[tor-dev] [RFC] Proposal: A First Take at PoW Over Introduction Circuits

[George Kadianakis]

tevador <tevador at gmail.com> writes:

> Hi all,
>

Hello tevador,

thanks so much for your work here and for the great simulation. Also for
the hybrid attack which was definitely missing from the puzzle.

I've been working on a further revision of the proposal based on your
comments. I have just one small question I would like your feedback on.

>> 3.4.3. PoW effort estimation [EFFORT_ESTIMATION]
>> {XXX: BLOCKER: Figure out of this system makes sense}
>
> I wrote a simple simulation in Python to test different ways of
> adjusting the suggested effort. The results are here:
> https://github.com/tevador/scratchpad/blob/master/tor-pow/effort_sim.md
>
> In summary, I suggest to use MIN_EFFORT = 1000 and the following
> algorithm to calculate the suggested effort:
>
> 1. Sum the effort of all valid requests that have been received since the
>    last HS descriptor update. This includes all handled requests, trimmed
>    requests and requests still in the queue.
> 2. Divide the sum by the max. number of requests that the service could have
>    handled during that time (SVC_BOTTOM_CAPACITY * HS_UPDATE_PERIOD).
> 3. Suggested effort = max(MIN_EFFORT, result)
>
> This algorithm can both increase and reduce the suggested effort.
>

I like the above logic but I'm wondering of how we can get the real
SVC_BOTTOM_CAPACITY for every scenario. In particular, the
SVC_BOTTOM_CAPACITY=180 value from 6.2.2 might have been true for
David's testing but it will not be true for every computer and every
network.

I wonder if we can adapt the above effort estimation algorithm to use an
initial SVC_BOTTOM_CAPACITY magic value for the first run (let's say
180), but then derive the real SVC_BOTTOM_CAPACITY of the host in
runtime and use that for subsequent runs of the algorithm.

Do you think this is possible?