It is distinctly likely that you are reading this because you had some issue with the traffic coming from this IP address. This machine is part of the Tor Anonymity Network, which is dedicated to providing privacy to people who need it most:- ordinary computer users - i.e. people like you.
I provide this service the the net community because I have used tor myself in the past and have found it useful. I still do. This is my way of paying back something to the community by way of thanks. If you use tor, I would encourage you to consider providing your own relay or exit node. The more nodes there are in use, the faster and better the network becomes.
Tor is used by many different segments of the population, including whistle blowers, journalists, dissidents avoiding oppressive censorship, abuse victims, stalker targets, military, and law enforcement, to name just a few. Whilst Tor is not designed for malicious computer users, it is true that the network can be used for malicious ends. In reality however, the actual level of abuse is quite low. This is largely because criminals and other ne'er-do-wells have significantly better access to privacy and anonymity than do the regular users whom they prey upon. Criminals can and do build, sell, and trade far larger and more powerful networks than Tor on a daily basis. Thus, in my view (and that of others who operate tor nodes) the social need for easily accessible censorship-resistant private, anonymous communication trumps the risk of unskilled bad actors, who are almost always more easily uncovered by traditional police work than by extensive monitoring and surveillance anyway.
In terms of applicable law, the best way to understand Tor is to consider it a network of routers operating as common carriers, much like the Internet backbone itself. However, unlike the Internet backbone routers, Tor routers explicitly do not contain identifiable routing information about the source of a packet, and no single Tor node can determine both the origin and destination of any given transmission.
As such, there is nothing I, or anyone else, can do to help you further track any connection you may have seen from this router. This router maintains no logs of any of the Tor traffic, so there is little that can be done to trace either legitimate or illegitimate traffic (or to filter one from the other).
If you are a representative of a company who feels that this router is being used to violate the US DMCA, please be aware that this machine does not host or contain any illegal content, it is simply a conduit for traffic. Also be aware that network infrastructure maintainers are not liable for the type of content that passes over their equipment, in accordance with DMCA "safe harbor" provisions. In other words, you will have just as much luck sending a takedown notice to the Internet backbone providers. Please consult EFF's prepared response for more information on this matter.
For more information, please consult the following documentation:
If you still believe you have a valid complaint about this router, you may email me at the address below explaining why. If the complaint is related to a particular service that is being abused, I will consider removing that service from my exit policy. That would prevent my router from allowing that traffic to exit through it. Note however, that I can only do this on an IP+destination port basis. Common P2P ports are already blocked by me, as is access to mail port 25 (to deny spammers the chance to link tor to their activities).
You also have the option of blocking this IP address and others on the Tor network if you so desire. The Tor project provides a python script to extract all IP addresses of Tor exit nodes, and an official DNSRBL is also available to determine if a given IP address is actually a Tor exit server. Please be considerate when using these options. It would be unfortunate to deny all Tor users access to your site indefinitely simply because of a few bad apples.
Enjoy.
Email address:
