Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located • Hacker News Board

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#11

Post by EwanG » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 2:25 PM UTC

Wilya wrote: post #6

Any background on who "Conformal Systems" are and why they would operate exit nodes ? I'm not really familiar with who they are and what they do, but they seem to be the only one in the top-25 that isn't either a hosting company or a residential ISP. (apart from Formless Networking, but that one is a bit more well known) Not that it's not nice of them, but it seems a bit out of place.

Government contractor. Feel free to guess what they're being paid to do...

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#12

Post by tych0 » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 2:29 PM UTC

bergie wrote: post #7

Interesting, all the Berlin exit nodes are in a place that is a huge construction area on the Museum Island. Based on this I suppose they were only able to do city-level positioning (GeoIP or something similar).

It's worth noting that the statistics may be skewed because e.g. of US-based operators run their nodes at foreign ISPs due to fear of US law enforcement. Countries with more "liberal" policies probably have more nodes because of this, but it doesn't necessarily mean there are more operators based in those countries.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#13

Post by jolan » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 2:29 PM UTC

Wilya wrote: post #6

Any background on who "Conformal Systems" are and why they would operate exit nodes ? I'm not really familiar with who they are and what they do, but they seem to be the only one in the top-25 that isn't either a hosting company or a residential ISP. (apart from Formless Networking, but that one is a bit more well known) Not that it's not nice of them, but it seems a bit out of place.

Conformal is primarily a group of former OpenBSD developers.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#14

Post by liotier » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 2:35 PM UTC

bergie wrote: post #7

Interesting, all the Berlin exit nodes are in a place that is a huge construction area on the Museum Island. Based on this I suppose they were only able to do city-level positioning (GeoIP or something similar).

Yes, obviously city-level GeoIP lookups.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#15

Post by liotier » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 2:36 PM UTC

nwh wrote: post #8

There's nothing new here. The exit nodes are public knowledge.

Sure, but public knowledge represented in a nice synthetic graphic way is more informative and more efficient at getting a point across.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#16

Post by yk » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 2:40 PM UTC

bergie wrote: post #7

Interesting, all the Berlin exit nodes are in a place that is a huge construction area on the Museum Island. Based on this I suppose they were only able to do city-level positioning (GeoIP or something similar).

He notes just above the map, that they used freegeoip.net. So it is indeed city level.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#17

Post by koralatov » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 2:49 PM UTC

ffffruit wrote: post #9

bergie wrote: post #7

Interesting, all the Berlin exit nodes are in a place that is a huge construction area on the Museum Island. Based on this I suppose they were only able to do city-level positioning (GeoIP or something similar).

I agree. Majority of Central London ones are right in the middle of the financial district.

And Edinburgh's are smack-bang in the middle of Princes Street Gardens, which is staggeringly unlikely unless they're subterranean...

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#18

Post by lost_name » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

Wilya wrote: post #6

Any background on who "Conformal Systems" are and why they would operate exit nodes ? I'm not really familiar with who they are and what they do, but they seem to be the only one in the top-25 that isn't either a hosting company or a residential ISP. (apart from Formless Networking, but that one is a bit more well known) Not that it's not nice of them, but it seems a bit out of place.

https://www.conformal.com/about-us.html

Seems to me like it fits in with what else they do.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#19

Post by jazzyb » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 2:58 PM UTC

EwanG wrote: post #11

Wilya wrote: post #6

Any background on who "Conformal Systems" are and why they would operate exit nodes ? I'm not really familiar with who they are and what they do, but they seem to be the only one in the top-25 that isn't either a hosting company or a residential ISP. (apart from Formless Networking, but that one is a bit more well known) Not that it's not nice of them, but it seems a bit out of place.

Government contractor. Feel free to guess what they're being paid to do...

Everything I can find on them indicates that they are simply an open source company who takes privacy and data security very seriously [1] -- which would explain why they are running tor exit nodes.

What information do you have that they are government contractors?

[1] https://www.conformal.com/

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#20

Post by badgar » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 3:06 PM UTC

tych0 wrote: post #12

bergie wrote: post #7

Interesting, all the Berlin exit nodes are in a place that is a huge construction area on the Museum Island. Based on this I suppose they were only able to do city-level positioning (GeoIP or something similar).

It's worth noting that the statistics may be skewed because e.g. of US-based operators run their nodes at foreign ISPs due to fear of US law enforcement. Countries with more "liberal" policies probably have more nodes because of this, but it doesn't necessarily mean there are more operators based in those countries.

Ah, I see the distinction you're making: this is a map of exit nodes, not exit node operators. The operators can of course be anywhere in the world. For all we know based on just this map, all the tor exit node operators live in Antarctica.