[tor-relays] Authorities: what is up?

[Sebastian Hahn]

On Jan 13, 2012, at 1:27 PM, Nils Vogels wrote:
> Hey Sebastian, Roger,
> On 13/01/2012, Sebastian Hahn <mail at sebastianhahn.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Ah, I see. ides not having a current consensus is different from ides
>> being down. Ides still is running the stable Tor version and needs to be
>> upgraded to 0.2.3.x to be allowed to vote along with the other dirauths,
>> so it doesn't immediately know about the new consensus. I don't know
>> when ides will be upgraded, but I hope the answer is soon.
> 
> Let me know if there is a need for stable authorities with speedy
> admins. I'm sure the Dutch hacker community (which I am very much
> involved with) can lend a hand and/or a high-bw host.

Hi Nils,

I'm pasting some stuff here from the "consensus update request" thread,
also on tor-relays:

On Jan 8, 2012, at 5:45 PM, Roger Dingledine wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 08, 2012 at 03:35:16PM +0100, Sebastian Hahn wrote:
>> The problem is that in the current situation, it gets worse with more
>> authorities, not better. Our voting mechanism needs an overhaul :/
> 
> Indeed.
> 
> The other problem is that we simply have too many clients out there.
> And we've taught them all to be eager to keep updated, so they're harder
> to partition. But it's really a volume thing at this point. We need a more
> scalable way of keeping clients informed about network topology. In our
> copious free time, while also doing everything else that needs doing. :/
> 
> Anyway, crisis averted, this time.
> 
> --Roger

Hope that helps make it clearer why adding a new authority in the short
term doesn't actually help us currently.

Thanks
Sebastian