing it!!!

Cool, and when Hetzner finally decides to pull the plug on Tor exits
because they had enough, what then? It never hurts to try to diversify
AS assets either.

Your characterization of me being a spy is completely illogical
because if I were to act in such a capacity, I would just do it. I
have the bandwidth to do it, I don't need people to do it for me, I
would just set up relays and go for it. The question is - what would I
be spying on? I mean, you make it sound like that the exit operator
has the full picture in his/her view....except they don't. I see
connections from other relays. Oh, don't we default to
HTTPS-Everywhere in the Tor Browser package as well by the way? What
exactly am I trying to spy on Mr. Revolution?

In the end, here's what I think is going on.

Several newbies started using GreyPony. Everything was fine, in fact,
there was support for it on the mailing list until they started
bragging about speeds in excess of 1 Gbit/s. Then the following things
occurred (and if you look back at the mailing list history, you can
see this):

1. There were complaints that said newbies were lying about their exit
relay speeds, even though speeds are measured by the bwauths, so user
reported speed really doesn't matter anymore, so this wasn't a valid
complaint.
2. There were complaints that the relays should all be in the same
MyFamily, even though we don't expect relays hosted on OVH, Hetzner,
etc. to be reported on the same MyFamily, after all, I didn't have
access to any of these relays, so this wasn't a valid complaint, as I
was just hosting the relays.
3. Excess traffic was being generated about GreyPony, which Teor asked
everyone to stop bringing up GreyPony until October because of all of
it. This was a valid complaint. Due to all of the newbie bragging and
honestly, because I was proud of the fact that I was helping out
several people, I let myself get out of hand and replied to the emails
as well, so I understood and cooled it.

Now, again, I wind up back in the hospital, things go a little south
for the project because I'm not around, but I come back and the
project is ready to start again. Now GreyPony is back to the way that
we originally intended it to be - a donation only project to provide
FreeBSD/HardenedBSD exits to Tor. Most of the same guys that were
running relays with the original one want to come back to the new one,
plus some new people.

I'm sorry that people wanting to help the Tor network by providing
high performance FreeBSD Exit Relays angers you and some other of your
fellow travellers so much. If it makes you happy, the project will go
on with or with out your support.
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