In August of 2023 EFF announced the Tor University Challenge, a campaign to get more universities around the world to operate Tor relays.
The primary goal of this campaign is to strengthen the Tor network by creating more high bandwidth and reliable Tor nodes.
We hope this will also make the Tor network more resilient to censorship since any country or smaller network cutting off access to Tor means it would be also cutting itself off from a large swath of universities, academic knowledge, and collaborations.
People at each of these institutions have been running Tor relays for over a year and are contributing significantly to the Tor network.
Since August, we've spent much of our time discovering and making contact with existing relays.
Two of the institutions in the original launch list have started public relays.
University of Michigan used to run only a Snowflake back-end bridge, and now they're running a new exit relay too.
Georgetown University used to run only a default obfs4 bridge, and now they're running a non-exit relay as well.
Setting up new relays at educational institutions can be a lengthy process, because it can involve getting buy-in and agreement from many different parts of the organization.
Five new institutions are in the middle of this process, and we're hopeful we'll be able to announce them soon.
For many of the institutions on our list we were able to reaffirm their commitment to running Tor relays or help provide the impetus needed to make the relay more permanent.
In some cases we were also able to provide answers to technical questions or other concerns.
In Europe, we are realizing that relationship-building with the per-country National Research and Education Network organizations is key to sustainability.
In the United States each university buys its own internet connection however it likes, but in Europe each university gets its internet from its nation's NREN. That means relays running in the NRENs themselves-while not technically in a university-are even more important because they represent Tor support at the national level.
Our next step is to make better contact with the NRENs that appear especially Tor-supportive: Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Greece.
For now universities from the US and EU make up the bulk of the relays.
We would love to see more universities from the global south join our coalition.
The beautiful challenge coins you can get for participating in the Tor University Challenge.
If you have already started a relay at your university, and want help or a prize LET US KNOW..
This Cyber News was published on www.eff.org. Publication date: Mon, 04 Dec 2023 18:43:05 +0000