William Weber, a LowEndTalk member, was raided by Austrian police in 2012 for operating a Tor exit node that was allegedly used to distribute child pornography. While he was not arrested, many of his computers and devices were confiscated. He was later found guilty of supporting the distribution of child pornography through his Tor exit node, though he claims it was unintentional and he was simply supporting free speech and anonymity. He was given a 5 year probation sentence but left Austria shortly after. Though some articles portray him negatively, it is debatable whether he intentionally supported child pornography distribution or simply operated in the legal grey area of Tor exit nodes.
The Tor network was designed for spies. In particular, for US&friends spies to have a plausible deniability when “phoning home”. It is pretty much guaranteed to have exit nodes with a traffic capacity of “whatever spies need × whatever amount is needed to preserve plausible deniability”.
That means it doesn’t “desperately need” exit nodes, the required amount of exit nodes keeps being financed by the spy agencies involved. Overhead capacity just happens to be a nice thing for everyone, but is not a goal, so non-sponsored exit nodes that provide extra capacity, run all the risks, without any of the protections of some higher-ups waving any denounces away.
If you think you can run an exit node as a non-sponsored/protected individual, go for it… but the chances are not in your favor. Donating to the Tor foundation is much safer, buy I don’t think they host exit nodes either, they just develop the software (which is also important).
Relay nodes are mostly safe, since there is no way for you to know any of the traffic, and they don’t link your IP to any of it, while they do help with the overall robustness and capacity of the network. Relay nodes also add capacity when accessing hidden sites, without running any of the risks.
“Obfuscating” means to make it hard to find out, while “hiding” means there is no way to find it out, at all.
And you did make a new account, it’s visible in the “about” info. The account hasn’t had any other interactions either… but whatever.