[tor-reports] Karsten's status report September 1--30

[Karsten Loesing]

Here are the most important 5 things I did in September, from most
effort to least:

1. Implemented a small Java tool that can handle dozens of GeoIP
databases and look up to which country an IP address was assigned on a
given date (#6471).  We need this tool for metrics analyses spanning a
few years and relying on somewhat correct IP-to-country lookups.  Early
results are that 100,000 lookups in 60 databases covering 5 years take
under 1 second, which is much, much faster than expected.

2. Reviewed quite a lot of stuff: Sathya's patches to Pyonionoo, the
Python version of Onionoo, which is the tool providing data to Atlas,
Compass, and others; Compass patches from delber and Sathya; ideas for
an analysis to raise the minimum bandwidth for getting the Fast flag
(#1854).

3. Set up the Shadow Tor simulator and started running simulations to
compare performance of TokenBucketRefillInterval parameters (#4086).  6
out of 8 simulations are done, and I expect to have results today.

4. Wrapped up work done for the sponsor G milestone on September 30th.

5. Sent out a few reminders to people about the upcoming sponsor F
milestone on November 1st.  Yes, the one in 1 month from today.


And here are the top 5 five things I'd like to do in October, from
highest priority to lowest:

1. Analyze how we can estimate bridge user numbers based on directory
requests counted on bridges.  This is my sponsor F year 2 deliverable.

2. Help Roger and Rob with more simulations to finish the simulation
deliverables for sponsor F.

3. Make sure we finish the remaining sponsor F deliverables for the
November 1 milestone.  Or rather, make sure everyone's aware what's left
to do and how much time remains.  Help out with finishing other people's
deliverables if necessary.

4. Discuss deliverables for sponsor F year 3.

5. Ignore as much non-sponsor F stuff as possible.  Most things can wait
until November.