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Tor network usage

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Martin Florian edited this page Apr 8, 2017 · 2 revisions

Evaluation: Tor traffic

Some additional experiments have been done to check how much traffic Tor generates when idling.

Setup

  • Android smartphone (Nexus 5X): Doze disabled for PTP (Settings -> Battery -> Battery Optimization -> PTPEvaluationApp -> Not optimized), screen was off during evaluation, started with fully charged battery
  • PTP was configured to start Tor and create a hidden service but don't send any message.
  • PTP uses Tor binary from Orbot (0.2.8.9)
  • Orbot Version 15.2.0-RC-8-multi (uses Tor 0.2.8.9)
  • Orbot torrc
  • Configured hidden service in Orbot
  • No apps have been selected for transparent proxying
date runtime setup bytes total average bytes
02.02.17 06h16m PTP 5,43 MB 0,87 MB/h
09.02.17 09h15m Orbot without HS 6,04 MB 0,65 MB/h
15.02.17 9h16m Orbot with HS 13,88 MB 1,50 MB/h
18.02.17 6h37m Orbot with HS 9,40 MB 1,42 MB/h
18.02.17 3h50m PTP 4,93 MB 1,29 MB/h
19.02.17 3h20m PTP 2,12 MB 0,64 MB/h
02.03.17 03h11m PTP 5,35 MB 1,68 MB/h

Conclusion

Tor causes a lot of network traffic to provide a hidden service, even when idling (about 1-1.5 MB/h). The experiments showed a big variation in the results (between several runs and between PTP and Orbot). The cause of the variation still needs to be investigated.

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