[tor-bugs] #9188 [Tor]: Our weighting algorithms probably behave strangely when guards are disabled

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#9188: Our weighting algorithms probably behave strangely when guards are disabled
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 Reporter:  nickm       |          Owner:                    
     Type:  defect      |         Status:  new               
 Priority:  normal      |      Milestone:  Tor: 0.2.5.x-final
Component:  Tor         |        Version:                    
 Keywords:  tor-client  |         Parent:                    
   Points:              |   Actualpoints:                    
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 Most of our design for weighting and path-selection algorithms includes an
 assumption that guard nodes are going to get used (since urning off guards
 in normal use is a really bad idea).  But some scanning and measurement
 tools want to run with guards disabled, and have Tor construct random
 paths.  We should make sure that the random paths Tor generates in that
 case are sensible.

 For example, we currently require the first hop to have the Guard flag,
 even if UseGuards is off.  Is that good? Should we change it? What else do
 we need here?

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/9188>
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