I am in the EU. I want to help make the TOR network more robust by contributing a relay node. I have one of three hardware options: a raspberry pi zero W, raspberry pi 4B, or ThinkPad T470s.
In your practical experience, which of these computers would be the best for the network? As I understand, beyond a point, the CPU power doesn’t matter unless massive traffic loads go through the node.
P.S: Not sure if this is relevant, but I currently have a pihole hosted in a separate RPI zero. I plan to host this at home. I do not have a separate connection line. My router doesn’t support vlan.
Add: Thank you for the kind replies. Based on the feedback, it think I’m currently not setup to help the network. I will instead continue with my annual contribution.
I will look into hosting a node on a VPS and just pay a monthly subscription fee or something.
I ran a relay too way, way back in the day and I remember almost a third of the sites I used blacklisted my IP address within days. It wasn’t cool.
I ended up shutting it down, resetting my cable modem, and spoofing a new MAC address on my router to get a new IP address to get everything working again.
Using a VPN is smarter. I wouldn’t run that on IPv6 whatsoever.
Why not on IPv6? If you received a /64 from your ISP and pick only one IPv6 for Tor, I don’t see what the issue would be…
Personally, I think IPv6 is not a good choice for any service you don’t want associated with a specific device. As I understand it, the prefix delegation comes from the ISP, but often the interface ID is derived from the machine’s MAC address which is a link to specific machine hardware, can reveal information about the host, and possibly deanonymoized across networks.
I’d stick with IPv4 because NAT gives a tad more anonymity. Just my $0.02 though.
I am hosting a high speed relay right now, and have been for 4+ years, on my home address. I am not getting attacked beyond the usual drivebys that I’d get hit with regardless because I host other outward-facing things.
You do look suspicious to large social media sites, but besides those: I’ve never been blocked from somewhere due to my relay.
That’s good news! It would be great if relays made it difficult to be targeted. I last tinkered with TOR almost… Jeez!.. 20 years ago haha!