[tor-relays] Why is my fast relay so slow to gain popularity?

[Jeroen Massar]

On 2013-09-11 18:20 , Jesse Victors wrote:
> 
> Hello everyone, newcomer here.
> 
> I'm behind very fast connection (11.5 MB/sec down, 7.5 MB/sec up)

(Most folks would just call that 100mbit, that is if your MB is
MegaByte, hence why 11.5 MiB/s would be more accurate).

> thought that the Tor network could benefit from my connection,

Definitely!

> especially since it's apparently been under high load recently. Per the
> latest blog posts, I downloaded the beta TBB and configured it as a
> relay under Linux. It's been up for almost two days now, yet it's still
> being utilized at a very, very small fraction of it's potential.

This blog post from today explains the effect and reasoning:
 https://blog.torproject.org/blog/lifecycle-of-a-new-relay

> In the
> network map, I see that my relay has an advertised speed which is again
> much slower than it actually can be.

IMHO that label should be changed to 'measured speed' as the bwauths
take care of that now.

> To my knowledge, a web server can
> be put under full load right away, and distributing computing projects
> use the most of your computer right off the bat. Why doesn't Tor run
> computational and/or bandwidth tests and advertise my relay at a much
> more actual speed?

The bwauths do that, but they don't run very often.

> I don't see why a fast relay has to start at the very
> bottom of the barrel to begin with.

Because otherwise introducing a large set of fast relays and thus hurt
anonymity.

(On the other side a determined adversary just waits a bit longer)

Greets,
 Jeroen