Hi all, teor suggested engaging the list with #25918 so here we go! Ticket #25918 has a couple goals...
1. Provide a tracking ticket for the rename effort. 2. Come to a consensus on if we should move forward with "onion service" or revert back to "hidden service". The limbo we've been in for months is confusing for our users and we should standardize on a name.
Here's the ticket...
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A recent post on tor-dev@ just got me thinking about the roadblocks we have for v2 deprecation. There's a couple I don't believe we're following in trac so lets fix that.
For me the biggest is its name. Renaming takes work, and we attempted to rename hidden services in v3 without investing the time to make it happen. We should either fix that or revert to to the old name. To move forward we need to...
Have OnionService aliases for controller commands, events, descriptor fields, and anything else referencing 'HS' or 'HiddenService'.
Speaking of which, how do we plan to replace abbreviations? Having an 'OSFETCH' or 'OS_CREATED' event doesn't exactly have the same ring as their HS counterparts. ;P
Adjust all our docs to be consistent about the name.
Renaming takes work. Lesson I learned from Nyx is that it works best if you draw a line in the sand and stand by it. With Nyx, version 2.0 is called Nyx (you won't find any docs saying otherwise) and version 1.x is the legacy 'arm' project.
If I was in your shoes I'd opt for the same. Either prioritize the aliases and be firm that v3 are 'Onion Services' or abort the rename. Otherwise this will live in a confusing dual-named limbo land indefinitely. ;P
Cheers! -Damian
PS. Stem and Nyx have stuck with the old name ("hidden services") and will continue to do so until tor's standardized this.
On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 05:18:32PM -0700, Damian Johnson wrote:
Hi all, teor suggested engaging the list with #25918 so here we go! Ticket #25918 has a couple goals...
- Provide a tracking ticket for the rename effort.
- Come to a consensus on if we should move forward with "onion
service" or revert back to "hidden service". The limbo we've been in for months is confusing for our users and we should standardize on a name.
I'm very confused why you say that this is not a long solved problem. I see nothing in the recent posts about v2 deprecation that would in any way change that, or even raise it as a topic.
When talking in general to people, the answer should be that they are all (v2 and v3) onion services. That's it. I believe this is the official position of the Tor Project, and they have worked hard to make sure that this is reflected on any new materials on the site for some time. I'm cc'ing Steph in case she is not on the tor-dev list and wants to say anything further on that point.
I'll respond to other comments inline below. Feel free to add my comments to the ticket if you want, but IMO there is no reason a ticket should exist at all for this.
Here's the ticket...
========================================
A recent post on tor-dev@ just got me thinking about the roadblocks we have for v2 deprecation. There's a couple I don't believe we're following in trac so lets fix that.
For me the biggest is its name. Renaming takes work, and we attempted to rename hidden services in v3 without investing the time to make it happen. We should either fix that or revert to to the old name. To move forward we need to...
I don't understand this at all. We have renamed hidden services to be called 'onion services' some time ago. I don't know what it is that you feel we didn't make happen. 'Hidden services' was an old name for onion services that has always been misleading narrow about the nature of these services and thus long in need of replacing (and actually the name we originally and for some time used was 'location hidden services' though 'location' simply started getting more and more ignored along the way). "Misleadingly narrow" because some of their central properties are ignored by calling them 'hidden services', viz. the stronger and more-site-owner-controlled authentication these services provide and their address lookup security vs. the less secure parts of the internet served by DNS.
Have OnionService aliases for controller commands, events, descriptor fields, and anything else referencing 'HS' or 'HiddenService'.
Speaking of which, how do we plan to replace abbreviations? Having an 'OSFETCH' or 'OS_CREATED' event doesn't exactly have the same ring as their HS counterparts. ;P
Adjust all our docs to be consistent about the name.
Right, anything v3 should be consistently calling these 'onion services'. Variable names, etc. particularly those still in use in code shared with v2, don't need to be changed. It is OK if such vestiges of older usage remain in abbreviations, as long as the description of them, e.g., in any new Tor proposal, describes them with appropriately current terminology.
Renaming takes work. Lesson I learned from Nyx is that it works best if you draw a line in the sand and stand by it. With Nyx, version 2.0 is called Nyx (you won't find any docs saying otherwise) and version 1.x is the legacy 'arm' project.
If I was in your shoes I'd opt for the same. Either prioritize the aliases and be firm that v3 are 'Onion Services' or abort the rename. Otherwise this will live in a confusing dual-named limbo land indefinitely. ;P
I'm prettty sure that v3 being 'onion services' has been the official Tor Project position since at least half a year. We wouldn't be aborting the rename, because 'abort' would imply it is not complete. Anything now not using the current name is not part of an incomplete process, it is simply wrong and outdated. Steph correct me if I am wrong about that.
So I think you've answered your own question. Nothing in v3 should be called 'hidden services'. And anything new in code and documentation should be called 'onion services'. If you want to think of v2 and earlier as 'hidden services' for purposes of understanding legacy component and variable names, e.g., HSDir that's fine. And as such, variable names, etc. in code that continues to be used for both v2 and v3 can can persist. But again, any new specs, documentation, etc. should call them 'onion services'.
This acceptance of existing v2 documentation calling them 'hidden services' while refusing this for anything v3 is a little misleading about when and why the naming transition happened, but its close enough to serve as your line in the sand if you feel one is needed. I actually argued the value of essentially such a line-in-the-sand position to Steph a while ago. This doesn't preclude also calling v2 and earlier 'onion services'. Indeed, it's not just OK but preferable, for the above mentioned reasons.
aloha, Paul
Hi All,
There seems to be some confusion in this thread about the current state of the hidden service to onion service name transition.
So I'm going to describe the state of things as they are, then try to describe what would need to be done.
I'd also appreciate feedback from Steph and others on our priorities for transitioning to the onion service name. I think we have been prioritising user-facing text. (The blog, website, Tor Browser, metrics, etc.)
Is this a sensible way of prioritising things?
On 26 Apr 2018, at 16:42, Paul Syverson paul.syverson@nrl.navy.mil wrote:
Have OnionService aliases for controller commands, events,
These are current called "hidden service" or an abbreviation.
Tor could add an alias mechanism for controller commands, events, and fields, and use it to do the rename:
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/25922
I don't think they are as high a priority as the torrc options and man page.
descriptor fields
These are currently called "hidden service", or an abbreviation.
Descriptor fields are part of the directory specification and implementation, and they are highly technical. So I'm not sure we gain much from aliasing them or renaming them.
Similar arguments might apply to other codebases: * Onionoo * stem * consensus health * Tor (network daemon)
But the following user-facing applications should add documentation or change names, if they haven't already: * Relay Search / metrics website * uses HSDir for relay search, because that's what it's called in the directory protocol * uses "onion service" for statistics * Tor Browser * uses "onion site" * the Tor website * new tor blog posts
and anything else referencing 'HS' or 'HiddenService'.
We considered adding OnionService* torrc option aliases for every HiddenService* option in 0.2.9. But we deferred that change because we ran out of time.
All we need to do is add some new entries in the alias table, then do a search and replace in the tor man page: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17343
Speaking of which, how do we plan to replace abbreviations? Having an 'OSFETCH' or 'OS_CREATED' event doesn't exactly have the same ring as their HS counterparts. ;P
That's a good question.
OS conflicts with "operating system", so we could use: * Onion * OnSrv * no abbreviations Or any other colour you want to paint the bikeshed.
To avoid an endless discussion, let's leave the decision to the people who write, review, and merge the code.
Adjust all our docs to be consistent about the name.
Right, anything v3 should be consistently calling these 'onion services'. Variable names, etc. particularly those still in use in code shared with v2, don't need to be changed. It is OK if such vestiges of older usage remain in abbreviations, as long as the description of them, e.g., in any new Tor proposal, describes them with appropriately current terminology.
torrc options, the tor man page, and the v3 onion service code mainly use "hidden service", and sometimes use "onion service".
I don't see much value in changing the code.
If we decide there is value in changing the torrc options and man page, we need to allocate a few days of work on the roadmap to make it happen.
Renaming takes work. Lesson I learned from Nyx is that it works best if you draw a line in the sand and stand by it. With Nyx, version 2.0 is called Nyx (you won't find any docs saying otherwise) and version 1.x is the legacy 'arm' project.
If I was in your shoes I'd opt for the same. Either prioritize the aliases and be firm that v3 are 'Onion Services' or abort the rename. Otherwise this will live in a confusing dual-named limbo land indefinitely. ;P
I'm prettty sure that v3 being 'onion services' has been the official Tor Project position since at least half a year. We wouldn't be aborting the rename, because 'abort' would imply it is not complete. Anything now not using the current name is not part of an incomplete process, it is simply wrong and outdated. Steph correct me if I am wrong about that.
So I think you've answered your own question. Nothing in v3 should be called 'hidden services'.
That's not the current state of the tor network daemon v3 onion service code, specs, options, and man page. They use a mix of terminology (see above).
And anything new in code and documentation should be called 'onion services'. If you want to think of v2 and earlier as 'hidden services' for purposes of understanding legacy component and variable names, e.g., HSDir that's fine. And as such, variable names, etc. in code that continues to be used for both v2 and v3 can can persist. But again, any new specs, documentation, etc. should call them 'onion services'.
We have gradually been using onion services in new documentation and specs, since "single onion services". But we haven't changed existing code and documentation.
This acceptance of existing v2 documentation calling them 'hidden services' while refusing this for anything v3 is a little misleading about when and why the naming transition happened, but its close enough to serve as your line in the sand if you feel one is needed. I actually argued the value of essentially such a line-in-the-sand position to Steph a while ago. This doesn't preclude also calling v2 and earlier 'onion services'. Indeed, it's not just OK but preferable, for the above mentioned reasons.
It looks like we are doing a gradual transition. I think we prioritised the things that are seen by the most users (Tor Browser, statistics, blog, website).
We did not take a line in the sand position in the past, but we could adopt one for the remaining changes. We could decide on a particular Tor release (and releases of other codebases). But we need to schedule the work on the relevant roadmaps.
And maybe there are some obscure technical things (code, comments, descriptor fields) that just aren't worth changing.
T
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Damian Johnson -
Paul Syverson -
teor