Karsten Loesing transcribed 4.5K bytes:
On 16/10/14 10:57, isis wrote:
Having private bridges in public bundles is actually harmful, because it makes it look like bridges are not much used. If we want to suggest bridge development or BridgeDB development to a sponsor and they look at estimated user numbers compared to directly connecting users, they might say that those few users are not worth their money.
Okay, you got me ― I'm totally on your side now. :)
Dear Tor Browser Team, I am willing to curate your bundled bridges for you to ensure that they are public bridges.
I'm fine with this inaccuracy. The only thing that uses bridge pool assignments is Onionoo/Atlas/Globe, and providing the information which pool/ring BridgeDB picked for a bridge doesn't justify the effort.
Hooray! Less work!
Another thing to consider: should we allow a bridge operator to switch from `BridgeDistribution https` to `BridgeDistribution email`? Allowing this would, of course, decrease our potential to understand how bridges are being harvested/blocked, as well as nullifying some of the security considerations which influenced the separate-hashrings-for-separate-distribution-methods design choice.
I'd say it's up to the bridge operator to decide how their bridge is used, even if that makes it easier to enumerate/block their bridge. Worth a comment in torrc, but no reason to ignore their choice.
Fair enough. And, now that I think about it more, the default should probably be `BridgeDistribution any` to maintain consistent behaviour, meaning that bridge operators would have some chance of altering their assignment anyway if they manual set the option later.