Editing Noisebridge Tor

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NoiseTor is not currently operational, as of November 2022. Please donate to Noisebridge instead to support our radically inclusive, free, maker and hackerspace. 

== Queries ==

Has anyone heard from [[User:Adi]] lately? Assuming they haven't forgotten the key, as of May 2020 [https://noisetor.net/ NoiseTor] appears to [https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/address/1PFH8NPWu2g6TdRQsirTPGpbnPBhkzQMvM/ hold] 5.90641865 bitcoin (worth between $50-60k USD at today's prices). '''Aside from this 2020 observation about bitcoin, this page hasn't been updated in years.''' See [[Noisebridge Tor/FAQ]] for more information.
''' wrote to Adi today to ask about this. we are also still getting donations - lizzard'''


''' I also wrote Adi and Shannon (Former bookkeeper) trying to get an idea of what is going on. Will update here if I hear anything. - Paul_H'''


== Making Donations ==

Visit http://tor.noisebridge.net to donate to the Noisebridge Tor Exit Node project.

==Overview==

The Noisebridge Tor Project is a group of Noisebridge members who want to create more Tor nodes.  The goal of the project is to accept donations to Noisebridge for the purpose of paying for Tor nodes.  We have the domain knowledge to deploy and run these servers, vendors who are interested in providing machines at very competitive prices, and donors who want to give money to a 501(c)3 for this purpose.

We considered running this project by accepting donations in the name of an individual or other non-Noisebridge legal entity.  However, we know there are some donors (and we believe there are many more) who would like to give money to a known 501(c)3 which has an existing reputation in the community.  By running this project as part of Noisebridge, the donors can be confident that the project is well-run; Noisebridge gains by furthering its founding principles of encouraging free anti-censorship communication technologies, and supporting research into privacy-enhancing and distributed technology.

We recognize that entering into financial relationships on behalf of Noisebridge carries some risk.  The Noisebridge Tor project will only commit and spend money donated for the project, as documented below.  The project will work in good faith to ensure that these financial relationships do not put the larger Noisebridge organization at financial risk or obligation.

The Noisebridge Tor Project will not be acting as a separate legal entity.  Donations the Noisebridge Tor Project receives will legally belong to Noisebridge, and as such they will be accounted for as income in the Noisebridge yearly tax filings.

Running this project as part of Noisebridge represents some additional overhead for the organization as a whole.  To defray this, 5% of donations received for the Noisebridge Tor Project will be donated to the Noisebridge general fund.  This information will be stated to donors making donations to the project.

==People Involved==

To ensure the project's continued smooth functioning, there must be people administering it.  There may be additional people involved who are not on this list, but the people on this list agree to be ultimately responsible for the project.

The project will maintain a minimum of one member, to serve as the Project Bookkeeper. This person will be responsible for tracking donations and expenditures, and for forecasting the Project budget. This person will also be point of contact for interfacing with the Treasurer. Should any accounting questions, issues, or discrepancies arrive, the Bookkeeper is committed to working closely with her to resolve them to her satisfaction in a timely manner, and in such a way as to require her to do as little additional work as possible. 

* [[User:Adi|Andy Isaacson]] (Evangelist, Tor Admin)
* [[User:Patrickod|Patrick O'Doherty]] (Tor Admin, Bookkeeper)
* [[User:SuperQ|Ben Kochie]] (Admin, Infrastructure)
* [[User:Leif|Leif Ryge]] (Evangelist, Tor Admin)
* [[User:Aestetix|aestetix]] (Evangelist, Tor Admin)
* [[User:Turkshead|Shannon Lee]] (Project Bookkeeper)
* [[User:MCT|Michael Toren]] (Consensus Broker)

==Donating to Noisebridge Tor==

The Noisebridge Tor project will accept donations via a PayPal "nonprofit donation" page at [http://tor.noisebridge.net http://tor.noisebridge.net].  The donations will be annotated for Tor using PayPal's systems; the donations will go to the treasurer@noisebridge.net account until such time as the Treasurer decides otherwise.

In the future we may add other methods of accepting donations, but only after coordinating with the Treasurer to ensure the incoming cashflow can be easily tagged in the accounting system.

The Bookkeeper will be responsible for tracking donations, in aggregate, as they arrive.  The Bookkeeper may query the amount of new donations by speaking with the Treasurer, or by using the accounting API.

The Bookkeeper will be responsible for maintaining publicly accessible records (e.g., in a Google Docs Spreadsheet, or on the Noisebridge wiki) detailing aggregate incoming donations (e.g., "For the week of blah, received $n"), and outgoing expenditures.

The Bookkeeper will make a good-faith effort to be available at the membership meeting to answer questions when there is substantial activity or interest in the Noisebridge Tor project (likely more at first and during decisions and transitions). The Bookkeeper will be responsible for providing a financial report, which will be made available during the weekly Noisebridge meeting. This report will go over recent or upcoming activities and decisions, and report on income and expenditures. At the Treasurer's discretion, the Bookkeeper may coordinate with the Treasurer to have her include this information in her existing Treasurer's Report. If the Treasurer is unavailable to report by proxy, another member of the Noisebridge Tor project may serve. 

Since Paypal receipts are generally accepted as donation receipts for tax purposes, we anticipate that few if any donation receipt letters will be required.  However, as is the case with all donations Noisebridge receives, the Treasurer will be responsible for providing donation receipt letters to any donors who request them.

==Purchasing Services==

Any legal agreements (such as service contracts) which require an official action by Noisebridge will be prepared by the Noisebridge Tor project and presented to the appropriate officer of Noisebridge (such as the Treasurer or President) for signature.  This structure is designed to put the work on the people who care about the project rather than on the officers of Noisebridge.

The Project Bookkeeper will maintain a current list of the financial obligations incurred by the project as part of their financial report.  The Noisebridge Tor project will avoid obligations which cannot be cancelled on 30 days notice, and will ensure that funds are available for each month's commitments before the month begins. 

If through some error the Noisebridge Tor project incurs operating expenses above and beyond its donations, the Noisebridge general fund will cover committed expenditures for the remainder of the monthly cycle. This coverage is intended as a loan from the general fund to the Noisebridge Tor project, and the project will be expected to raise donations to repay the loan before incurring any additional expenses. This is not expected to be a common occurrence. The Noisebridge Treasurer will work with the project coordinators to assure that this insurance is well within the capacity of Noisebridge's prudent reserve. This loan is not intended to cover expenditures above and beyond routine monthly expenses. A loan from the general fund for any other purposes would have to be brought up at the membership meeting.

The Project report will publicly state where and who services are purchased from each month, what levels of service (e.g., amount of bandwidth, etc), and how much it costs. This information may be less than fully specified to avoid disclosing proprietary pricing information from vendors.  In the event the information is redacted publicly, it will be made available to Noisebridge members upon request.

The Bookkeeper will inform the Treasurer when a bill should be paid, so she can track it properly, and coordinate the logistics of making the payment.  At her discretion, she may provide the Bookkeeper with means of making a payment without her direct involvement each and every time.

==System Administration==

The Noisebridge Tor Project will be responsible for administering the Tor nodes.  We have existing expertise in administering these services. Volunteers interested in helping should join the [https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/tor tor@lists.noisebridge.net mailing list] and help out.

==Abuse Handling==

The [http://www.eff.org EFF] developed a [https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-legal-faq.html Legal FAQ for Tor Relay Operators], and an [https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq-abuse.html.en Abuse FAQ].  These documents address many of the concerns that have been raised regarding the potential legal risks of operating a Tor node. The risks of this project are within the scope of Noisebridge's mission. In assuming these risks, we have considered the following:

* Nobody has ever been sued for running a Tor node.
* In the EFF's opinion, running a Tor node is legal under US law.
* Tor operators (including Noisebridge in this project) do not encourage the use of Tor for illegal purposes.
* The Project's volunteers will respond to complaints regarding traffic through our nodes.  The primary method to do so is to educate complainants about how to deal with Internet abuse in general.  We have several well-written documents which can easily be tailored for specific responses.

==Termination of the Project==
This project was initially [[Consensus Items History|authorized]] by Noisebridge on [[Meeting Notes 2011 08 02|August 2nd, 2011]] for a term of six months.  On [[Meeting Notes 2012 01 17|January 17th, 2012]], it was re-authorized for an additional six months, extending the authorization until August 2012.  The project may be further extended by additional Consensus items.

The Project Members may decide to suspend or terminate this project at
any time.  They may do so for any number of reasons, including financial
considerations (e.g., the amount of incoming donations is not great
enough to sustain it), if they simply feel the project has run its
course, or if project functions are interfering with other functions of
the greater Noisebridge organization.

After the project terminates and all project liabilities have been satisfied, any leftover earmarked donations will be donated to the EFF.  This information will be stated to donors making earmarked donations.

Update, 2022: Consensus was passed to donate the remaining funds (approx. 10K) back to Noisebridge itself.