[tor-talk] Big spike in NL-initiated Tor conns between 30 Jul & 7 Oct; now spiking in DE

[Matthijs R. Koot]

Hi [tor-talk],

There was a big spike in NL-initiated Tor connections between 30 July and
7 October --- from 50k daily connections to 150k a day:

https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?start=2017-05-01&end=2017-10-24&country=nl

Unrelated or not, a nearly equally big spike is currently observed in
DE-initiated connections --- from 200k to 500k so far:

https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?start=2017-05-01&end=2017-10-24&country=de

Can anyone shed light on this? Obviously lots of hypotheses can be dreamt
up, ranging from (poorly implemented) hidden service indexing/scanning to
Sybil attacks or a legitimate change in the entry guard selection; but
speculation is rarely a friend.

Best regards,
Matthijs