[tor-relays] Feedback wanted: letter to my university's library

[Alison Macrina]

Scott Bennet> If he discovers that neither his campus library nor the
university as a
> whole is already officially running at least one relay, this may be a better
> way to teach them.  If, rather than going for a relay, which is quite likely
> to scare them until they understand more and better about tor, AJ were
> instead to campaign to get the library to install the tor browser bundle
> onto its publicly available computers, that alone would be a terrific
> coup and might engender a great deal of student support for tor on campus
> over time.  (The library would, of course, need to find a way to lock down
> the settings of the installed bundle, so that it couldn't be turned into
> a relay by users, but that should not be difficult to do.)  If he succeeded
> in getting the tor browser bundle added to the library's most likely tightly
> limited list of applications available on its public machines, he could then
> wait a while to see what the staff members thought of it.  If they decided
> after watching it in use for a while that it was a good thing to have made
> available to their users, you might then approach another department that
> operates a student computer lab to try to get TBB installed there.  If the
> library employees liked it, they might give the prospective department a
> positive recommendation.  If AJ played it right and it usually turned out
> well, he might eventually cover much of the campus with TBB installations.
> In any case, getting the TBB installed would educate far more people about
> anonymity and privacy issues than merely getting a relay installed that most
> people would never be aware of.

This is a great idea, and the slides I shared in my last email could
help get this conversation started (the slides cover Tor Browser as well
as relays and other Tor stuff). If AJ is interested I can connect him
with other libraries I've worked with that have installed Tor Browser on
all of their public computers.

Alison