The Tor Project has announced, in association with the Library Freedom Project, a new initiative to put Tor exit nodes in public libraries, and help educate users and librarians alike, of the importance of Tor and its mission for user online privacy.

Because of the way TOR was constructed to work, Tor exit nodes play a crucial importance above of all Tor middle relays and bridges.

Tor exit nodes are the public spot from where traffic that enters the Tor network leaves back to the Internet, hiding the user's real identity from surveillance projects run like the NSA.

From these nodes, huge quantities of traffic spews out online, and these servers are usually where a law enforcement investigation comes to a dead stop.

The project is an attempt to avoid DMCA takedowns on Tor exit nodes

Because of this, many individuals and companies that have opted to run a Tor exit node have been in the past under a heavy barrage of questions from police officials, many times being forced to take their servers offline after official DMCA takedowns.

What the Tor Project is doing with its latest project is an absolute genius move, at least from a legal standpoint.

As a result of their activity and scope, libraries are generally protected by safe harbor provisions against DMCA takedowns and are also protected from threats and intimidation tactics, which some law enforcement agencies might use on lonesome individuals to force them to take down or give them access to the exit node.

This will draw a lesser degree of scrutiny from law enforcements, which will have a hard time differentiating actual research carried out from the library's computers from the Tor hidden traffic.

One library is participating in the project as a test subject, more will follow

In its pilot phase, Tor's recent undertaking is now testing an experimental setup in the Kilton Library in Lebanon, New Hampshire, where it currently set up a middle relay in the library's building.

The Tor team plans to upgrade this relay to an exit node in the following months, and if results are good and they smooth out procedural problems, the project will be expanded to more and more libraries across the world.

Libraries willing to participate in the project can sign up right now, using a special questionnaire on Library Freedom Project's website.