[metrics-team] Hello from blackbird

Karsten Loesing karsten at torproject.org
Thu Feb 21 15:55:04 UTC 2019


On 2019-02-21 03:37, Su Yu wrote:
> Hello everyone,

Hello blackbird,

> My name is Elise (usually known online as “blackbird”(lower case)). I have been interested in working with Tor for some time; recently I met Alison in an event, and she kindly directed me here.

Glad to meet you here!

> A little about my background: I am a PhD student doing some data mining/machine learning-related work. My specializations are mainly in deep learning, network analysis, and data visualization. I write Python, know a little Java and R, and some misc languages. I would be most interested in doing some measurement of the Tor network’s structure, if possible.

I might have something. I started an analysis of tor software versions
in the Tor network three weeks ago, but I can't seem to find the time to
dig deeper into it.

I wonder if you'd like to pick this up, see if you can find interesting
insights in the data, make some fine graphs, and tell us what you found?

Here's what I produced so far:

https://people.torproject.org/~karsten/volatile/recommended-2019-02-02.pdf

This graphs shows how quickly relays and bridges in the Tor network
update their tor software versions. It shows this for the entire network.

Maybe there are parts of the Tor network that update their tor software
versions faster? The bridges that are hard-coded in Tor Browser come to
mind, as do the directory authorities and fallback directories shipped
with the tor software. Maybe relays on some operating systems update
their version faster than on others? Some countries earlier than others?
Home-run relays on dynamic IP addresses differently from those run in
data centers?

There might be others on this list with more questions on this topic,
all of which we cannot answer yet, because we didn't do a thorough
analysis yet.

I can provide you with data and code that I used for this initial analysis.

> It is great meeting you, and I look forward to learning more about the team!

Curious whether you'll find this interesting!

> Best,
> blackbird

All the best,
Karsten

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