Reply to post: Re: Timing...

Tor de farce: NSA fails to decrypt anonymised network

Frumious Bandersnatch

Re: Timing...

all this will do is slow down the network

Yes and no. If you delay packets by a random amount, then yes, the network slows down. If, on the other hand, you replace a FIFO scheduler with one that merely randomises the queue order, then throughput is maintained*. Slowing down the end-to-end routing of packets through the network like this will impact the users, though the network throughput is unaffected.

* a simple example scheme which has a 1/2 chance of delaying the head packet in the queue if it's the first time it's been seen, and a decreasing sequence of probabilities 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc. each subsequent time it's due to be sent will mean packets may wait in the queue indefinitely (with infinitesimal probability), but on average will take 2x as long to get through it (sum of infinite series 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + ...), not taking the probability of the replacement packet being sent into account...

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