Don’t run a Tor node in places that have censorship laws or problems with freedom. In places such as the US and most of Europe it should be totally fine to run a node. What the network really needs is more middle nodes. You can inform your ISP and the local police of what you are doing just to be sure.
The only time you could get into trouble is when you are running a exit node. ISPs and police have mistakenly classified out nodes as local traffic. It is recommended that only organizations such as universities run Tor exit nodes. However, it is important to keep in mind that to my knowledge no one has ever been arrested for running a exit node in a western country.
Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
There’s different types of relay, including exit relays, which are the legally problematic type. Middle, guard, and bridge relays don’t face the same issues with law enforcement and IP blocking.
drkt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
You do face issues running a regular middle/guard relay. My IP is tainted from overzealous sysadmins looking up Tor related IPs and seeing mine because middle relays are public knowledge. I am banned from a lot of places for simply being a middle relay.
Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
Thanks for the correction. It’s a shame that sysadmins balcklist middle nodes too, since they won’t see any TOR traffic originating from your IP address anyway.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Really? That’s so odd, I thought as long as you’re not running an exit node, you should be fine.
drkt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Your ISP doesn’t give a fuck, it’s not legal trouble. It’s just overzealous sysadmins blocking anything that seems sus. I am permanently banned from most SoMe, for example, for having abnormal network activity but none of it is illegal.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Exit relays are totally fine from a legal perspective. They key is making sure the ISP and local police are aware so they don’t come after you. ISPs have sent DMCA letters and such to operators when in reality they can’t and shouldn’t control the traffic coming out of Tor. The good news is that Tor has templates to respond.
Best practice is to let bigger organizations run exit relays so that there is the oversight from leadership.