Also, if you don't want to run a node on your home network/machine http://cloud.torproject.org/ makes it ridiculously easy to set up one on EC2 (for as little as ~$3/month)
A: No. If law enforcement becomes interested in traffic from your exit relay, it's possible that officers will seize your computer. For that reason, it's best not to run your exit relay in your home or using your home Internet connection.
Instead, consider running your exit relay in a commercial facility that is supportive of Tor. Have a separate IP address for your exit relay, and don't route your own traffic through it.
Of course, you should avoid keeping any sensitive or personal information on the computer hosting your exit relay, and you never should use that machine for any illegal purpose.
What part of "Should I run an exit relay from my home?" was unclear? I am not trying to discourage people from supporting the tor network, quite the opposite actually. I want to make sure they are fully informed and support tor in a manner that is sustainable.
I'm running one of these on my free EC2 account and can attest to the ridiculously easy part. It took me < 5 min to setup. If you want to avoid paying any fees, just have to make 1 change to the torrc file bandwidth settings. Also, make a great ubuntu sandbox to play with. For example, I'm running a joomla test server with it.
I also am running a Tor relay on EC2, and I was under the assumption that I wouldn't have to worry about charges with a stock install. Can you provide more detail about what I should do to my instance to prevent charges?
Edit your your /etc/tor/torrc
And change the AccountingMax line to:
AccountingMax 3000 MB
This will reduce the monthly usage to 12GB and keep you under the 15GB limit. I've been running this bridge for a few months now and have never gone over.
