104 Long and Short Router Descriptors [OPEN]
105 Version negotiation for the Tor protocol [OPEN]
106 Checking fewer things during TLS handshakes [CLOSED]
-107 Uptime Sanity Checking [OPEN]
+107 Uptime Sanity Checking [CLOSED]
+108 Base "Stable" Flag on Mean Time Between Failures [OPEN]
--- /dev/null
+Filename: 108-mtbf-based-stability.txt
+Title: Base "Stable" Flag on Mean Time Between Failures
+Version: $Revision: 12105 $
+Last-Modified: $Date: 2007-01-30T07:50:01.643717Z $
+Author: Nick Mathewson
+Created:
+Status: Open
+
+Overview:
+
+ This document proposes that we change how directory authorities set the
+ stability flag from inspection of routers declared Uptime to the
+ authorities' perceived mean time between failure for the router.
+
+Motivation:
+
+ Clients prefer nodes that the authorities call Stable. This flags are (as
+ of 0.2.0.0-alpha-dev) set entirely based on the nodes' declared values for
+ uptime. This creates an opportunity for malicious nodes to declare
+ falsely high uptimes in order to get more traffic.
+
+Spec changes:
+
+ Instead of setting the current rule for setting the Stable flag:
+
+ "An authority should call a server Stable if its observed MTBF for
+ the past month is at or above the median MTBF for Valid servers.
+
+ MTBF shall be defined as the mean length of the runs observed by a
+ given directory authority. A run begins when an authority decides
+ that the server is Running, and ends when the authority decides that
+ the server is not Running. In-progress runs are counted when
+ measuring MTBF."
+
+Issues:
+
+ How do you define a clipped MTBF? If the current month begins with one
+ day at the end of a one-year uptime, and then has 29 days of uptime, do we
+ average one day and 29 days? Or do we average one year and 29 days? Or
+ take 29 days on its own and discard the year?
+
+ Surely somebody has done this kinds of thing before.