[tor-bugs] #17905 [Tor]: Consider removing fallback directory weights

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#17905: Consider removing fallback directory weights
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 Reporter:  teor         |          Owner:
     Type:  enhancement  |         Status:  reopened
 Priority:  Medium       |      Milestone:  Tor: 0.2.???
Component:  Tor          |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal       |     Resolution:
 Keywords:               |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:  #17158       |         Points:
 Reviewer:               |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by arma):

 Another improvement from removing the weights is, counterintuitively,
 better load balancing. We pick our weights right now based on consensus
 numbers, right? And those are a) wildly wrong because bwauth is wildly
 wrong, and b) wildly variable over time, yet we pick one snapshot and
 pretend the network will be close enough to like that for months into the
 future. I could totally imagine a situation where a fast fallbackdir gets
 5% of the weight, and then it goes slow some weeks later. That's easier to
 imagine than the bwauth pulls a bunch of numbers out of a hat and they
 turn out to be good numbers some weeks later. Let's not paint ourselves
 into that corner.

 All of this said, maybe the compromise for 0.2.8 is to leave all the
 machinery in place, but ship it with much simpler weights for the
 fallbackdirs?

 I think Sebastian and s7r make a good point that we should pick relays
 that are capable of serving the consensus to clients, and so long as all
 of the relays are above some minimum bar, things should work well enough.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17905#comment:6>
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