[tor-bugs] #12131 [Analysis]: Measure connectivity patterns between relays

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#12131: Measure connectivity patterns between relays
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     Reporter:  arma      |      Owner:
         Type:  project   |     Status:  new
     Priority:  normal    |  Milestone:
    Component:  Analysis  |    Version:
   Resolution:            |   Keywords:
Actual Points:            |  Parent ID:
       Points:            |
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Comment (by meejah):

 I would try to get mikeperry's input on this. I know we spent a little
 back-and-forth while I was sprucing up exitscanner for his use in
 Something Meejah Can't Recall, and the definition of "failure" was an
 issue I *do* remember consuming a lot of typing ;)

 The original use-case for that txtorcon-based exit_scanner stuff was to
 answer questions about the background failure rate of circuits,
 surrounding the wider question of "is my relay failing Too Many circuits?"

 It also seems to me worthwhile brainstorming some way to reduce the 25M
 edges...For example, "real" clients will always pick a Guard as the first
 hop, so does it really matter if non-Guard-A can see Guard-A (it seems to
 me it only matters the other way around). If all potential guards can see
 all potential middles, and all potential middles can see all potential
 exits, the network is good, right? This is still probably too many to
 reasonably scan...but then that set can be partitioned with weights
 similar to whatever Tor would do so that you're more likely to scan
 connections that are more likely to be used. "or something".

 We did put some work into one of the scanners to let Tor do that choosing
 as much as possible, I believe...



 As a structural note: if anyone wants to take that exit-scanner stuff and
 run with it, I'd recommend putting it in a new repository that depends on
 txtorcon as a library -- that "apps/*" directory was just where I happened
 to shove it since it didn't feel like a "full blown stand-alone app" quite
 yet. Please let me know if you do this, and I'll delete that branch and
 point people to the New Thing.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12131#comment:2>
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