[tor-bugs] #6295 [Analysis]: Gather statistics about client usage patterns in a privacy-preserving way

[Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki]

#6295: Gather statistics about client usage patterns in a privacy-preserving way
----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  karsten   |          Owner:     
     Type:  task      |         Status:  new
 Priority:  normal    |      Milestone:     
Component:  Analysis  |        Version:     
 Keywords:            |         Parent:     
   Points:            |   Actualpoints:     
----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------
 Rob and I briefly talked about gathering statistics about client usage
 patterns.  The idea is to configure Tor clients to record data about their
 uptime, number and kind of directory requests, amount of data read and
 written, number of circuits built and streams attached, number of bridges
 used, etc.  Tor would aggregate these data points in a privacy-preserving
 way and write them to a local file.  We'd ask volunteers to configure
 their Tor client and send us their usage data, which may not give us a
 representative sample, but which is still better than having to guess.  We
 can think of better ways to have clients report usage statistics
 automatically, if configured accordingly.  The goals would be to get
 better input data for estimating daily users, simulating private Tor
 networks, and maybe other things.  As the first step we should brainstorm
 about what data we'd like to learn and what we'd do with it.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/6295>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
The Tor Project: anonymity online