[tor-relays] BitTorrent complaint

[Moritz Bartl]

On 09.04.2013 18:04, bartels wrote:
> Personally, I cannot afford complaints and spend time on legal issues;
> however groundless they may be it is not what I do.

Spending time on "legal issues" is part of the job of an exit operator.
Sorry.

DMCA notices are totally harmless.

> Another thing is filtering on bittorrent. The tor site suggests a filter:
>     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/BlockingBittorrent

Just because it is in the community wiki, it is not something you should
do, or an official Tor recommendation. I would advise heavily against
anything that blocks connections outside of the official ExitPolicy
statements. Clients will become unreliable, and have no way of knowing
what happened to their connection.

The quoted snippet blocks connections to trackers, but not torrenting
itself. One of the most popular sites, ThePirateBay, does not even rely
on trackers any more. Apart from that, blocking trackers will also hurt
legal torrenting.

>> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/ReducedExitPolicy
> Must say it is a pretty loose list. I do not see the point in
> accessing a squid proxy server over tor. It sort of defeats the
> purpose.

Maybe you don't, but other users do.

The reduced exit policy blocks most "random" ports, which is what
Bittorrent clients use for connections. This means it will drastically
reduce the amount of DMCA notices you will receive.

You are free to allow an even more limited amount of ports on your exits.

-- 
Moritz Bartl
https://www.torservers.net/