[tor-talk] ACM ref to safe statistical analysis on tor/anonymity networks

[stn <stn@xxxxxx>]

i found this ref regarding appropriate analysis on tor given the recent threads and interest.  might be dated with a 2010 pub date..

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1894882

[...]



The Tor network is one of the largest deployed anonymity networks, consisting of 1500+ volunteer-run relays and probably hundreds of thousands of clients connecting every day. Its large user-base has made it attractive for researchers to analyze usage of a real deployed anonymity network. 

The recent growth of the network has also led to performance problems, as well as attempts by some governments to block access to the Tor network. Investigating these performance problems and learning about network blocking is best done by measuring usage data of the Tor network. 

However, analyzing a live anonymity system must be performed with great care, so that the users' privacy is not put at risk. 

In this paper we present a case study of measuring two different types of sensitive data in the Tor network: countries of connecting clients, and exiting traffic by port. Based on these examples we derive general guidelines for safely measuring potentially sensitive data, both in the Tor network and in other anonymity networks.


Authors:	Karsten Loesing	The Tor Project
Steven J. Murdoch	The Tor Project and Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
Roger Dingledine	The Tor Project

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