Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located • Hacker News Board

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#51

Post by traskjd » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 10:40 PM UTC

mburns wrote: post #48

lukejduncan wrote: post #46

I'm a strong advocate of the Tor project, but man would I ever be afraid to be an exit node

It is worth noting that you can run Tor in non-exit mode, but still route (secure, encrypted) tunnels around for other Tor users. This is (ideally) how every Tor user should act, if at all possible.

Being pedantic, but if EVERYONE did that surely you'd never reach the actual internet right? :-)

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#52

Post by snowwrestler » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 10:53 PM UTC

bcherry wrote: post #47

Two exit nodes near Washington DC. The NSA's headquarters are within the error tolerance of GeoIP. Coincidence?!

The map puts them in Ashburn, VA, which makes sense as there are massive commercial data centers there. If you have a server or VPS whose location is "east," there's a good chance that it is in an Ashburn data center.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#53

Post by ufmace » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 11:01 PM UTC

traskjd wrote: post #51

mburns wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worth noting that you can run Tor in non-exit mode, but still route (secure, encrypted) tunnels around for other Tor users. This is (ideally) how every Tor user should act, if at all possible.

Being pedantic, but if EVERYONE did that surely you'd never reach the actual internet right? :-)

I thought that Tor was hard-coded to always use 3 nodes between you and the internet, no matter how many there are in the system.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#54

Post by ufmace » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 11:13 PM UTC

tych0 wrote: post #34

hkmurakami wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious: what are the specific laws that we should be concerned about? (Obviously the US has many draconian laws regarding cyber-anything, but I'm curious what specific lines we cross with Tor Exit Node operation. Does it include something like ownership and responsibility of the data that passes through a node that we operate?)

Yes, exactly. There's never been any case law on the issue, but in the ideal theoretical world, exit node operators would get the same protections from what their users do that ISPs do. Unfortunately, since we're often a single guy with no legal entity, we are not afforded such protections by default. I've been running an exit node since 2005, and I've had to switch ISPs numerous times because of abuse coming out of…

I would think that in any decent courtroom, then eventually would, since those same protections apply to forum operators, chat rooms, picture sharing sites, etc. But I don't blame you at all for not wanting to be the test case, since that would probably be rather expensive and likely to disrupt your personal life.

Your ISP is obviously an ISP, and most law enforcement agencies understand that and that it means that if something dirty comes through there, then an employee of the ISP most likely didn't do it. But if you're using your home PC as an exit node... most agencies probably have no idea what Tor is, and would assume that you personally were doing whatever came through it, and would commence with the whole search, seizure, and media circus before they figured it out.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#55

Post by scoot » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 11:15 PM UTC

traskjd wrote: post #51

mburns wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worth noting that you can run Tor in non-exit mode, but still route (secure, encrypted) tunnels around for other Tor users. This is (ideally) how every Tor user should act, if at all possible.

Being pedantic, but if EVERYONE did that surely you'd never reach the actual internet right? :-)

You are being pedantic, as it's pretty obvious that mburns meant TOR end-users, as distinct from those donating exit node bandwidth.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#56

Post by saraid216 » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 11:22 PM UTC

nwh wrote: post #21

liotier wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's already out of date though. You'd be better looking at the live list the author used. http://torstatus.blutmagie.de/

It'd be cool if someone made one that updates regularly.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#57

Post by lukejduncan » Thu, Feb 28, 2013, 11:33 PM UTC

mburns wrote: post #48

lukejduncan wrote: post #46

I'm a strong advocate of the Tor project, but man would I ever be afraid to be an exit node

It is worth noting that you can run Tor in non-exit mode, but still route (secure, encrypted) tunnels around for other Tor users. This is (ideally) how every Tor user should act, if at all possible.

True. In fact I personally do this. I really want to run an exit node, but I'm also terrified of having my apartment raided and turned upside down for traffic flowing out of my place.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#58

Post by chimeracoder » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 12:30 AM UTC

bcherry wrote: post #47

Two exit nodes near Washington DC. The NSA's headquarters are within the error tolerance of GeoIP. Coincidence?!

Zooming in and clicking on the arrows:

> IP: Location: Netblock: AS Name: ISP: Reverse DNS: 50.16.161.238 Ashburn, United States 50.16.0.0/16 AMAZON-AES AMAZON.COM INC. ec2-50-16-161-238.compute-1.amazonaws.com

So, not a coincidence, but also not suspicious - it's just Amazon's data center.

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#59

Post by Surio » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 3:47 AM UTC

jcr wrote: post #35

Surio wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very nice answer. Qualified, thoughtful with no loose ends.

Heck, he knows I can't outrun him, and he knows where I live, so it had better be a nice answer. ;-)

Ha! If only it were only that ;-). (I know you are being faceticious).

No, really it was a genuinely thoughtful and respectful description of the person. I only hope that at my own level, and at some point in life, people I am associated with think of me in (somewhat) similar terms ;-)

Re: Tor Exit Nodes Mapped and Located

#60

Post by mburns » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 5:17 AM UTC

traskjd wrote: post #51

mburns wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worth noting that you can run Tor in non-exit mode, but still route (secure, encrypted) tunnels around for other Tor users. This is (ideally) how every Tor user should act, if at all possible.

Being pedantic, but if EVERYONE did that surely you'd never reach the actual internet right? :-)

Fair point. :)

To take your pedant to its extreme, though, using Tor Hidden Services entirely inside the Tor network is more secure than using a Tor exit node to access web sites outside of Tor.

If you hear about sites like the Silk Road, those exist only inside the Tor network, you can't (directly) reach them the 'actual internet' / the Web.