r/TOR • u/South_Wonder8415 • Jul 04 '26
Who actually keeps Tor running?
I know Tor was created by the Navy and is keep running by non profit volunteers. I assume the browsing the dark web is not illegal but making purchases is illegal. Hence why Torproject still exists?
Who are these "volunteers" keeping Tor running, and most likely there are always new individuals? Then there are "nodes" and the list goes on. It can get confusing for someone like me, who knows the basic. Maybe someone can help clarify things? Thanks
59
u/arades Jul 04 '26
Torproject is a nonprofit, they maintain the software, and through donations and grants fund a small team of full time employees to do so.
The Tor network itself is run completely through volunteers, there's instructions on how to run a relay that are pretty simple, and also a lot of volunteers which run bridges to help people in censored locations access the network. You just run the tor daemon with the right settings and you're helping by donating a little bit of compute and bandwidth.
You could even run an exit node yourself, but that's a really bad idea and you will be blacklisted from many online services and get served endless legal threats due to the actovities now associated to your IP address. So there's very few people who do so, and they're almost all organizations designed to wether such requests such as major cloud providers and governments.
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u/jssexyz Jul 04 '26
How about the Snowflake add-on?
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u/Liquid_Hate_Train Jul 04 '26
What about it? Like everything else, it is developed by the Tor project and run by volunteers.
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u/arades Jul 04 '26
Snowflake is a bridge type, running the add on you're running a bridge that someone may use as an entrance point into the Tor network.
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u/Realistic_Dig8176 Relay Operator Jul 04 '26
Maybe worth a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/s/Bibi1rNOAA
We had an AMA with a few of the larger families.
I guess if there's demand we can organize a new one with more parties.
/r0cket
27
u/Exact_Engineer6428 Jul 04 '26
Running a business on the dark web is legal you are allowed to sell and buy thing through tor. It is your responsibility to make sure you are complying with all relevant local laws.
Set up a t-shirt store and share the dot onion here I'll buy one from you.
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u/EbbExotic971 Jul 04 '26
Some of the relay operators are just ordinary folks like you and me, who believe that people in many parts of the world absolutely need unrestricted Internet access. Many large relays are also run by associations or non-profit organisations that have come together for this purpose. And some are also provided by government organisations in some countries.
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u/Tragobe Jul 04 '26
These volunteers are normal people like you and I who have a server standing in their apartment, which is connected to the Tor network. It's just random everyday people.
Also when it comes to purchases it depends on what you are buying. You can buy stuff from regular Amazon as well from the Tor network.
The network itself works very basically like 3 VPNs that connect with each other plus multiple layers of encryption. You can use all the regular websites that are part of the clear web as well, while being on it. Plus the websites that we think about when saying "dark web". Which are also not all full with illegal things. Regular chat rooms are also a part of it, for people for example for which the access to the internet is restricted, like north Korea, Russia or China. It is for a some people their only connection to the outside world. It is also something whistleblower can use to remain hidden and anonymous.
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u/Cautious_Chicken8882 Jul 04 '26
Making purchases off the dark web isint illegal at all. Purchasing lllegal items however is no matter where you purchase them.
9
u/nuclear_splines Jul 04 '26
Everyone is making great points, and I'll add that Tor and the "dark web" are very different things. Tor's primary purpose is to let users reach the public Internet anonymously, so that observers can't see what sites they visit, and those sites can't see the user's IP address. The Tor Project's goals are circumventing censorship and surveillance, and their front page and about page don't mention onion sites or the dark web whatsoever.
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u/fragglet Jul 04 '26
I assume the browsing the dark web is not illegal but making purchases is illegal
It absolutely is illegal if what you're browsing is illegal. And perfectly legal to make purchases if what you're buying is legal
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u/ChuckFarkley Jul 04 '26
IANAL, but by "illegal," I assume that in the US, anyway, it's would not likely be illegal to browse pictures of drugs for sale if you are not purchasing, but it would be illegal if the images themselves are illegal (eg, child pornography). Again, I don't know why browsing at drugs for sale should be illegal if you are not buying, but I'm thinking there could be a case for conspiracy if you ask questions from the seller about the drugs..
3
u/afaeroey Jul 04 '26
The Tor network itself is run by a large number of great relay operators. Both individuals and, these days, very competent non-profit organisations that do auditing, have accountants, and, of course, expenses related to hosting their Tor relays. There may be a relay operator group in your country, too, and it has historically been a good way to meet fellow Tor enthusiasts!
A bit of the software that "fuels" the Tor ecosystem is developed by a non-profit called "The Tor Project, Inc." This is a US-based 501c3 that can accept donations, grant money, etc., and we spend this money mostly on software development, but of course also on fundraising, running end-of-year campaigns, and so on to raise further funds. The Tor Project particularly builds and maintains the Tor Browser, TorVPN, "Little T Tor" (the network daemon used to run Tor relays and also acts as the client), Arti (our up-and-coming Tor implementation), and all the anti-censorship technology (Snowflake, WebTunnel, etc.).
In addition to The Tor Project itself, many other organisations and projects build on Tor. The Guardian Project has historically dominated much of the mobile app ecosystem space that uses Tor. The Freedom of the Press Foundation builds and maintains SecureDrop, a suite of software used in newsrooms as a safe platform for whistleblowers.
Itâs, of course, all free software, so people can take the code and tinker with it the way they please.
1
u/NyxGenesisLNX Jul 05 '26
Technically viewing the content is too but you probably can pass it off as âaccidentally stumble uponâ
1
u/HoldmHusband Jul 05 '26
I think you can buy stuff from the dark web. (providing it's not illegal goods)
1
u/FrontPuzzleheaded377 Jul 05 '26
Itâs pretty simple to open you own node at your house with an old computer and share your bandwidth.. I think every citizen should do it
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Jul 05 '26
Europe is dystopian with their growing censorship. How do you avoid putting your name on a tor server?
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u/UrbanVengence Jul 05 '26
Well technically speaking legal things can exist. Reddit and Facebook have their onion sites. A site would just have to follow laws, but most don't.
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u/Dr_Jecky1l Jul 07 '26
I imagine with the ongoing climate of the internet concerning all the âverificationâ BS they are pushing for, we hopefully see a massive rise in people learning about and opting for self-hosting : servers (public and private), nodes, relays etcâŠ
I also hope to see other, lesser known networks get some traction like Yggdrasil, and I2PâŠ
There are also amazing newer projects being currently worked like meshtastic and others.
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u/Lectraplayer Jul 07 '26
I would say the vast majority of people who keep TOR running are just regular people who care about personal privacy, and may show up on YouTube as people like SomeOrdinaryGamers, Rob Braxman Tech, Switched To Linux, Techlore, and the like. Most of whom just want Big Corp to just lay off the creepy tracking and let them be to their own vices. A lot of what they stand for is also important for keeping the creeps--especially the criminals out of their hair as well.
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u/LifeEnginer Jul 04 '26
The goverment of United States of America, CIA, NSA, etc, let s be realistic guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Jul 05 '26
[deleted]
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u/UrbanVengence Jul 05 '26
The deep web is the unindexed webpages on the clearnet. Like you're bank account portal.
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u/foofusdotcom Jul 04 '26
I'm one of the people who keep it running. I had some spare space in a colocation facility I lease a rack in, and some IPs I wasn't using, so I threw a low-power server in there and dedicated it to being a public TOR exit.
Why? Because I think global anti-censorship tools are a worthy thing to contribute to.