[tor-relays] Debugging my small relay

[Tim Wilson-Brown - teor]

> On 8 Jan 2016, at 21:17, Markus Hitter <mah at jump-ing.de> wrote:
> 
> Am 08.01.2016 um 07:33 schrieb Tim Wilson-Brown - teor:
>> What matters is the bandwidth it can contribute to censored users.
>> The advertised bandwidth is 100KB/s, which is somewhat low for a bridge.
>> As far as I recall, 250KB/s is considered a good minimum for a bridge.
> 
> Yes, I'm aware of this "recommended minimum". But it's not me limiting
> bandwidth artifically, it's what the current hardware delivers. These
> 100 kB/s come for free, raising them would come with a price tag (xx
> Euros per month).
> 
> So the question is wether to take these 100 kB or wether to stop the
> relay entirely. I could well imagine such small contributions are more
> than nothing. I could also imagine to see thousands of such small
> relays, because they cost nothing and run barely noticeable to the
> non-Tor, everyday traffic. "Help freedom of speech at no cost" sounds
> really good, many others could chime in, if approached by some
> marketing. If there were thousands of them, their bandwidth would add
> up, right?
> 
> Another consideration is that it doesn't matter too much wether the
> bandwidth is actually used. I _could_ be used, raising the obfuscation
> the Tor network relies so heavily on.
> 
> What do you think?


There's a point at which distributing the information for a new relay (in consensus documents and microdescriptors) outweighs the bandwidth contributed by that relay.

I also wonder how much diversity Tor gains from small relays. I'm not sure how this works out, it may depend on your threat model. (Or the client's threat model.)

Tim

Tim Wilson-Brown (teor)

teor2345 at gmail dot com
PGP 968F094B

teor at blah dot im
OTR CAD08081 9755866D 89E2A06F E3558B7F B5A9D14F

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