[tor-talk] What are the PPTOR relays?

[Soul Plane]

On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Philipp Winter <phw at nymity.ch> wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 06, 2014 at 10:57:18PM -0400, Soul Plane wrote:
> > Last night I noticed my relay path was using two PPTOR relays. I don't
> > know much about Tor but from what I've read I thought servers that are
> > related are supposed to identify themselves as such. Just because two
> > servers have similar names does not mean they are related though. Are
> > those servers all run by the same person? Is there a way to tell if
> > they are? Is that unusual or not? Thanks
>
> Tor's MyFamily option is used to announce that a set of relays is run by
> the same operator.  Sometimes, relay operators fail to configure the
> option which could explain what you witnessed.
>
> At first glance, it looks like the PPTOR family correctly set the
> MyFamily option (using fingerprints and nicknames).  See for example:
> <
> https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/0C45FAE12326D376997F8A233A402A6B5BB25404
> >
>
> Among these relays, do you know which ones were part of your circuit?
>

Yes:

First hop:
PPTOR0006 (Online)
Location: Netherlands
IP Address: 5.79.71.195
Bandwidth: 11.72 MB/s
Uptime: 6 hours 49 mins 45 secs
Last Updated: 2014-07-05 20:12:49 GMT

Second hop:
PPTOR0014 (Online)
Location: Germany
IP Address: 217.114.218.18
Bandwidth: 22.95 MB/s
Uptime: 17 hours 27 mins 56 secs
Last Updated: 2014-07-05 09:34:38 GMT

I see both on the family list. I am using Tails 1.0.1 CD and it uses Tor
version 0.2.4.22 (git-255243866bbf9365). Thanks