The Tor network is popular among researchers, which is great. However, this can
The Tor network is popular among researchers, which is great. However, this can
easily result in multiple research groups scheduling their experiments for the
easily lead to multiple research groups scheduling their experiments for the
same or an overlapping timeframe. This document explains how we intend to deal
same or an overlapping timeframe, potentially impacting their results. This
with that sitatution, both to help researchers plan their experiments properly
document explains how we intend to deal with that sitatution, both to help
and to give users and relay operators the right expectations regarding ongoing
researchers plan their experiments properly and to give users and relay
network-wide experiments and their potential effects.
operators the right expectations regarding ongoing network-wide experiments and
their potential effects.
Our strategy is two-fold:
Our strategy is two-fold:
...
@@ -13,3 +14,22 @@ Our strategy is two-fold:
...
@@ -13,3 +14,22 @@ Our strategy is two-fold:
2. To make experiments successful, given 1., we'll focus on our coordination
2. To make experiments successful, given 1., we'll focus on our coordination
role raising *awareness* of concurrent experiments.
role raising *awareness* of concurrent experiments.
The Tor network is changing daily and is used for a myriad of purposes which
holds as well during the time experiments are run on it. To a large extent
those changes are not under our or anybody's control. Hence, one needs to take
that constraint into account when planning network experiments, as trying to
just run one experiment we know about at any time does not help with the
underlying dynamic considerably. This holds as well for [experiments we plan to
run on our own, e.g. during our performance improvements work](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/team/-/wikis/NetworkTeam/Sponsor61/PerformanceExperiments).
To help researchers with their planning (and thus a successful experiment) we
provide information about experiments running already on the Tor network or are
about to run. One way doing so is via our tor-relays@ mailing list where we
encourage researchers to write to announcing their experiment start/end and
getting feedback from the relay operators community. Additionally, we added a
Network Experiments entry on our [status page](https://status.torproject.org/),
showing not only whether experiments are ongoing at the moment but as well which
exactly [are currently running and were running in the past](https://status.torproject.org/affected/network-experiments/).
Each entry contains the dates when an experiment started/ended, so one can go
back into the past and learn what dates correspond to each activity.
