[tor-dev] Can we stop sanitizing nicknames in bridge descriptors?

[Karsten Loesing]

On 5/3/12 8:06 PM, Robert Ransom wrote:
> On 5/3/12, Karsten Loesing <karsten at torproject.org> wrote:
> 
>> How do we define "similar" and "located where the relay is?"  I can see
>> how a relay "bastik1" and a bridge "bastik2" have similar nicknames, but
>> would we also teach a program that "bastikrelay" and "bastikbridge" are
>> similar?  And are two IP address in the same, say, /30 located nearby,
>> or is the same /28 or even /24 okay, too?
> 
> http://freehaven.net/anonbib/papers/pets2011/p1-perito.pdf

Interesting.

I'd think there's some similarity between usernames and nicknames, but
they're not the same.  People make different decisions when picking a
username for themselves than when finding nicknames for their relays or
bridges.  For example, my three relays burning spare bandwidth are named
"ene", "mene", and "miste", and my bridge is named "mu"; all names are
part of a German variant of "eenie meenie miney mo".  I picked these
names, both because I lacked creativity to pick better nicknames, but
also because I can easily memorize that they belong together.  I
wouldn't pick usernames this different when registering in online
communities.

Sounds like a fun research project to apply their paper to relay/bridge
nicknames.

Best,
Karsten