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Pardon my ignorance, but I thought it fruitful to ask: Are there any issues that can arise by doing this on a VPS? I ask because I know of stories of law enfor

Pardon my ignorance, but I thought it fruitful to ask: Are there any issues that can arise by doing this on a VPS? I ask because I know of stories of law enforcement sending inquiries to owners of, say, exit nodes requiring certain information about given traffic. I don't know if this happens for middle-nodes (or whatever they're called). Moreover, are there any issues with associating a node to, you know, your name and billing information? I don't know much about this, and although I could look it up, I think that my questions - and your respective answers or those of others - might do some public service of information sharing here.

voldacar 2y ago
I'm not an exit node. You can buy a vps with xmr if you're worried about privacy from law enforcement.
- Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
  most vps don't support xmr though. any suggestions to whom I can trust (I basically only trust hetzner in vps space)
  - voldacar 2y ago
    https://monerica.com/ https://monerica.com/ ctrl-f for web hosting
  - beeflet 2y ago
    Some do though. I got started a minecraft server the other month that i paid for in xmr. You can go to like a VPS aggregator like serverhunter.com and filter those that allow altcoins as payment https://www.serverhunter.com/#query=stock%3A%28in_stock+OR+unknown%29+payment_methods%3Aaltcoin https://www.serverhunter.com/#query=stock%3A%28in_stock+OR+u...
  - akimbostrawman 2y ago
    >I basically only trust hetzner in vps space https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/jabber.ru-mitm/ https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/jabber.ru-mitm/
    - ranger_danger 2y ago
      What's more alarming to me is that they (the jabber operators) seemingly stopped caring about it. Whatever this intercepting proxy did (including from the sound of it, spoofing ACME challenges from their domain to get a certificate) could be illegal and they didn't even attempt to do anything about it, AND they are assuming that continuing to use the service after the attack stopped is somehow safe now. Either they are grossly negligent/incompetent (IMO unlikely given the extent of their research), or they knew it was intercepted on purpose (either by law enforcement, the provider itself or one of their upstreams) and intentionally aren't saying so. They could also be withholding or lying about any number of things, including the exact response from the hosting providers.
    - Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
      interesting. I am kind of shocked because I really got positive feedback of hetzner from what I heard from people. I need to post about this on r/vps and hear about people's opinion.
GTP 2y ago
I never operated a TOR node, but as far as I know and heard from other sources, TOR realays don't get much attention from law enforcement, it any attention at all. Which makes sense: all they're doing is getting encrypted traffic in and giving encrypted traffic out. It would hard for them to link a relay node to a specific connection, and even if they do, you can't help them in any way: even you as the node operator are only able to see encrypted traffic. Edit: there's a youtuber called "Mental Outlaw" that published a while ago some videos about setting up and operating TOR nodes. He sometimes gives inaccurate information regarding more theoretical topics, so I don't follow him much. But I think he can be trusted for this practical topics.
- WHA8m 2y ago
  Just a quick note on the Youtube channel you mention: I follow his videos for a while and it seems to me, that he's half a shill. My impression is, that he re-models popular HN threads into Youtube videos. Just watch the latest video on the MrBeast topic and you'll basically get the same info as all the popular 'root' comments (was on HN front page last week). Not the first time I noticed a suspicious connection.
  - GTP 2y ago
    It would be funny if he makes a new video about TOR and ends up mentioning your comment :D
  - PawgerZ 2y ago
    Wow, I was about to comment the same thing. Glad to have my assumptions validated by someone else.
  - maxrecursion 2y ago
    While that is a crappy thing to do, I bet tons of YouTubers are doing just that. Hell, most political YouTubers just read articles and make stupid comments about them. It would be impossible to create daily content if you weren't just rehashing, or taking, information from somewhere. Again, not defending it at all, just saying it's probably a very common thing. Like how some crappy news articles are just a bunch of reddit comments, like that qualifies as news.
immibis 2y ago
Non-exit nodes are generally considered safe to run. it's only exit nodes that system enforcement keeps trying to shut down.
dunghill 2y ago
There was a recent HN topic where person running exit nodes run into quite a lot of issues because of it.
INTPenis 2y ago
I ran tor exit nodes on Linode and Digitalocean for years. No real issues, but you will get regular abuse complaints. The support teams always understood once I explained it was a tor exit node. I co-operated with the Cloud provider and added any IP-address that requested it to my list of exempt addresses.
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  > The support teams always understood But they don't have to. It could also be against their ToS, and many other providers would not have been ok with it. Accounts and domains have been taken away for much less.
  - jrochkind1 2y ago
    Right, which is why it's informative to hear a report that DO and linode did!
  - layer8 2y ago
    So read the ToS and ask support beforehand?
  - immibis 2y ago
    Not to mention, armed police raiding your home, especially if you live in Germany.

voldacar 2y ago

I'm not an exit node. You can buy a vps with xmr if you're worried about privacy from law enforcement.

Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
most vps don't support xmr though. any suggestions to whom I can trust (I basically only trust hetzner in vps space)
- voldacar 2y ago
  https://monerica.com/ https://monerica.com/ ctrl-f for web hosting
- beeflet 2y ago
  Some do though. I got started a minecraft server the other month that i paid for in xmr. You can go to like a VPS aggregator like serverhunter.com and filter those that allow altcoins as payment https://www.serverhunter.com/#query=stock%3A%28in_stock+OR+unknown%29+payment_methods%3Aaltcoin https://www.serverhunter.com/#query=stock%3A%28in_stock+OR+u...
- akimbostrawman 2y ago
  >I basically only trust hetzner in vps space https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/jabber.ru-mitm/ https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/jabber.ru-mitm/
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    What's more alarming to me is that they (the jabber operators) seemingly stopped caring about it. Whatever this intercepting proxy did (including from the sound of it, spoofing ACME challenges from their domain to get a certificate) could be illegal and they didn't even attempt to do anything about it, AND they are assuming that continuing to use the service after the attack stopped is somehow safe now. Either they are grossly negligent/incompetent (IMO unlikely given the extent of their research), or they knew it was intercepted on purpose (either by law enforcement, the provider itself or one of their upstreams) and intentionally aren't saying so. They could also be withholding or lying about any number of things, including the exact response from the hosting providers.
  - Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
    interesting. I am kind of shocked because I really got positive feedback of hetzner from what I heard from people. I need to post about this on r/vps and hear about people's opinion.

GTP 2y ago

I never operated a TOR node, but as far as I know and heard from other sources, TOR realays don't get much attention from law enforcement, it any attention at all. Which makes sense: all they're doing is getting encrypted traffic in and giving encrypted traffic out. It would hard for them to link a relay node to a specific connection, and even if they do, you can't help them in any way: even you as the node operator are only able to see encrypted traffic. Edit: there's a youtuber called "Mental Outlaw" that published a while ago some videos about setting up and operating TOR nodes. He sometimes gives inaccurate information regarding more theoretical topics, so I don't follow him much. But I think he can be trusted for this practical topics.

WHA8m 2y ago
Just a quick note on the Youtube channel you mention: I follow his videos for a while and it seems to me, that he's half a shill. My impression is, that he re-models popular HN threads into Youtube videos. Just watch the latest video on the MrBeast topic and you'll basically get the same info as all the popular 'root' comments (was on HN front page last week). Not the first time I noticed a suspicious connection.
- GTP 2y ago
  It would be funny if he makes a new video about TOR and ends up mentioning your comment :D
- PawgerZ 2y ago
  Wow, I was about to comment the same thing. Glad to have my assumptions validated by someone else.
- maxrecursion 2y ago
  While that is a crappy thing to do, I bet tons of YouTubers are doing just that. Hell, most political YouTubers just read articles and make stupid comments about them. It would be impossible to create daily content if you weren't just rehashing, or taking, information from somewhere. Again, not defending it at all, just saying it's probably a very common thing. Like how some crappy news articles are just a bunch of reddit comments, like that qualifies as news.

immibis 2y ago

Non-exit nodes are generally considered safe to run. it's only exit nodes that system enforcement keeps trying to shut down.

dunghill 2y ago

There was a recent HN topic where person running exit nodes run into quite a lot of issues because of it.

INTPenis 2y ago

I ran tor exit nodes on Linode and Digitalocean for years. No real issues, but you will get regular abuse complaints. The support teams always understood once I explained it was a tor exit node. I co-operated with the Cloud provider and added any IP-address that requested it to my list of exempt addresses.

ranger_danger 2y ago
> The support teams always understood But they don't have to. It could also be against their ToS, and many other providers would not have been ok with it. Accounts and domains have been taken away for much less.
- jrochkind1 2y ago
  Right, which is why it's informative to hear a report that DO and linode did!
- layer8 2y ago
  So read the ToS and ask support beforehand?
- immibis 2y ago
  Not to mention, armed police raiding your home, especially if you live in Germany.