[tor-bugs] #15254 [Tor]: Enable hidden-service statistics by default

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#15254: Enable hidden-service statistics by default
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     Reporter:  dgoulet  |      Owner:
         Type:           |     Status:  reopened
  enhancement            |  Milestone:  Tor: 0.2.7.x-final
     Priority:  major    |    Version:
    Component:  Tor      |   Keywords:  SponsorR tor-hs stats
   Resolution:           |  TorCoreTeam201509 PostFreeze027
Actual Points:           |  Parent ID:
       Points:           |
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Comment (by nickm):

 Replying to [comment:13 cypherpunks]:

 I'm assuming this is you, qwerty1.  Please let me know if it isn't. :)

 > As evidenced by the the fact that very few relays have these enabled,
 the vast majority of relay operators are either unaware of these
 statistics, or having been made aware of them, have chosen not to enable
 them. Even software without a specific purpose of giving people more
 privacy asks users before gathering statistics on them. There is no
 benefit to the users on whom the statistics are being collected without
 notification, knowledge, or agreement, from either of these measurements,
 which are measured and published per-relay, not in aggregate. The existing
 bandwidth statistics are already dangerous in terms of guard discovery
 (#13988) and combining them with the statistics in this ticket enables
 easier attacks.

 What attacks are you thinking of?  Or are you saying that there may be
 unforseen attacks in general, even if we can't think of them today?

 While I share your concern about statistics gathering in general, these
 particular statistics aren't statistics _about_ users as far as I can see,
 but about total bandwidth and descriptor counts.  If I believed that they
 were about users, or that they posed a privacy threat, I would not support
 having them merged into Tor at all, let alone on-by-default.

 > There is no kind of privacy policy to notify users, as is required by
 (at least) EU law.

 Are you really sure this is what EU law says?  No information about users
 is collected; the only information stored here is total number of
 rendezvous cells across all circuits, and the total number of .onion
 addresses seen.

 I'd be happy to try to check with an EU lawyer here.

 > Finally, it hasn't been publicly explained anywhere what benefit, if
 any, there is to anyone, even DARPA, of increasing the precision of these
 statistics. What purpose are the current measurements from a limited
 number of relays are too noisy for, that less noisy ones won't be?

 David/Roger -- any info here?  You're the ones who've been asking for
 this.

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/15254#comment:14>
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