[tor-relays] Improving Node Connection Testing
12xBTM
12xbtm at gmail.com
Tue Jun 2 15:58:25 UTC 2015
This is a little write-up on the quality of data connections involving
nodes, and some thoughts on that. So, as of today, the quality of nodes
is determined by their bandwidth, uptime, and not being malicious. There
are two major missing factors from this, and I wanted to bounce some
ideas around: Latency and Packet Loss. These are fairly simple tests
that can be performed on nodes, albeit, it would increase the resource
load on the bwauths. However, nodes with high latency or packet loss
should be identified, and nodes should be measured with these two
important factors.
High latency will increase the delay of the circuit, but will not appear
in the consesus at all. A node can have enormous latency and hamper that
circuit without anyone knowing. The same could be said for a node that
drops a lot of packets, or drops a lot of packets at a certain time of
day (peak usage).
Mostly, latency and packet loss in nodes will negatively impact Tor's
usability, but not it's security. However, bwauth testing of node
latency can create a foundation of data in which we can disrupt Timing
Attacks on the network. Also, as of the moment, node operators should
just briefly look into these numbers for their nodes. Ensuring their
nodes don't have a high latency or packet loss problem when connecting
to, for example, google.com.
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