[tor-dev] Feedback on obfuscating hidden-service statistics

[Rob Jansen]

> On Nov 21, 2014, at 9:39 AM, George Kadianakis <desnacked at riseup.net> wrote:
> 
> I also believe that some of these extra stats (e.g. "How many
> failures/anomalies do we observe?") should first be done on a privnet
> instead of the real network. That can give us some preliminary
> results, and then we can consider doing them on the real
> network. Maybe we can also have some privnet stats by January.

I think this is a great idea. While we might not learn (at first) the absolute number of failures that occur in the *real* network, we will at least be able to say things about the *fraction* of requests that fail. That can be collected in a large ShadowTor network.

In fact, I would advocate implementing the collection of all of the stats that Aaron has requested; for those stats that still need some security analysis before people are convinced, we can enable those in TestingTorNetwork mode for now. If they are blessed, collecting them in “normal” mode becomes easier.

In fact, might we also consider doing this for even more of the statistics from the etherpad (the ones that make sense for privnets)? I suppose at some point there will exist an implementation bottleneck, but being able to say as much as possible in January - even if it is only from privnet stats - is a win. We can then hope to be able to say more about the real network by the following deadline.

-Rob