[tor-project] Plan to double-check Tor Browser initial download numbers

[Karsten Loesing]

Hello list,

it's been almost two years since we started collecting sanitized Apache
web server logs. During this time the number of Tor Browser initial
downloads rarely went below 70,000 per day.

https://metrics.torproject.org/webstats-tb.html

Either there must be a steady demand for fresh binaries, or there is a
non-zero number of bots downloading the Tor Browser binary several times
per day.

I already double-checked our aggregation code that takes sanitized web
server logs as input and produces daily totals as output. It looks okay
to me.

I'd also like to double-check whether there's anything unexpected
happening before the sanitizing step. For example, could it be that
there are a few IP addresses making hundreds or thousands of requests?

Or are there lots of requests with same referrers or common user agents
indicating bots?

My plan is to ask our admins to temporarily add a second Apache log file
on one of the dist.torproject.org hosts with the default Apache log file
format without the sanitizing that is usually applied.

A snapshot of 15 or 30 minutes would likely be sufficient as sample. I'd
analyze this log file on the server, delete it, and report my findings here.

This message has two purposes:

 1. Is this approach acceptable? If not, are there more acceptable
approaches yielding similar results?

 2. Are there any theories what might keep the numbers from dropping
below those 70,000 requests per day? What should I be looking for?

Thanks!

All the best,
Karsten

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 495 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/attachments/20170717/f3dab21d/attachment.sig>