[atlas] Overuse of software probes

Hello All,

I think we can separate out two issues here:

1. I believe we should keep incentivising (for the lack of a better 
word) "benevolent" probe hosts - ie. if someone would like to host a 
probe, either hw or sw, then they should be able to do so and enjoy the 
benefits. Having said this, with the hw probe distribution we prioritise 
yet-uncovered networks. This is much harder to do with sw probes...

2. We should dis-incentivise "farming", if that happens. The issue is 
that we can only recognise this once it happens. Coming up with hard 
policies on how to regulate this in advance is not easy, but one can 
come up with some guidelines on how to recognise such cases and what to 
do with them when they are found.


There's of course a benefit in having multiple probes in a network, and 
presumably the bigger said network is the more probes it could have. 
Surely constructs like CGNATs make all kinds of corner cases...


I'm very happy to see proposals on how to improve the built-in probe 
selection process. We'll evaluate these and of course implement ones 
that make sense within the system. At the end of the day there will 
always be cases that can only be done "manually", ie. the user selecting 
particular probes by whatever criteria they want to use.

Cheers,
Robert


On 2022-03-31 20:43, Andreas Härpfer wrote:
> Of course I am wildly guessing here, but the 15 probes in
> Hostinger Sao Paulo actually look a bit fishy to me.  Consecutive
> probe numbers, all created at roughly the same time, all in the
> same v4 /24 and v6 /64.  To me this looks like an "Atlas credit
> mining farm" … so more a mis-use than an overuse.
> 
> The 4 probes in Johannesburg are different.  Same ASN but at
> least different /24s and different ages, so likely also different
> owners.
> 
> Just my 2¢
> 
> Cheers
> -Andi
> 
>