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Tor node on low end boxes
ksx4system
Member
Search engine of LowEndTalk didn't find anything for "tor" keyword so I thought that new topic will be the best solution. Are there any providers (preferably sub-4$/month price range) who allow Tor relays? It can be non-exit (so called "middleman") node too or exit node with blocked all kinds of p2p file sharing and IRC. I'd prefer to use location other than USA.
ksx4system.net <--- my homepage
Comments
I can't imagine a host that would be happy with you doing this, due to the kind of content that would be passing through.
Is US and >$4, but they promote how to use tor on a VPS. So they ought to allow it, too: http://blog.tailoredvps.com/?p=34
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Well, non-exit node is not going to cause DMCA notices. Properly configured Tor with sane bandwidth limits (4mbit/s burst speed and less than 70% monthly quota counted in gigabytes) isn't going to cause any problems.
By the way please, read more about it and just try it (Tor isn't as bad as mass media tell people).
thanks for your contribution
ksx4system.net <--- my homepage
Considering how little profit most of us are making on our LEB offerings, I'm thinking the potential legal ramifications would seriously outweigh allowing Tor.
The biggest issue is going to be fear on the part of providers. Exit nodes are a pain in the arse and often attract unwanted legal attention but non-exit relays only pass encrypted traffic between other nodes on the network and are safe.
The fear of exit nodes often leads providers to ban Tor altogether.
Tor is absolutely forbidden at BuyVM. Sure, people like to make the noble speech of "staying anonymous protects my rights!", but I know of no-one that uses Tor for 100% legitimate reasons.
If you're that worried about security, use SSL and VPNs. Don't try to push pedo traffic.
What bad things can you do with Tor?
So Tor is mostly used for kiddie porn? I did not know that, but it makes sense.
The few times I tried it out, that's how it seemed to me. Things may have changed... but honestly, why would you need absolute 100% anonymity if you weren't doing crap that was seriously illegal?
My two cents, anyways.
@Aldryic, I never knew that. I have looked into it a little bit, but it seemed like too much work. A VPN to hide from my ISP is more that I could ever need.
Actually I use it to scrape some websites. Is legal to see and download public pages (AFAIK), but the owner(s) doesn't like people that scrape their sites (so ban ip that read the site often or send fake data). So tor (plus some random user agents).
Would be nice if some vps provider offer an internal, (limited, )middleman node for their clients. Surely will be a plus.
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A few years ago I had this staffer on my IRC network that was really anal about security and being anonymous to the world so he ran a TOR end node at home. I kept saying "Hey, TOR is really really dirty, don't run an end node!"
Now, he thought I was just trying to be funny, so he ran said end node. Since he was paranoid/a snoop, he started TCPdumping the traffic as it left his home computer. Guess what? 95% of it was porn and the rest was people going to super sketchy sites as well.
Within the week he dumped the end node and I simply gave him a VPS off a box with an encrypted FS.
Francisco
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Tor end nodes are very sketchy but a tor relay isn't that bad as you are just passing traffic from one node to another.
This signature is brought to you by the NSA. Spying on the entire world since 1952!
vids or it didnt happen
dog lover
I use tor as a proxy for my Gmail SMTP with Thunderbird. Mainly use it to prevent others from seeing whether I'm at home, at a cafe, at the library, or wherever. I'd say this is legitimate and legal :P
I'm uncomfortable with a lot of what people use Tor for (most reasonable people would be, there's some bloody nasty stuff going on there as everyone knows) but the lengths that repressive governments go to to block Tor tell me that good things are happening amongst all the crap, and I like that the infrastructure already in place in case of unforeseen circumstances in the future. Also, the more legitimate use of Tor the more secure the network becomes for those few whose lives depend on it.
In practice, there's no way in hell I'd go near the idea of running an exit node, and running one on someone else's hardware is just asking for trouble for both you and the host. I wouldn't run a relay either because I'd rather use my time and cash to build/run my sites better. But it's nice in theory :P
Being paranoid or a snoop pretty much is a prerequisite for wanting to run a Tor node in the first place. There's been some interesting research that's come from academics running exit nodes and analysing the traffic, though.
It should be noted that the number two country by directly connecting users is Iran. When I was running a relay, at any one time, out of 200 or so simultaneous connections, about 30 would be from Iran. I doubt they are wasting their time looking at porn. They are probably using it to read BBC.
I could think of the purpose to anonymously resolv domain names. How does a VPN help me, if Windows does resolv the domain names still using the ISPs DNS? (Note: I've never tried tor so far. The purpose just comes into my mind.)
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Hi, nice to meet you, I'm Boris. Now you know at least one.
Sometimes I can't even go to youtube without tor.
No, it's not. It's mass media propaganda and people who desperately want to believe that. I should mention that at least until now I haven't seen any in onion network and I hope that it'll stay this way forever.
Sometimes I can't even go to youtube without tor.
Hello Boris, my name is Krzysztof and I'm using Tor for fully legitimate reasons too. :-)
Could you please stop with this totalitarian gov't alike propaganda? Thank you.
Sometimes privacy is needed for ethically legitimate reasons too. By saying gtfo to Tor users you're saying this to people living in totalitarian/partially totalitarian countries. So again, could you please stop with your american propaganda? Again, thank you very much.
I hope that I'll not be banned here for saying raw truth :-)
+1
+1 again, that's a good reason too
ksx4system.net <--- my homepage
neat tip!
or write on it
why not set Windows to use other DNS then?
dog lover
Sometimes I can't even go to youtube without tor.
Now I know two people :P
Sometimes privacy is needed for ethically legitimate reasons too. By saying gtfo to Tor users you're saying this to people living in totalitarian/partially totalitarian countries. So again, could you please stop with your american propaganda? Again, thank you very much.
Propoganda? I'm stating my personal opinion, chum. Prior to this post, -every- Tor user I knew used the service for extremely shady material. On the flip side of the coin, I know a vast number of private proxy/VPN users that have the same privacy, and don't get involved in illicit affairs. Considering a large portion of our clientbase is Chinese (because the GFW isn't totalitarian at all), I'd say your assumption is a bit off. Don't assume that just because we deny the use of Tor, that we're against privacy and security.
On the topic of assumptions. Frantech/BuyVM is a Canadian company, and I come from a nation that had an equally abusive history of control as anyone else out there today. To quote an amusing signboard: "Opinions on Politics and Religion are like your dick. If you have one, that's fantastic... nobody else wants to see it."
That buffering must be soooo slow
My internet speed is 256 kbit/s, your argument is invalid.
Also, it was before I got a VPS. Long live
ssh -D.I'm sincerelly sorry for that... Well, today I consider 1mbit/s as slow ;-)
I'm not even going to. I only said that in my opinion you (and not your company!) may be against privacy. This was based on your question (which I cited when replying). As nearly always, no flamewar intended :-)
ksx4system.net <--- my homepage
What's the best way to determine if an exit node is running without opening config files?
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@Kujoe Maybe compare the IP against this list http://torstatus.blutmagie.de/ip_list_exit.php
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or use dig
https://www.torproject.org/projects/tordnsel.html.en
Loop though using all the IP's you own to see
No worries then, apologies for my misunderstanding :P I'm a huge fan of privacy.. but I do recognize that not all paths that lead to it are good
I have the same issue with other topics (like P2P, etc). Sure, there are definitely folks out there doing the right thing, using P2P to distribute their opensource projects and what have you. But you have to admit, the vast majority of people that are pro-* only have their own conveniences in mind (like, leeching music :P)
I gotta agree with @Aldryic here, it was the same with Megaupload. Although there are certainly valid uses, everyone knows that its business model was warez sharing.
Also i don't think a host would want to deal with all the abuses one gets when running an exit node. Btw what about running a non-exit Tor/other darknet node?