[tor-bugs] #24046 [Core Tor]: Building circuits through Fast (actually) relays

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#24046: Building circuits through Fast (actually) relays
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     Reporter:  IgorMitrofanov  |      Owner:  (none)
         Type:  enhancement     |     Status:  new
     Priority:  Medium          |  Milestone:
    Component:  Core Tor        |    Version:
     Severity:  Normal          |   Keywords:
Actual Points:                  |  Parent ID:
       Points:                  |   Reviewer:
      Sponsor:                  |
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 As a Tor user, I would like to have an option to build my circuits through
 relays that can deliver a typical modern web page within a few seconds. I
 do understand that it depends on many factors outside the nominal capacity
 of relays, and that it may not always be possible.

 I run a few relays, and the "Fast" flag caught my attention mainly due to
 its name. The "Fast" flag may not be the right knob to protect the user
 experience; this ticket is just to make sure it does not stand in the way.

 A relay is only required to provide 100 KB/s of *maximum* bandwidth to be
 considered "Fast" and for users to build general-purpose circuits through
 it. I suspect that 100 KB/s, even with no other traffic competing for that
 bandwidth, is insufficient for a good browsing experience.

 In addition to the threshold being low, it does not seem to be
 consistently applied. Sorting the list of all relays on blutmagie.de shows
 that some relays with bandwidth as low as 1 KB/s still have the "Fast"
 flag set.

 I don't have a proposal - I suspect "making Tor faster" is a big and
 complex challenge. With this ticket, I would like to make sure that 1) the
 100 KB/s threshold is not just a magic number but is derived from some
 concrete (Sybil-related and/or user experience-related) rule that allows
 it to auto-scale, and 2) it is applied consistently.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/24046>
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