[tor-bugs] #17768 [Tor]: Measure Hidden Service Rendezvous Path Lengths

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#17768: Measure Hidden Service Rendezvous Path Lengths
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     Reporter:  teor         |      Owner:
         Type:  enhancement  |     Status:  new
     Priority:  Medium       |  Milestone:  Tor: 0.2.9.x-final
    Component:  Tor          |    Version:
     Severity:  Normal       |   Keywords:
Actual Points:               |  Parent ID:
       Points:               |    Sponsor:
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 We're trying to measure the traffic capacity of the Tor Network,
 particularly as it relates to hidden services.[0]

 But we don't know how long the average hidden service rendezvous path is:
 * Either side can have a 3 or 4 hop connection, due to cannibalization
 * Clients can use Tor2Web and have one-hop paths
 * Servers can or will be able to use (Rendezvous) Single Onion Services,
 and have one hop paths

 We know it's probably somewhere between 7 and 9 connections / hops, but
 that's a large range. And it may shrink as more (R)SOS servers come
 online.

 Is there a privacy-preserving way of collecting these statistics?
 (We'd need to combine stats from clients and hidden services.)

 Is it worth doing this as a once-off, or should we (re)design the
 collection of a number of privacy-preserving stats?

 [0]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-
 dev/2015-November/010001.html

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17768>
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