[tor-reports] Karsten's status report October 1--31

Karsten Loesing karsten at torproject.org
Sat Nov 3 11:33:54 UTC 2012


Here are the top 5 five things I wanted to do in October:

> 1. Analyze how we can estimate bridge user numbers based on directory
requests counted on bridges.  This is my sponsor F year 2 deliverable.

Done.  Published a tech report "Counting daily bridge users" [0] on
October 24.  That report describes a modified approach for estimating
the number of users connecting via bridges by evaluating directory
requests made to bridges.  I'm more confident that results from the new
approach are closer to reality, even though that means there are
significantly fewer daily bridge users than we originally expected.

> 2. Help Roger and Rob with more simulations to finish the simulation
deliverables for sponsor F.

Done.  Ran three simulations (#4086, #4486, #5336) to evaluate
performance of shorter token bucket refill intervals, proposal 182, and N23.

> 3. Make sure we finish the remaining sponsor F deliverables for the
November 1 milestone.  Or rather, make sure everyone's aware what's left
to do and how much time remains.  Help out with finishing other people's
deliverables if necessary.

Done.  Sent out reminders to developers to make sure they are aware of
the deadline.

> 4. Discuss deliverables for sponsor F year 3.

Done.  Prepared a list of tasks, mostly by discussing Roger's ideas with
developers and creating tickets for them.

> 5. Ignore as much non-sponsor F stuff as possible.  Most things can
wait until November.

Done, as in, prioritized the other four tasks over this one.  Still got
some coding done:

 - further improved the Java tool that can handle dozens of GeoIP
databases and look up to which country an IP address was assigned on a
given date (#6471);
 - provided metrics graphs in PDF and SVG formats (#7050) and removed
the resolution drop-downs (#7165);
 - switched metrics-db to a half-hourly cronjob and added more checks
for stale or incomplete data (#3850, #5504, #5806, #5812).


And here are the top 5 five things I want to do in November, from
highest priority to lowest:

1. Wrap up the sponsor F deliverables for the November milestone.  In
most cases this means asking developers to update and close tickets and
write deliverable summaries.  In other cases it means reviewing code or
running simulations, but we're running out of time to do anything
complex anyway.

2. Start sponsor F year 3 once there's a final task list.  This requires
creating tickets and a wiki page to track progress, and it means talking
to all developers to nail down what exactly was promised and what they
are expected to deliver.

3. Help define network diversity metrics and develop tools to visualize
current diversity and diversity over time.

4. Evaluate ways to overcome problems with Maxmind's GeoIP database
which started labeling Tor relays as country A1.

5. Extend the ExoneraTor relay IP lookup service to support IPv6 addresses.


[0]
https://research.torproject.org/techreports/counting-daily-bridge-users-2012-10-24.pdf



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