[tor-reports] SponsorR January 2015 report

[George Kadianakis]

Hello,

here is the January 2015 report for SponsorR:

- We finished and published the tech report that details our findings on
  the new hidden service statistics. You can find the tech report here:
  https://research.torproject.org/techreports/extrapolating-hidserv-stats-2015-01-31.pdf

- We published a first draft of the tech report that analyzes future
  potential hidden service statistics:
  https://people.torproject.org/~karsten/volatile/hidden-service-stats-2015-01-10.pdf

- We discussed ways and schemes to collect statistics in ways that
  preserves privacy and reduces total statistics noise:
  https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2015-January/008086.html

- Progress was made in checking hidden service correctness using
  testing networks (#13209). We published notes on how we can use
  testing networks to better understand hidden services:
  https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2015-February/008230.html

  Also, more research was performed on simulating
  hidden-service-enabled networks using Shadow.

- We refined the Tor specification and added more information on why
  hidden service circuits get closed:
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13506