[tor-dev] Why the seeming correlation between flash proxy and meek on metrics graphs?

[Karsten Loesing]

On 16/09/14 03:36, David Fifield wrote:
> In comparing the user graphs of pluggable transports, I found that there
> seems to be a correlation between the graphs of flashproxy and meek.
> [...]
>
> To figure this out I'm thinking of i) counting bytes transferred on the
> flashproxy and meek external ports, or ii) moving one to a different
> bridge (or different tor instance), to see if the effect remains. Do you
> have any other ideas?

Hi David,

here's what I think might cause this: we're counting consensuses
downloaded from a bridge via any supported transport, and then we're
attributing those downloads to specific transports based on what
fraction of IPs connected per transport.

What we should do instead is count consensus downloads by transport.
There's a ticket for this, but nobody is currently working on it:

https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/8786

Your idea ii) should fix this.

Of course, you'd be in a good position to test a patch for #8786.  Would
you want to hack on that?

All the best,
Karsten