Comment by alfiedotwtf

Comment by alfiedotwtf 10 months ago

10 replies

If it’s that expensive to run Tor nodes, who is actually paying for them? I’ve heard individuals getting doors kicked in for participating in the network, so it’s not individuals. Corporates too wouldn’t want this type of burden… so is it really just spy-vs-spy

p4bl0 10 months ago

Many individuals contribute to running relays. And there are non-profit organizations collecting donations to operates Tor exit nodes:

- https://www.torservers.net/

- https://nos-oignons.net/

  • idiotsecant 10 months ago

    This is probably strictly true but it smacks to me of 'many people say'. I wonder what % of TOR nodes are run by people with an ideological allegiance for the network vs how many are run by nation-state actors.

immibis 10 months ago

I run a non-exit node any time I have the spare resources. I2P too. This means they're on the same popular providers that have too many other nodes, though.

Sometimes I set it up as a bridge (hidden entry node) instead.

akimbostrawman 10 months ago

only exit nodes get there door kicked in and they are the minority and not needed for the tor network to function

  • zerd 10 months ago

    They are pretty essential, without them you can only access onion services.

    • akimbostrawman 10 months ago

      exit nodes aren't used for the onion services. only when interacting with the clearnet.

      • tylervigen 10 months ago

        You are both saying the same thing, you just differ on the degree to which you see that as a problem.

0points 10 months ago

> I’ve heard individuals getting doors kicked in for participating in the network, so it’s not individuals.

It's individuals

  • autoexec 10 months ago

    Unless something has changed, one of the issues with Tor is that it tries to send traffic through servers that have the most bandwidth which are pretty much certain to be servers owned by the state a lot of the time because a random person's residential cable modem is going to be a lot less capable.

    • input_sh 10 months ago

      Run by individuals doesn't necessarily mean run on potato hardware. I ran a highly reputable (non-exit) node on a beefy but underutilised dedicated server for at least half a decade.