Nos Oignons has just set up a new exit nodes to bring 100 Mbit/s additional capacity to the Tor network. We accepted an offer from Globenet to host this new relay. Globenet is a non-profit organization which has been working since 1995 on freedoms of expression, communication, and association in relation to international solidarity. However, Globenet is more widely known by the general public for the creation of no-log.org, a (misleadlingly named) internet access provider created in 2001 who nowadays is still hosting many email accounts.
The relay is named AlGrothendieck—a name suggested last summer during the Adopt an onion campaign—as a reference to the mathematician and ecologist Alexandre Grothendieck, a long time apatrid who died in France at end of 2014. Anticonformist and antimilitarist, we can for example hear him give a talk (in French) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in 1972 questionning the social value of scientific research when it now threatens survival of all human lifes, or even life as a whole. The Internet allowed his autobiography (fr) to be made available when he had not found a publisher in 1985. While last month the University of Montpellier decided to give back 20,000 handwritten pages to the family for inventory (fr), the issues raised by Alexandre Grothendieck regarding the social aspects of science and technology are more relevant than ever.
This new relay raises Nos Oignons’ total contribution to the Tor network to a theoritical capacity of 725 Mbit/s. Thanks to all who made this new relay possible. The actual position of Nos Oignons in the Tor network, a probability of 2% to use one of our exit nodes, gives room to set up more relays. Every single donation is useful to enhance the Tor network and defend our freedoms in a world of pervasive electronic communications!