EFFecting Digital Freedom

by Jason Kelley

Take the Tor University Challenge

One of our most useful tools to fight back against online censorship is something called Tor.

Tor is both a web browser you can download to browse the Internet, and a network of computers run by volunteers that make the Tor software work.  Using Tor is fairly easy - you just download the Tor browser, which connects both to the regular web and "onion" sites - websites that provide end-to-end encryption and anonymity - to help circumvent censorship.

Journalists, activists, attorneys, and other users all over the world rely on Tor for unmonitored, uncensored access to the Internet.  It's a vital tool for censorship circumvention that we've seen used in Russia and in Iran, for example.  And Tor is a required component of SecureDrop, a tool used by news organizations for secure information sharing.  SecureDrop has been used in countless news stories.  Tor is sometimes thought of, incorrectly, as a tool primarily used by criminals.  Like any tool, it can be used for criminal purposes, but no matter who else uses it, it is known globally as an essential part of censorship circumvention.

Tor functions by directing online traffic through "relays," which receive and transmit traffic to successive relays.  Consequently, Tor may exhibit slightly slower performance than a conventional web browser, but these relays effectively conceal the origin and destination of a Tor user's online activity, thwarting monitoring, tracking, and often, Internet hindrances and censorship.

To do all this critical work, Tor relies on heroes like you.  What makes Tor effective is the large volunteer-run network of computers that anonymize web traffic by operating these relays.  Anyone can run a Tor relay, but they generally require a fair amount of bandwidth.  One place where bandwidth is often plentiful, however, is universities.

That's why we're starting the Tor University Challenge.

Universities are great environments for hosting Tor relays due to their robust network speeds; the abundance of technical expertise available via professors, students, and IT teams; and a general commitment to freedom of thought and expression.  Through operating a Tor relay, universities can directly position themselves as champions of intellectual freedom.  In 2011, we launched our first Tor Challenge, for all users, which resulted in 549 new relays.  By 2014, after we launched our second Tor Challenge, we had counted 1,635 new relays.  This time around, we're focusing on getting more Tor relays onto college campuses.

Many universities already run Tor relays, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgetown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Technical University Berlin, University of Cambridge, and others.  Roughly 7,000 relays help make up the global Tor network - and the more that we have, the better Tor operates.

There are several types of relays - each with slightly different challenges for an operator - as well as bridges and proxies that help out users whose Tor access is blocked.  An entry, middle, or "non-exit" relay is a low maintenance option for users who mostly want to offer extra bandwidth.  An exit relay is the final hop in a Tor connection, and is the most crucial part of the Tor network (but also the most work to run).

In some countries, such as Iran and Russia, direct access to the Tor network is blocked.  In those countries, people have to use what are known as "Tor bridges," and tens of thousands of people do so regularly to circumvent censorship, and national or regional restrictions.  A bridge is great to run if you are bandwidth-constrained.  Lastly, a Snowflake proxy helps mask those bridge Internet addresses so they also can't be blocked, and can be run right in your own browser.

If you have affiliations with a university, your assistance is invaluable, particularly if you are a faculty member.  If you're a student, enlisting faculty support might be necessary.  Establishing a Tor relay can be a great educational experience as well as a great way to find like-minded people to work on similar projects with in the future.  Relays offer students hands-on cybersecurity experience in a real environment helping real people, and open up conversations about global policy, law, society, and free speech issues.  And once it's up and running, a relay generally requires very little maintenance.

If you want to learn more about the technical details of operating a relay, the Tor Project website has a number of guides worth checking out.  Remember: anyone can run a relay!  If your university does so for a year, send us an email, and we'll send you a challenge coin in return.  You can visit EFF's Tor University Challenge website, toruniversity.eff.org, for more information about the relays, frequently asked questions, form letters for finding allies on campus, and more.