Hey Hairyspin,
I've read about Ickie. He was the server and network guy for SOH before passing away, wasn't he? I know he was much more to this community.
Not wanting to be disrespectful, but even Ickie would be unable to see through Tor. Tor is a Browser that was developed for the NSA. It evolved into something way much more than that. Tor has become a network of people signing in to use the browser and setting up relays/hosts. You connect to the internet through them. Even the best of network and server admins would not be able to see what is behind the host/relay that is connecting to their servers.
The NSA wanted it for untraceable communications and they got exactly that. But it exploded in their face. Nowadays even they can't trace the traffic.
I use it for online banking, for tests at work and in this particular case, to test the connectivity of the SOH servers. It allowed me to see whether the problems were limited to Belgium, my ISP or whatever. The problems weren't there. When I was experiencing problems connecting while surfing normally, I tried to connect through Tor via countries in most continents and all connections were refused because a) server load, b) network problems on your end. Most likely because of overload.
Let's just say that SOH's popularity is also a burden to you guys. Maybe it is the server, maybe it is the network connection. But it is definitely one of those two.
Priller