[tor-bugs] #4631 [Core Tor/Tor]: Idea to make consensus voting more resistant

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#4631: Idea to make consensus voting more resistant
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 Reporter:  Sebastian                            |          Owner:  teor
     Type:  defect                               |         Status:
                                                 |  needs_review
 Priority:  Medium                               |      Milestone:  Tor:
                                                 |  0.4.4.x-final
Component:  Core Tor/Tor                         |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                               |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  needs-dirauth-email needs-torspec-   |  Actual Points:  0.2
  update tor-dirauth robustness voting           |
Parent ID:  #33050                               |         Points:  0.5
 Reviewer:  nickm                                |        Sponsor:
                                                 |  Sponsor55-can
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Comment (by nickm):

 Reviewing the idea only, before looking at the patch:

 So the idea is that we cut off the deadline for POSTed votes early, to
 increase the odds that fetching votes from else will give everybody the
 same set of votes?  That's plausible, but I'm wondering whether we're
 replacing one race condition with another.  I'm also interested in:
   * what happens during the transition period where some authorities have
 upgraded but others have not.
   * whether the fetch time is the right point for the POST cutoff, or
 whether we'd be better off having it be a second or two before.

 We should also think about our diagnostics for unsynchronized consensuses.
 Are they good enough that we'll be able to tell whether this is helping or
 hurting?

 Now I'll look through the patch.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4631#comment:21>
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