alt Hacker NewsIs there any way to run a Tor exit node without expecting to get a knock on the door from the FBI/DHS? Like advertising as an exit node but only to a whitelist of sites? For ~20 years I ran a dozen cabinet at a colo but never felt I could donate bandwidth to Tor because of that (did a big mirror server instead), and now I have gigabit (could be 10gig) at home, but still just don't want to deal with the issues.
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Not to my knowledge.
> now I have gigabit
You can host torrents to Linux isos to help. You’ll need to block some Chinese ASNs though. They use fake downloaders to detect peers. Like 99% of the traffic my node generated was that. Nodes from one ASN that do partial downloads over and over
Else hosting open map data tile server though I gather this can generate a lot of traffic
For anyone wondering how else they can help without attracting scrutiny, consider running a bridge. I have done this at home for years and haven't noticed any ill effects like discrimination of my public IPs: https://community.torproject.org/relay/setup/bridge/
Or, if you're OK with a little discrimination (say you're colo hosted, not residential), but still want to avoid exit-relay-level attention, running guard/middle relays is helpful: https://community.torproject.org/relay/types-of-relays/
Tor provides a great blog about running an exit node: https://blog.torproject.org/tips-running-exit-node/
I remember reading that it’s better to register as an organization if you want to run an exit node.
If you want to help the network, you can run relays. That’s much safer. https://community.torproject.org/relay/