[tor-bugs] #21588 [Metrics/Statistics]: Rewrite the censorship detector used by the Tor Metrics website in Java

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#21588: Rewrite the censorship detector used by the Tor Metrics website in Java
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 Reporter:  karsten             |          Owner:  karsten
     Type:  enhancement         |         Status:  assigned
 Priority:  Medium              |      Milestone:
Component:  Metrics/Statistics  |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal              |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  metrics-2018        |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                      |         Points:
 Reviewer:                      |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by iwakeh):

 Replying to [comment:9 karsten]:
 > Hmm, okay, that sounds like we need to choose the least bad solution.
 >
 > If we go for calling scipy from Java, let's at least reduce that to a
 single call and not create a Python process for each `norm.fit` call. We
 could write all input data to a file, call Python to fit normal
 distributions and write an output file, and read that in Java. Not pretty,
 but that at least reduces overhead a bit.

 Yep, let's be pragmatic.  I would still create the new package for the
 calls in case a different solution comes up.

 >
 > Are there really no native Java libraries that do the same thing?

 Fortran is well suited for scientific computations, why re-implement?
 Apache commons does re-implement  one algorithm by minpack in a simplified
 way and w/o any means to judge the quality.  The algorithm they provide
 doesn't give the good results scipy's choice of minpack algorithm
 delivers.  I didn't encounter any free Java implementation that would
 provide the functionality.  Maybe, Apache commons math will one day
 provide all the optimization algorithms.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21588#comment:10>
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