William Weber, a LowEndTalk member, was raided by Austrian police in 2012 for operating a Tor exit node that was allegedly used to distribute child pornography. While he was not arrested, many of his computers and devices were confiscated. He was later found guilty of supporting the distribution of child pornography through his Tor exit node, though he claims it was unintentional and he was simply supporting free speech and anonymity. He was given a 5 year probation sentence but left Austria shortly after. Though some articles portray him negatively, it is debatable whether he intentionally supported child pornography distribution or simply operated in the legal grey area of Tor exit nodes.
You keep focusing on exit nodes, and your favorite groups of people… while missing that relay nodes still help, and in either case you don’t get to choose whom you’re helping.
Laughing off the risk of actually getting killed, is also too naive, in a world with zealots just too happy to travel anywhere you might be.
In any case, I don’t feel like risking even jail time for maybe helping some people I might like, while most likely helping people I definitely don’t. If you do find that risk acceptable, then go for it.
Orbot, aka Tor, doesn’t just obfuscate the source IP, it hides it. What does that bring to the table with Syncthing?
PS: I don’t know who you are, other than you created a new account just to have this conversation, which strikes me as a bit odd.
And I’m running 2 relay nodes. The TOR network desperately needs exit nodes to relieve the bottleneck at the exits, and that’s where I want to help.
Of course, it’s not for everyone, which is why one could just donate to the TOR foundation (or whatever they are called) and that money goes into infrastructure.
I’m not a native speaker, I assumed obfuscate meant hiding the IP address. I mentioned it because you asked.
I didn’t make a new account just for this lol, it’s just that I’m passionate about it.