Tor relays needed

[Guardian]

https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay.html.en

"The Tor network relies on volunteers to donate bandwidth. The more people who run relays, the faster the Tor network will be. If you have at least 20 kilobytes/s each way, please help out Tor by configuring your Tor to be a relay too. We have many features that make Tor relays easy and convenient, including rate limiting for bandwidth, exit policies so you can limit your exposure to abuse complaints, and support for dynamic IP addresses.

You can run a Tor relay on pretty much any operating system. Tor relays work best on Linux, OS X Tiger or later, FreeBSD 5.x+, NetBSD 5.x+, and Windows Server 2003 or later. "

 

[Nathan]

I'd advise against using Tor. Not just because it's mind-numbingly slow, but because it's largest vulnerability is the crux of it's design. It allows anyone to participate, and gives them access to user traffic. This means anyone with malicious intent, who wants to spread viruses and trojans or steal passwords, needs only to become a tor exit node. Then they get all the free traffic to snoop on that they want. I'm almost certain intelligence agencies have their finger in this, as they would with most anonymity services, free or otherwise.

The average tor user is exposed at all times to nasty exit node attacks, unless using end-to-end encryption with the destination (like https).

 

[Guardian]

I'd advise against using Tor. Not just because it's mind-numbingly slow,

Hence the title "Tor relays needed" ;D

but because it's largest vulnerability is the crux of it's design. It allows anyone to participate, and gives them access to user traffic. This means anyone with malicious intent, who wants to spread viruses and trojans or steal passwords, needs only to become a tor exit node.

Well yes, if we want an open network, free from government and corporate interference, we'll all have to take responsibility for our own security. That is kinda the point hon :)

Then they get all the free traffic to snoop on that they want. I'm almost certain intelligence agencies have their finger in this, as they would with most anonymity services, free or otherwise.

Aren't we fortunate that encryption technology has progressed to the point it has?

The average tor user is exposed at all times to nasty exit node attacks, unless using end-to-end encryption with the destination (like https).

Not if the "average Tor user" knows what s/he's doing. No one said offering an alternative to corporate controlled networks was going to be easy.

https://www.torproject.org/faq.html.en#RelayFlexible

"Tor uses a variety of different keys, with three goals in mind: 1) encryption to ensure privacy of data within the Tor network, 2) authentication so clients know they're talking to the relays they meant to talk to, and 3) signatures to make sure all clients know the same set of relays.

Encryption: first, all connections in Tor use TLS link encryption, so observers can't look inside to see which circuit a given cell is intended for. Further, the Tor client establishes an ephemeral encryption key with each relay in the circuit, so only the exit relay can read the cells. Both sides discard the circuit key when the circuit ends, so logging traffic and then breaking into the relay to discover the key won't work. "

 

[D69]

It is Fresh ! so FYI ;)

src:__http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/flaws-in-tor-anonymity-network-spotlighted.ars