[tor-talk] Many more Tor users in the past week?

[Roger Dingledine]

Hi folks,

Check out
https://metrics.torproject.org/users.html
(for posterity, the longer-term link will be
https://metrics.torproject.org/users.html?graph=direct-users&start=2013-05-29&end=2013-08-27&country=all&events=off#direct-users )

The number of Tor clients running appears to have doubled since August 19:
https://metrics.torproject.org/users.html?graph=direct-users&start=2013-08-12&end=2013-08-27&country=all&events=off#direct-users

And it's not just a fluke in the metrics data -- it appears that
there really are twice as many Tor clients running as before:
https://metrics.torproject.org/network.html#dirbytes

There's a slight increase (worsening) in the performance measurements:
https://metrics.torproject.org/performance.html
but it's hard to say if that's a real difference. So while there are a
bunch of new Tor clients running, it would seem they're not doing much.

Anybody know details? It's easy to speculate (Pirate Browser publicity
gone overboard? People finally reading about the NSA thing? Botnet?),
but some good solid facts would sure be useful.

--Roger