Hi folks,
I just released 0.2.4.17-rc. Hopefully there will be debs of it soon.
It comes with a new feature: - Relays now process the new "NTor" circuit-level handshake requests with higher priority than the old "TAP" circuit-level handshake requests. We still process some TAP requests to not totally starve 0.2.3 clients when NTor becomes popular. A new consensus parameter "NumNTorsPerTAP" lets us tune the balance later if we need to. Implements ticket 9574.
So the more relays that upgrade to 0.2.4.17-rc, the more stable and fast Tor will be for 0.2.4 users, despite the huge circuit overload that the network is seeing.
Please consider upgrading. If you do, though, please also keep an eye on it -- it's possible we introduced some new bugs and the network will start dissolving once more relays move to the new version.
In my spare time I'm also working on a blog post to explain what's going on and what measures we're taking to keep things afloat.
Aren't distributed systems fun, --Roger