On 09/04/2013 06:06 AM, Asa Rossoff wrote: SNIP
> Reviewing known Syrian political and war events occurring, as well as the > Muslim and Syrian holiday and festival calendars, as well as reviewing Tor > usage data worldwide, and a sampling of major news stories related to > privacy and encryption, I came up with something of a timeline, although I > draw no conclusions from it. > > Timeline through August 31 > ========================== > * February, a dramatic, roughly ten-fold decrease in Syrian directly > connnecting Tor users. > * July 9-14, spike in Syria directly connecting users from est. ~ 1,000 > users, peaking at just over 4,000 users on July 12, and returning to ~ 1,000 > users by July 15. Approximately four-fold increase at peak on July 12. > Syrian Usage in the near term both before and after fluctuates up to ~50% > and 1,000 is a bit below average; it leveled off around 1,200 within a few > days of this event, holding steady until August 6. > > * August 6, rebels in Syria had a strategic victory by capturing Menagh > Military Airport after a one-year siege. > * August 6-7, Tor usage increased four-fold in Syria, and has ranged between > ~3,500 and 4,500 directly connecting users since (~4,000 on August 31). > * August 8, Ramadan one-month fasting ended. > * August 8, Lavabit and Silent Circle shut down. OK, so the August 6-7 increase might reflect disruption of government censorship. And the July 9-14 spike might reflect the same. I don't get why fasting implies not using Tor, however. > So the above events correlate with Syria's four-fold increase in usage, > though usage had been extraordinarily low since a dramatic ten-fold decrease > in February (with a brief July spike that peaked at four-fold prior usage on > July 12), so there might be another reason. It does seem likely that the increase reflects disruption in censorship. Thanks again for the timeline :) SNIP -- tor-talk mailing list - [email protected] To unsusbscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
