November 2015 - tor-dev - lists.torproject.org

running a BWauth
by starlight.2015q3＠binnacle.cx 04 Nov '15

04 Nov '15

I am considering starting up a passive BWauth in order to understand how they work and fix bugs. What is the minimum and ideal hardware configuration for a BWauth? Have my eye on an OVH config with unmetered 1G, a fuzzy promise of 500mbps minimum bandwidth and a 3.4GHz 4core/8thread AES-NI CPU: http://ark.intel.com/products/80910 The server could be turned up in any of their facilities: https://www.ovh.com/us/about-us/datacenters.xml Or is 10G a requirement? (out of my league) Is all code here https://gitweb.torproject.org/torflow.git/tree/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority or is there more? Are uncommitted fixes lying around anywhere? Thanks

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[Fwd: UX Principles]
by Mike Perry 03 Nov '15

03 Nov '15

Nima sent this to me a while ago and I completely forgot to forward it on. Note the Google docs and the PDF at the bottom. Useful food for though for Tor Messenger, Tor Browser, and other user-facing stuff. ----- Forwarded message from Nima Fatemi <nima(a)torproject.org> ----- Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 03:39:31 +0000 From: Nima Fatemi <nima(a)torproject.org> To: Mike Perry <mikeperry(a)torproject.org> Subject: UX Principles Hi Mike, sorry for late email. I was meaning to send you this sooner but I've had a big pile of email, I had to take care of. So the forwarded message below includes an attachment, which is the Yee's principles and then there's another paper that linda has mentioned, which is worth reading I think. Here's that talk from Google Chrome's Elisabeth Morant that I mentioned to you: https://news.yahoo.com/video/yahoo-trust-unconference-security-ux-161037378… Here are the slides: (the good stuff start from page 12) https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1i2Pwennj8PcsigACPA1oLpRNLd7BVC0oils… And here are my notes from the talk + my thoughts added to them: - 1st principle: Don't annoy users, even with updates. - People (even infosec ppl) ignore updates - users are often worried that updates would change the interface, it took them time and energy to get used to current things, they dont want it to change (even if it's a good change) - Enable auto-update by default with an option to opt out - Give devs and users tools to time permission requests - 2nd principle: allow mistakes!!! let them change their settings easily if they've changed their minds - settings windows doing similar thing should look similar and if they do the exact things, they should look identical. - make settings easy to discover - 3rd principle: combat jerks [malicious-HS_maybe?] - danger is hard to communicate - how to tell users about the danger they're facing - infrastructure for detecting and reacting to badness - how to do this in a decentralized way?! - karma! tie user engagement to resource allocation (maybe useful for HiddenServices?) (okay, right after writing this sentence, I started a conversation in #tor-project. see the backlog, you might find it interesting) - crowd consent Let me know if I can be of any help. Bests, -- Nima -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Yee's principles Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 05:51:05 -0700 From: Linda Naeun Lee <lnl(a)berkeley.edu> To: Tor Project <nima(a)torproject.org> Nima: Here are notes. And another paper. http://zesty.ca/pubs/yee-sid-ieeesp2004.pdf -- Linda Naeun Lee Graduate Student Researcher Department of Computer Science University of California, Berkeley ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Mike Perry

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UX tag
by Nima Fatemi 02 Nov '15

02 Nov '15

Hello devs, May I encourage you to add "UX" tag (keyword) to the tickets you're filing or working on that are related to usability in any ways? This is to get a sense of how many tickets and what workload is related to usability in tor-related products. So I want to humbly ask you to use the tag regardless of the help you may or may not need for that ticket. And if you've any suggestions/ideas to measure this better, this is a great time to talk about it :) Peace ✌ -- Nima 0XC009DB191C92A77B | @mrphs "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" --Evelyn Beatrice Hall

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Re: [tor-dev] Update of prop#250: Random Number Generation During Tor Voting
by Jesse V 02 Nov '15

02 Nov '15

David, I'm in the midst of reworking my OnioNS design around prop250 (and the security analysis therein) and as far as I can tell these changes make sense. I like the 00:00 -> 24:00 change as it's more intuitive as you said. I was at first very concerned that you removed the majority requirement as that is the assumption made during consensus generation, but I think your argument for the new conflict resolution make sense. I'm excited that the implementation is nearly complete and I look forward to seeing it in Tor infrastructure! Jesse V. On 10/28/2015 10:26 AM, David Goulet wrote: > First, period have been changed from 12:00 -> 12:00 (24 hour) to 00:00 > -> 24:00 so the protocol run is not over two days. Seemed more logical > and less confusing :). > > Second, we've removed the need of having majority for a commit to be > considered for the shared random computation. Yes this sounds intense!! > so it needs your attention.

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Tor logo
by Philip Lammert 01 Nov '15

01 Nov '15

Hi, I wasn’t lucky with the Tor logo, its design qualities in general, especially its performance in small sizes and its inconsistent applications (different shades of purple and green, outlines, gradients and glossy effects …). So I made a redesign. I would offer all file types needed. I hope this mailing-list is the right place to present it and discus it. Please, have a look at the PDF-file: http://www.file-upload.net/download-11010886/_logos_overview.pdf.html The whole developing system here seems decentralised and an implementation might be a bit cumbersome, but if it doesn’t exhaust me too much, I could also offer further design advice, (re-)designing app icons, making mockups for Tor websites, apps etc. and give it a consistent and professional appearance. Regards Philip

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