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Tor Project Pilots Exit Nodes In Libraries
An anonymous reader writes: The Tor Project has announced a new initiative to open exit relays in public libraries. "This is an idea whose time has come; libraries are our most democratic public spaces, protecting our intellectual freedom, privacy, and unfettered access to information, and Tor Project creates software that allows all people to have these rights on the internet." They point out that this is both an excellent way to educate people on the value of private internet browsing while also being a practical way to expand the Tor network. A test for this initiative is underway at the Kilton Library in Lebanon, New Hampshire, which already has a computing environment full of GNU/Linux machines.
Here in the US any library that deals with children must have mandatory filtering software installed. Given the typical puritanical attitude, quite a few public libraries also have filters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Most admins block TOR exit nodes at the router and many other places because they are the source of many attacks. All this means is that libraries wind up on IP blacklists.
how many are willing to risk their benefactor's wrath (federal government) by supplying an anti government spying device?
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
It is astonishing how mindset about computing can vary among librarians. On one hand we have the one that set up TOR exit nodes to save our privacy, and on the other hand we have the one that purchase strongly vendor-locked and opaque proprietary library softwares.
Don't be giving the government yet another reason to cut funding to public libraries.
I think that is why the requirements seem to imply that the exit node needs to have its own IP address.
There are definite costs to running TOR infrastructure. You have to be aware of them. Some of the costs can be mitigated, but some can't. At the end, you have to be able to show that the benefits outweigh the costs.
First we examined the benefit. We made a clear statement of the benefit. It is:
USU has many researchers and students who deal in sensitive subjects such as Climate Change, Reproductive Issues, Political Systems, Animal Research, etc.. These students and researchers frequently need privacy and security to advance the goals of USU.
Then we discussed the various costs and methods of mitigating the costs. Afterwards, we decided that the costs could be made acceptable, if we were careful.
Here is our standard response to an abuse report against USU's TOR infrastructure:
=BEGIN ABUSE RESPONSE=
The activity that you have reported is being emitted by a TOR exit node:
------------
$ host 129.123.7.6 6.7.123.129.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer tor-exit-node.cs.usu.edu.
$ host 129.123.7.7
7.7.123.129.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer tor-exit-node-2.cs.usu.edu.
------------
This TOR node is a project of USU's CS department. USU has many researchers and students who deal in sensitive subjects such as Climate Change, Reproductive Issues, Political Systems, Animal Research, etc.. These students and researchers frequently need privacy and security to advance the goals of USU.
Almost all TOR traffic is generated by innocent people who are attempting to escape the shadow of a totalitarian government. But, unfortunately, sometimes criminals attempt to use TOR to attack others.
We are in discussion with our TOR admins to try to find ways to limit the attack activity. Of course, this rapidly becomes a sticky issue. If we start inspecting and censoring some of the TOR activity, then we have less of a defense when we get pressure to inspect and block the rest. And, even starting down this path may make us legally liable for ALL the TOR traffic. Our best action may be to keep our hands off and observe strict network neutrality.
We are still pondering our options.
Please accept our apologies in the mean time.
USU IT Security
=END ABUSE RESPONSE=
Most admins
That's not true.
A few Admins, perhaps.
Not most.
Akamai optionally (optional to the Akamai customer) blocks Tor exit nodes AND relay nodes that have no exits whatsoever. I made it through several levels of support (up to executive support) to nothing but deaf ears.
I'm not even sure how they figure out relays without port-scanning clients (like open HTTP proxy scans from IRC servers of yore) but it essentially shut down my high-bandwidth Tor relay. I'd run an IPv6-only Tor relay because, well, if you have IPv6 you have plenty of addresses to burn, but Tor doesn't support that yet.
I'm not even sure how they figure out relays without port-scanning clients
A full list of relays is available from any directory authority (except bridges -- which are not the same as non-exit nodes*)
From torrc:
Bridge relays (or "bridges") are Tor relays that aren't listed in the
main directory. Since there is no complete public list of them, even an
ISP that filters connections to all the known Tor relays probably
won't be able to block all the bridges. Also, websites won't treat you
differently because they won't know you're running Tor. If you can
be a real relay, please do; but if not, be a bridge!
TOR exit nodes are nothing but trouble.
I think this is an issue where some are more equal than others.
If an individual runs a TOR exit node, they can be easily intimidated and hassled. There is very little cost to law enforcement for engaging in the intimidation.
At the other end of the spectrum, a large public institution is not susceptible to this kind of intimidation. And, there is a very large cost if law enforcement attempts the intimidation. For example, at the institution I support, if the local cops or low level FBI attempted this kind of intimidation, they would be met by the institution's police force, the institution's lawyers and the institution's journalists. Everything would be recorded in multiple ways. Heck, we even have a state assistant DA permanently assigned to USU. He participated in the process that created the policy and procedures approving the TOR infrastructure.
At this point, if a major university's CS group is not investigating TOR, they should probably give back the funding and become a trade tech. The issues surrounding TOR are critical to our society. A university should not turn it's back to these issues.
Given all that, a law enforcement attempt at intimidation would be ineffective. And, it would likely result in the kind of bad publicity that can cause law enforcement to lose budget.
However you have a good point, libraries are widely distributed in the gap between your unfortunate friend and USU. The smaller ones would be easily intimidated. The larger ones, not so much.
Because primarily, libraries and librarians are about free access to information for the public.
Besides, it's not hard to set it up so the exit node only gets to use otherwise unused bandwidth.