[tor-bugs] #2680 [Metrics]: present bridge usage data so researchers can focus on the math

[Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki]

#2680: present bridge usage data so researchers can focus on the math
---------------------+------------------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  arma     |          Owner:  karsten
     Type:  task     |         Status:  new    
 Priority:  normal   |      Milestone:         
Component:  Metrics  |        Version:         
 Keywords:           |         Parent:         
   Points:           |   Actualpoints:         
---------------------+------------------------------------------------------
 Right now the process of learning how to parse bridge consensus files,
 bridge descriptor files, match up which descriptors go with which
 consensus line, which bridges were Running when, etc is too burdensome --
 researchers who want to analyze bridge reachability are giving up before
 they even get to the part they tried to sign up for.

 The questions they will ask are "what bridges are up today? what data are
 they reporting?" and "what data did this bridge report each day?"

 Karsten speculates:
 I guess it would be a text file with each line containing: sanitized relay
 fingerprint, seen as relay before, bridge stats end, bridge stats seconds,
 connecting users by country, pool assignments. 1 line per published bridge
 descriptor.

 Once we have this data available, it would also be interesting to graph a
 few histories of individual bridges, to see if there's any intuition to be
 gained from the more popular one, or to learn whether only a few bridges
 contribute to most of our usage stats.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/2680>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
The Tor Project: anonymity online