[tor-talk] Why make bad-relays a closed mailing list?

[Damian Johnson]

> I think this is a really important point.
>
> I'm usually on the side of transparency, and screw whether publishing
> our methods and discussions impacts effectiveness.
>
> But in this particular case I'm stuck, because the arms race is so
> lopsidedly against us.
>
> We can scan for whether exit relays handle certain websites poorly,
> but if the list that we scan for is public, then exit relays can mess
> with other websites and know they'll get away with it.

Hi Roger. Philipp made a good point on irc that there's a couple
different topics being discussed here:

* Who we flag as a bad relay and why.
* How we find bad relays.

Philipp and my interest I think is in making the former public (as
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/badRelays was trying
to do), but leave the later to the discretion of the scanner's writer
(Philipp in the case of ExitMap). I'd like for us to be transparent
about bad relay flagging, but I can certainly understand if our
detection methods need some secrecy.

You seem to be arguing for secrecy of the scanners so we might be on
the same page. Does anyone want to argue against making who we flag
and why public?

Cheers! -Damian