[tor-bugs] #5807 [Tor Bridge]: Propose better bridge usage statistics

Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki torproject-admin at torproject.org
Fri May 11 10:11:27 UTC 2012


#5807: Propose better bridge usage statistics
-------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  karsten      |          Owner:  karsten                
     Type:  enhancement  |         Status:  accepted               
 Priority:  normal       |      Milestone:  Sponsor F: July 1, 2012
Component:  Tor Bridge   |        Version:                         
 Keywords:               |         Parent:  #3261                  
   Points:  14           |   Actualpoints:                         
-------------------------+--------------------------------------------------

Comment(by karsten):

 Here are the results from my quick analysis.  Good news is that the new
 statistics look great for estimating daily bridge users.  Bad news is that
 we may only have 1/10 as many bridge users as we thought.

 [[Image(ticket:5807:bridge-dirreq-stats.png)]]

 There are five lines in the graph:

 1) ''Reported directory request responses'' is the total number of
 directory requests (v3 network statuses) that bridges report to have
 responded to.

 2) ''Fraction of bridges reporting directory request statistics'' is the
 number of bridges including `"dirreq-stats-end"` lines in their
 descriptors by the average number of running bridges on the same day.

 3) ''Estimated directory request responses'' is the number from 1) divided
 by the number in 2).  This is the number we'd expect if all bridges
 reported directory request statistics.

 4) ''Estimated daily bridge users from all countries'' is the number from
 3) divided by 10.  The 10 comes from the assumption that the average
 bridge client downloads 10 v3 network statuses per day, which is the same
 assumption as for directly connecting clients.

 5) ''Estimated daily bridge users from Syria'' is the number from 4)
 multiplied with the fraction of users from .sy that we learn from unique
 IP addresses seen at bridges.  I chose .sy, because that's apparently the
 country with most bridge users these days.  The approach would work for
 all other countries, too.

 So, I think it makes sense to look more into dirreq statistics reported by
 bridges before adding the `"bridge-v3-reqs"` line as suggested above.

 The next step will be to move the discussion of keeping dirreq statistics
 in sanitized bridge descriptors to the tor-dev mailing list.  I guess I
 should follow up my proposal 201 mail for that.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/5807#comment:5>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
The Tor Project: anonymity online


More information about the tor-bugs mailing list