[tor-relays] consensus "Bandwidth=" values

[Scott Bennett]

     Something new appears to be happening in the authorities' assignments
of "Bandwidth=" values in the consensus documents over the past few days.
Here are some statistics from the recent consensus with the following valid
times:

valid-after 2011-11-30 22:00:00
fresh-until 2011-11-30 23:00:00
valid-until 2011-12-01 01:00:00

A quick count of "Bandwidth=" values from this consensus shows that just
over 20% of all relays have been assigned "Bandwidth=1".  The consensus
contains 2487 relays in all.  The top twenty by count are as follows.

	Count	Bandwidth=	% of Total

	499	        1	20.06
	 65	        2	 2.61
	 37	        3	 1.48
	 35	        5	 1.40
	 33	        7	 1.32
	 31	        6	 1.24
	 31	       14	 1.24
	 29	        4	 1.16
	 29	       12	 1.16
	 25	       15	 1.00

	 23	       11	 0.92
	 22	        9	 0.88
	 21	       20	 0.84
	 20	        8	 0.80
	 18	       17	 0.72
	 18	       10	 0.72
	 15	       32	 0.60
	 14	       53	 0.56
	 14	       24	 0.56
	 14	       18	 0.56

The top ten in the above list account for 814 relays or 32.73% of all relays
in the consensus, yet they will get little or no traffic because of the
assigned "Bandwidth=" values.  My relay's traffic went from around 55% - 60%
of what I had hoped to contribute down to almost nothing in the course of
about three days, and the "Bandwidth=" value assigned to it in the consensus
is 1.  For a long time, it had typically been in the high 20s to high 30s
with occasional excursions from slightly lower to somewhere in the 50s.
     So is this sudden, massive reassignment of loads due to a bug in the
newest tor version(s)?  Or is it an intended change by the developers?


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
**********************************************************************
* Internet:       bennett at cs.niu.edu                              *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
* "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good  *
* objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments *
* -- a standing army."                                               *
*    -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790         *
**********************************************************************