[tor-project] Many bridges (22%) have nickname "ki"

[Yawning Angel]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2016 10:37:31 -0800
David Fifield <david at bamsoftware.com> wrote:

> This is a bit of a followup to my earlier post on obfs4 bridges with
> formulaic nicknames:
> https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2016-November/000809.html
> 
> 
> Those bridges are still there, but today I noticed a new weirdness:
> 756 bridges all having the nickname "ki". 756 is 21.8% of the total
> number, 3464. At the moment, "ki" far outnumbers every other
> nickname, apart from "Unnamed":
[snip]

Should both groups be dropped at the BridgeAuth or what?  As far as I
am aware, there is nothing that is doing Sybil detection at the Bridge
level, and I don't really think that's an arms race that's winnable
(even at the standard relay level, it feels like an uphill battle).

If I were to hypothesize, it's probably someone's botnet/malware or
something (in both cases), but that's just a guess and it could be
something either more nefarious, or more benign.

Regards,

-- 
Yawning Angel
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