Hi Daniel, On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 02:50:23PM +0000, Daniel Case wrote: There are plenty of best practice documents out there already for running Tor nodes. Here are some BitFolk-specific requirements: https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Running_a_Tor_node You're required to block at least ports 22 and 25 because abuse of Tor nodes for SSH dictionary attacks and email spam is rife. Otherwise, when we receive an abuse report related to your Tor node we will pass it on to you and do expect you to deal with every one in a timely fashion. Tor exit nodes are often used for what is likely to be illegal activity (e.g. connecting to botnets, web blog spamming, referer spamming, scanning for web application exploits, …) so please be aware that by running one you are enabling this. Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Hi Daniel, On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 03:39:25PM +0000, Daniel Case wrote: What changes then, just because some Iranians may or may not be using it. i.e. why are you asking this now? A bridge doesn't send packets to the non-Tor Internet so I don't think it matters what your exit policy is in that case. I'm not even sure a bridge can have an exit policy, since it isn't an exit.. Cheers, Andy

Hey Andy, The Iranian government have stopped access to SSL and most encrypted channels, which means it is impossible for my college friends who went back this year (and the rest of the Iranian population) to connect to Tor and most anonymizers via normal methods. Tor have retaliated by releasing an obfuscation proxy which means people can connect "under the radar".

As far as I'm aware, this is a 'bridge' to the standard ssl/encrypted Tor network, not an exit node, so blocking 25/22 shouldn't be nessasary? Re exit nodes, I've seen white-hats using them to shutdown an entire botnet before. It's not just the blacks/greys who use Tor. Sent from my mobile, apologies for brevity. On 11 Feb 2012, at 16:38, Daniel Case <danielcase10(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Johnathon, On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 04:53:38PM +0000, Johnathon wrote: You would have to take a personal judgement call on whether you feel the hassle of the bad traffic outweighs the benefit of the good. I receive automated alerts nearly every day regarding Tor exit nodes at BitFolk being used to connect to botnet C+C IRC channels. The only reason why I don't pass *those* on is because I know the people sending them don't expect a reply and I know my customer is just going to go "uh, it's Tor". These are most likely not whitehats shutting them down. Maybe I *should* start passing those on too, just so that Tor exit node operators can get some view on the scale of abuse they are enabling along with all the free speech. Cheers, Andy

Hello, On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 02:50:23PM +0000, Daniel Case wrote: Looks like it will be packaged for Debian soon: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=660122 Cheers, Andy

Hi Kai, On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 01:05:12PM +0800, Kai Hendry wrote: I guess that it's a combination of: - Tor is quite simple and very well documented, it's also free, anyone can use it, has broad support in operating systems and browsers. It's probably easier for the non-technical person to understand and evaluate than knowing how to use a VPN provider and then find and pay for one. As you say the people you met with were geeks, so I'm not surprised they preferred something other than Tor. A working VPN would definitely be a lot more pleasant to use than Tor. - There's probably a worry that Iran may block the well-known VPN protocols and ports, and even well-known providers, but they can't really block all of Tor without blocking all of the Internet. Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

On 18/02/12 08:04, Kai Hendry wrote: That part of the world is very well covered by a number of satellite Internet providers. In a perfect world, that would be true but there are a number of other factors: * It is almost certainly illegal to import/sell/own a VSAT satellite Internet system in Iran (it certainly was in Pakistan and when I was there and I actually got asked by an official what "that thing" was). It's trivially easy to spot one too. It's the big dish pointing in a different direction from all the others with the great big, fat brick on the end of the arm. * The base price of a VSAT terminal is over $1000 in most cases I've seen. It also requires specialist knowledge to install one. The cost of a VSAT subscription can be hundreds of Dollars a month. The average income in Iran is about $500 (Wikipedia). In my experience, most people won't spend an amount in the range of 20-50% of their income on Internet. Yes, I acknowledge that VPNs are probably illegal too but clearly the guy at the computer market thinks he can get away with it. If I was selling illegal Internet connections, I'd pretty much assume that when my customer gets hauled down the secret police HQ for a chat (and a beating) that he will roll over on me Cheers, Paul.