[tor-relays] OS diversity of tor relays (was Re: Relay uptime versus outdated Tor version)

[Scott Bennett]

George <george at queair.net> wrote:

> Duncan:
> > Hi!
> > 
> > Ybslik:
> >> Hi all,
>
> Not sure how to start interjecting into this thread, but it does fit
> into how this August hasn't been a usual "dog days of summer" in more
> ways than one.
>
> Coming from the perspective of TDP (https://torbsd.github.io/). . .
>
> Some comments below, including replies to earlier pieces that were sniped.
>
> >>  [much text deleted  --SB]
> >>
> In regards to the other questions:
>
> >      Windows is already running a huge percentage of the tor relay population.
> > How are you going to recruit Windows users to run relays on an OS they don't
> > already use?  I contend that you won't.  Instead, you must recruit current
> > users of such OS.

     I wrote the above paragraph, not Duncan.  Someone didn't maintain the
attribution chain properly.
>
> Well, not really from our stats.

     How so?  None of the links below support your contention.
>
> From the bandwidth measure:
>
> https://torbsd.github.io/oostats/relays-bw-by-os.txt

     Irrelevant to this question.
>
> By consensus weight:
>
> https://torbsd.github.io/oostats/relays-cweight-by-os.txt

     Also irrelevant to this question.
>
> And by just an absolute count of OSs:
>
> https://torbsd.github.io/oostats/relays-os-count.txt

     That's a piece of what you need to support your contention.  Where is
the rest of it?  FWIW, tor does not report the information you need because
clients that are not also relays do not report anything to the authorities.
If they did, you would need still more information in order to connect the
client information to the relay information.  However, the whole primary
point of tor is to protect those clients' users' anonymity.  It seems to me
that the only way to go about proving your contention would be to do a survey
according to some accepted methodology from the social sciences to ask a
sufficiently large sample of the relay operators running their relays on each
OS on which OS they first got started using tor.
>
> Ironically in the first two sets of stats, even OpenBSD (relatively)
> dwarfs Windows with bandwidth and consensus weights.

     So what?
>
> You can tinker with the stats yourself with the source here:
>
> https://github.com/torbsd/tdp-onion-stats/

     Very nice, but irrelevant to supporting your contention that my claim
was not true.
>
> Regarding Debian "unattended-upgrade" comparisons, I don't know much
> about Debian nor what exactly you mean.

     If you read the posting to which I was responding, you saw it first in
that posting, not mine.  I simply quoted it in responding.  I am not a user,
much less a system administrator, of any kind of LINUX.
     As a very unhappy user (and new-to-UNIX system administrator) of
SysVR1.05 back in 1986, I was sold on 4.3BSD the next year when I installed
and first used it.  I've done sysadmin work on at least three other SysV-
descended UNIXes and disliked all of them.  My first computer was a NeXT Cube,
which came with NEXTSTEP (MACH 2.6 kernel, 4.3BSD userland, plus ObjC-based
OOPS and NEXTSTEP windowing system, which later became the base, except for
the windowing system, for OS X).  When I bought my first x86-based machine,
it came with Micro$lop Windows XP installed, the most disgraceful excuse for
an operating system I had ever encountered.  I immediately got my hands on a
copy of the then latest release of FreeBSD at that time (5.2.1-RELEASE) and
have been a mostly happy user and sysadmin ever since.  For the last few
years, I have been dealing with email via this account on a NetBSD system,
which also happens to suit me pretty well.  LINUX is a fine system, according
to many people, but it's not UNIX, and it's not a BSD-style of system.  If
there were no BSDs, I would certainly run LINUX, especially given that other
UNIX workalikes are usually proprietary (except MINIX!:-) but there are BSDs,
so I don't because I don't need to.  In many regards, choice of LINUX vs. a
BSD is just a matter of personal taste, but there are also certain things
that each system does better than any of the others, and there are quite a
few features that only one or a few support.  If you need/want certain things
in an OS (e.g., a particular file system), then that may push you toward one
system or a small subset of the OS available.
     I got introduced to tor shortly before I got FreeBSD installed on that
now defunct computer, so techically speaking, I first got started with it
on Windows, but I switched to FreeBSD ASAP, and that was where I really began
to learn about tor and got to the point where I was willing to try my hand at
running a relay.  I never was a willing Windows user in the first place.  BSD
UNIX was what I knew well, and Windows was an endless source of maddening
frustration.  IOW, I feel like I got to know and understand tor on FreeBSD
and only then began running a relay.
     Most Windows users are unlikely to have job experience doing system
administration of any kind.  They may know how to use its GUI and a number
of applications well enough for what they do, but they generally are not
programmers or sysadmins.  I'm not especially surprised that a much smaller
proportion of relays today is running on Windows systems.  Just to understand
tor's man page requires some technical understanding of operating systems and
how they work internally, as well as how they look from outside.  The average
Windows user probably doesn't have the background to feel confident about
diving in to setting up a relay.  The tor browser bundle once defaulted to
configuring and running a relay, although there was a check box that could be
unchecked to prevent an instance from being configured as a relay.  Times have
changed. :-)
     My claim still stands.  If someone would like to run a properly designed
survey to disprove it, be my guest.  I would be most interested in the
results.  In the meantime, I repeat my point that not having a tor browser
for an operating system is not the way to go if you want more relays on that
OS.  People use whatever OS they use and for their own reasons.  If you want
them to run a relay on their machines in addition to what they normally run,
they are not likely to switch OS just to try out tor, much less to fulfill
your wish.  If you want them to become familiar with tor to the point where
they might run a relay, give them a browser they can use on their own system.
IOW, target the people who are already using those OS, with the caveat that
the technically ignorant are far less likely to tackle running a relay (the
older label in the documentation being "server", which probably deters even
more people from running relays because of feeling it would be too hard or
over their heads).


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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