[tor-dev] Anonymous Local Count Statistics Using PCSA - GSoC

[Karsten Loesing]

On 02.04.17 15:22, Aaron Johnson wrote:
> Also, I think that counting users by IP is still a fine way to do it (absent the privacy issue that PCSA tries to address). I was just stating that my understanding based on talking to the Tor Metrics people is that the plan is to handle the privacy issue by moving to per-connection country statistics instead of by implementing PCSA.

That's true, and thanks, Aaron, for responding here!

The metrics team indeed has plans in this direction:

https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/MetricsTeam#ObjectivesandKeyResultsfortheMetricsTeaminQ22017

"""
  - 1.4. Reduce the amount of sensitive, potentially personally
identifying data stored in memory of Tor relays and bridges by
implementing new directory-request statistics based on requests by
country, transport, and IP version and removing existing
directory-request statistics based on unique IP addresses by country,
transport, or IP version (Sponsor X 4.2. Tor daemon)
"""

Note that this is a plan of the metrics team for the current quarter
which is not yet discussed in detail with the network team.  But that
discussion won't happen before the GSoC student application deadline,
which is in ~24 hours day, I believe.  We're planning to write a
proposal in the next few weeks and then discuss it here.

Also note that there are still other unique IP statistics than the ones
on connecting directory clients, even though they are disabled by
default and thus less relevant.  Still, protecting unique IP addresses
of clients connecting to entry guards seems like a worthwhile project.

Sorry for not being more helpful.

Good luck with GSoC applications, everyone!

All the best,
Karsten


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