Measuring mobile performance in the Tor network with OnionPerf

Abstract

The Tor network is the largest public deployed anonymity network using the Internet. While there has been a longitudinal study into the performance of the network in progress since 2009, it has only used vantage points in data centre networks. In this paper we propose modifications to the performance measurement tool, OnionPerf, to enable its use for measuring performance from a mobile end-user’s perspective. We provide initial findings on simulated mobile networks, using two types of emulated links, using both the public Tor network and in a private test Tor network.