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Hi, I would like to know if you pose any restrictions on running a Tor relay from a home network.

 

Tor is a network of volunteers designed to mitigate tracking, surveillance and censorship.
Here is a more detailed introduction to Tor:
https://community.torproject.org/static/files/tor-network-2019.pdf
https://support.torproject.org/about/what-is-tor/
https://www.torproject.org/about/history/

 

Tor is a small software application that can run on various devices, primarily home laptops and hosted servers.

In short, if I decide to run a “bridge” / “guard” / “middle” relay, then people from various countries might send traffic via my home laptop to other Tor relays on the internet. And if I were to run an “exit” relay, then other people would be accessing web-pages, mail servers and other online services located in various countries via the laptop on my home network.

 

In the case of “bridge” / “guard” / “middle” relay, there will only be some extra encrypted traffic between me and random people on the internet, but those people’s IP addresses might be in some block lists (if KPN is using any).

And for an “exit” relay it is possible that my laptop might request resources that are illegal in the Netherlands, such as, for example, copyrighted music or questionable messages from political forums, since I would just be relaying other user’s requests I cannot control what websites they load.

 

I would like to know if KPN allows running the following types of relays from a home network and/or if you have any KPN-specific restrictions (such as reserved ports or legal/technical requirements):

1. bridge relays (not to be confused with bridge mode)

2. guard/middle relays

3. exit relays

Here is a more details explanation of each type: https://community.torproject.org/relay/types-of-relays/

Welcome to the community ​@Katherine!

I'm not sure myself, but I would like to invite ​@Raymondt to have a look at your question 🙂

Hi ​@Katherine ,

Welcome! We are not actively checking to see if someone is running TOR relays or nodes, so as long as there are no noticable things happening on your connection, you probably won't hear from us about it. However, the thing that i want to point out primarily, is that you as a customer are responsible for everything that will happen with your connection. If there are things happening that are against our user policy, we will talk with you about it. If there are things happening that are against the Dutch laws, then the police will come and talk with you about it. 

Please be aware that things like: 

since I would just be relaying other user’s requests I cannot control what websites they load.

will not take anything away from that responsibility. You might not have control over what other people do with your connection, but it's your choice to let them use it freely, and you and i both know that on the darkweb a lot of things are happening that should not be happening at all. 

So yes, if you want you can run a relay, but be absolutely aware of the responsibility that comes with it, and the concequences it might have when other people are doing bad things. 

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