Re: Ideas on increasing the significance of tor

Hi, In some countries, I have a problem accessing Tor. It initially seemed that they do not allow DNS lookups for Tor servers...I cannot see any servers in my network map (using Vidalia). This Network Map in Vidalia is a really nice feature/addition which helps me know the intermediary nodes and the bandwidth. I then changed to use different DNS servers, this way the problem is sometimes resolved...but this solution seems dependent on the location from which I connect (net cafe, hotel or friend's home) I'm not totally sure, but it seems that some Tor users are vulnerable to DNS based DOS attacks. BTW, even Tibetan monks know about Tor (I talked to one recently) Eugen Leitl wrote:

----- Forwarded message from Lukas Feiler -----

From: Lukas Feiler Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 14:18:22 +0200 To: or-talk@seul.org Subject: Ideas on increasing the significance of tor X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.6822 Reply-To: or-talk@freehaven.net

Hi,

IMHO what tor needs to get more accepted and widely used is speed. Unless the user experience of using tor is at least comparable to the regular use of the Internet, only relatively few people will use tor in the future. Why does this matter to us? It's just their privacy that's in jeopardy, right? Wrong.

Almost everybody you ask will recognize the importance of free speech to the continuous development of an open, free and pluralistic society. We all know that free speech is not a matter of me and you having that right but rather a matter of all of us having the right to speak freely. Because only if all members of our society have that right, we will continue to be (or start to become; depending on your point of view) a truly pluralistic and open society.

IMHO the same principles apply to anonymous free speech (which by the way is not protected by Article 8 of the European Human Rights Convention). It is therefore imperative to make as many people as possible use tor.

I think with privacy it's like this: Use it or loose it (as a society).

Coming back to the matter of speed: what do we need to increase the performance of the tor network? More tor (exit) nodes, right? (please correct me if I'm wrong)

Right now we simply ask the people to put up their own tor servers. The only thing people can do that are not that skilled but still want to support tor is to make a donation. But they will not see the effect their money has on tor.

What I suggest is to create an incentive for donations while at the same time creating an instrument that will increase the number of tor (exit) nodes:

- Users should be able to donate money for a tor (exit) node. They should be able to say "I am sponsoring X tor nodes!". Users should also be able to specify on which continent (or in which country?) "their" tor node is to be placed. - The installation, configuration and maintenance could then be performed in an efficient manner by a team of volunteers or people getting paid using part of the donated money.

Whatever organization takes the donated money to install and operate new tor nodes will sooner or later be operating quite some tor nodes. This raises two questions.

- Is it a good idea to grant a single organization that much power? Controlling multiple tor nodes has a great potential for abuse. IMHO that risk is rather low if the organization in question is EFF and good policies and procedures are in place for the administration of the tor nodes thereby limiting the risk of volunteers turning out to be operatives of some law enforcement agency.

- That organization (and their operatives) might be a target for law suits. I don't know about the U.S. but in Europe, the operation of a tor node is - as a general rule - covered by the protection of Article 12 of the European E-Commerce Directive. Recent German and Austrian court rulings questioned the scope of this provision.

All member states of the European Union are currently implementing the European Data Retention Directive which demands that access providers retain the information who communicated with whom, when, how long, and from which location (Cell-ID for mobile devices) if (and only if) the communication was over a mobile phone, a land line, E-Mail or VoIP. This data will have to be retained for at least 6 months (depending on the member state's implementation). The contents of the communication will not be retained.

This legislative measure will create an increased demand for anonymous free speech. The question is: Is tor up for the task?

Cheers, Lukas

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