[tor-talk] Tor Relay Smartphone App

[Casey Rodarmor]

What is the minimum bandwidth/latency that a node requires in order for it
to benefit the network? I read here* that 100 kilobytes/s each way would be
enough, which I imagine many phones are capable of handling, and represent
a small fraction of a wifi network's bandwidth.

*https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay.html.en

On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 8:17 AM, Roger Dingledine <arma at mit.edu> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 12:04:37AM +0100, 4dcb8ec3 at opayq.com wrote:
> > Hi, yes it's called Orbot see here
> >
> >
> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.torproject.android&hl=en_GB&referrer=utm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_term%3Dorbot&pcampaignid=APPU_Hbc5VJLDFMjB7AaK9oBw
> >
> > And here's a Reddit thread on setting it up as a non exit node
> >
> >
> http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2im3cz/turn_your_android_into_a_tor_relay_get_bitcoin/
>
> Unfortunately, your smartphone likely doesn't have the cpu to push much
> traffic, and also your home wifi or equivalent very likely doesn't have
> the bandwidth to be a good relay.
>
> So this is a really appealing idea in theory, but in practice such relays
> are much much less useful than faster relays -- to the point that slow
> relays actually hurt the network because they produce bad performance
> for users who are unlucky enough to pick them.
>
> It would be cool to live in a world where things were different --
> perhaps one day somebody will do the rest of the research and
> engineering work involved in making the Conflux design work:
> http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#pets13-splitting
> But we took a step in the direction away from Conflux when we moved
> from three guard nodes per user to one.
>
> --Roger
>
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