[tor-relays] BWauth no-consensus state in effect

[starlight.2015q3 at binnacle.cx]

At Tue Aug 4 22:17:54 UTC 2015 by Mike Perry mikeperry at torproject dot org
>
>In some instances where I have not selected
>my guards manually, Tor Browser is unbearably
>slow. Like really, really painfully slow.
>The whole time. Until I reinstall it.
>
>This makes me think that the performance of
>people who pick guards from the tail is much
>much worse than the performance of the top
>guards, and this property likely is acting as
>a deterrent to adoption.
>

Perhaps the guard-selection algorithm could
be enhanced to consider some sort of
distance/reachability metric generated by
BWauths?

BWauths are continuously pairing relays for
measurements, and perhaps metrics from that
could be mapped to autonomous system numbers
(from MaxMind) in a useful way without
requiring tremendous effort?  Matrix analysis
comes to mind.

If one's guard is on the other side of the
world, network latency and random congestion
will hurt.

I've read some path selection research is
under way with an eye toward reducing passive
traffic correlation exposure--this seems like
it would help performance in a similar way.