[tor-relays] 10 Years Torservers.net: Death or Future?

[Mitar]

Hi!

Thanks for this update about torservers. I have been around when it
has started, but then got busy myself with other things.

But these days I am playing with an idea that
https://opencollective.com/ might be something which would allow one
to duplicate and replicate what torservers have done without having to
struggle through all the bureaucracy of making your own association,
bank accounts and so on.


Mitar

On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 2:58 AM Moritz Bartl <moritz at torservers.net> wrote:
>
> tl;dr: torservers.net needs a new home!
>
> I started torservers.net after a random chat at a local bar some time
> early 2010. I wore a Tor shirt, and the guy next to me asked if that was
> "The Onion", the satire magazine. He became pretty excited about Tor
> after I told him what it was about, opened his wallet and gave me a 100€
> bill "to put towards the network". Eventually it turned out that he was
> an Oracle software developer, so it's kind of funny to think about this
> as "one of the few good things Oracle has ever done".
>
> I thought about it for a bit, and then decided to take the money, which
> cemented the idea that I have had for quite some time: to get a more
> beefy machine to "properly" run a Tor exit, sharing the costs with others.
>
> Only a few days after I announced this idea on or-talk [1] in May 2010,
> some crazy Swede wired me another 1000€ (Thanks!). So, bad luck, I
> really had to do this now!
>
> I am still surprised at how successful the fundraising was. In fact,
> when we finally created a legal envelope of protection around me by
> starting the Zwiebelfreunde association in 2011, it was already clear
> that we needed to find others to do the same, instead of growing larger
> ourselves. The network was a lot different then, and some people tell me
> we had 80% of the overall exit capacity for quite some time after Olaf
> shut down his fast Blutmagie exit. So I went on a tour to inspire others.
>
> So, here we are, almost 10 years later, with 23 partner organizations in
> 15 countries. [2]
>
> After I got a "real job" in 2013 (that quickly grew into "more than
> full-time"), and at the same time the first grant money for
> torservers.net, we tried in many different ways to "recruit" others to
> "take over". Looking back, of course a lot of things happened and it was
> a crazy (and fun!) time, but long story short, until now nobody stepped
> up to take over the core role of a "coordinator" of activities. There
> are many many offers for help, and even more ideas of what
> torservers.net could do and be, but all people involved heavily at the
> beginning (Thanks!) don't have time to coordinate all the wonderful
> help, and do a proper handover. We tried a couple of times, only to
> spend a lot of time "training" a poor person to get them somewhat up to
> speed, but eventually everyone decided they had better things to do than
> to become frustrated at trying to walk blindly without much guidance.
> This is not an easy role to step into.
>
> If we take the May 2010 announcement as "launch date", the 10 years
> anniversary will be on May 10th, 2020. My dream would be to celebrate
> this with a fresh board at Zwiebelfreunde that has taken over the
> association, and another group that coordinates the international
> platform that torservers.net was meant to be(come).
>
> Of course we will not simply give away the domains and the legal entity
> and all our exit relays to just anyone. But, hm, yeah, truth is,
> probably almost anyone! ;-)
>
> For some years now, we've talked about the idea of a "relaunch". The
> most promising idea is to organize a proper Tor Relay Operators Retreat,
> maybe 50 people or so, with all the great people who have dedicated
> their lives to this project at some point, and all the great new folks
> who are as excited as all of us were back then about contributing to the
> Tor network. It would likely to be possible to convince Open Technology
> Fund or some other money source to sponsor travel and venue. I've always
> imagined this to happen in a nice "holiday" setting. At some point, I
> *will* go with a group of people to this fine venue [3], as an example
> of how this could look like.
>
> So far, I've tried to talk to individuals about it in smaller groups,
> and never announced it to the broader community in the way I do now.
> However, I still believe that this can only really be moved forward _in
> person_. I will do my best to ignore all mails you write to me or in
> this thread. Please write, coordinate, do everything that you think
> would be good to do to move this forward, but I don't really have the
> capacity to lead a good discussion. The only capacity I can offer is
> that we *need* someone to step up, and grab me at some event in
> meatspace. Ideally at that point that person is willing to have the A
> record pointed at some new place under their control, and we can begin
> the transition. Otherwise we will probably simply kill it for the 10
> years anniversary, and finally make room for something new altogether.
>
> This is a call for help!
>
> Thanks. :-)
>
> Moritz
>
> P.S.: I will at some point soon post another mail about what I was up to
> the past years, and what I will be up to in the next few years. Don't
> worry, I'll still be around.
>
> [1] http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/May-2010/msg00058.html
> [2] https://torservers.net/partners.html
> [3] For a real Tor Relay Retreat, we would need something larger, but I
> think this gives you a pretty good idea of how I imagine it to look
> like: https://www.homeaway.co.uk/p868562
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