[tor-dev] Visualization of the lizard Sybil attack

[David Fifield]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2015 at 10:52:17AM -0800, Arlo Breault wrote:
> It seems like the dark (tangent-like) line running through the middle
> of the uptimes (not the conspicuous vertical stripe you describe) is
> just a consequence of the sorting.

Yes, how it works is we first sort by center of mass, then by total
uptime. The center of mass moves from left to right as you look from top
to bottom.

It turns out that there are many descriptors that are only up for one or
two hours out of an entire month. Those are what make the dark stripe.

The big surprise is how many descriptors there are. In November, there
were 13,242 unique descriptors seen, more than double the steady-state
total number of relays. Many relays appear for a short time and then
disappear forever. The black band at the center consists of the actual
stable relays. Above and below that is a lot of churn.

> Are the vertical white lines periods where a consensus wasn’t reached?

Yes, there are some missing hours in the input files.

David Fifield