September 2016 - tor-project - lists.torproject.org

Updating Fallback Directories
by teor 08 Sep '16

08 Sep '16

Hi Everyone, Some time in September, I want to update the list of fallback directory mirrors for Tor 0.2.9. This means: * emailing the 85 operators in the 0.2.8 list to remind them not to change their relay details, * generating a list of new stable relays for 0.2.9, * emailing these operators (maybe 100?) to ask them if their relay will be around for 2 years, * generating a list of fallbacks for inclusion in an 0.2.9 alpha, * emailing each of these 200 operators in the 0.2.9 list to remind them not to change their relay details. I'm wondering where I should send these emails, so I'm not the only point of contact: When I first did this, I emailed tor-relays. Then I emailed some operators directly. Then recently, I CC'd tor-team. I'm concerned I'll be flooding whatever list I use with very similar messages. Or maybe I should email them directly, and put tor-team in the reply-to field? Also, if anyone would like to help out with these tasks, that would be great! (I'll be doing them in my own time.) Tim Tim Wilson-Brown (teor) teor2345 at gmail dot com PGP C855 6CED 5D90 A0C5 29F6 4D43 450C BA7F 968F 094B ricochet:ekmygaiu4rzgsk6n xmpp: teor at torproject dot org

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Proposal: rotate default bridge ports each release
by David Fifield 06 Sep '16

06 Sep '16

Lynn Tsai and I just published a report on the blocking of Tor Browser's default obfs4 bridges. https://www.bamsoftware.com/proxy-probe/ https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/foci16/foci16-paper-fifield.… One of the things we found is that the Great Firewall of China blocks the default bridges--but it takes a little while after release for them to do it. We saw delays as short as 2 days and as long as 36 days. We also found that when they block a bridge, they don't block the whole IP address; they just block a single port and other ports on the same IP remain accessible. We can take advantage of these peculiarities by opening additional obfs4 ports on the default bridges, and changing the port numbers on each release. We'd keep the old ports open for people who haven't upgraded yet, but those who upgrade will start using the new ports. This way, we can make the bridges temporarily reachable after each new release--at least until the censors figure out what we're doing and start blocking more aggressively. This is pretty easy to do on the bridge operators' part. They just need to forward a range of ports to their existing obfs4 port, something like this: iptables -A PREROUTING -t nat -i eth0 -p tcp --match multiport --dports 50000:50009 -j REDIRECT --to-port <obfs4port> Then, the Tor Browser developers can choose a fresh port in each new release.

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Fwd: Applications are Open for the 2017 Voqal Fellowship
by Shari Steele 06 Sep '16

06 Sep '16

FYI > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Voqal Fellowship <lpryor-lease(a)voqal.org> > Subject: Applications are Open for the 2017 Voqal Fellowship > Date: September 6, 2016 at 9:19:42 AM PDT > To: <ssteele(a)eff.org> > Reply-To: Voqal Fellowship <lpryor-lease(a)voqal.org> > > Applications open! > Is this email not displaying correctly? > View it in your browser <http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=682ab4ed01d172b33902388e1&id=0bc4d2fb23…>. > <http://voqal.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=682ab4ed01d172b33902388e1&id…> > Applications Now Open for 2017 Voqal Fellowship > Applications are now open for the 2017 Voqal Fellowship, which provides progressive, social entrepreneurs financial resources and mentoring to help bring an early stage idea to life. We are searching for young entrepreneurs, change-makers and thought leaders who want to launch the next “big idea” that will transform progressive politics or remedy a social inequity. > > Ideal Candidates > Ideal candidates for the fellowship are in the early stages of project development. They are driven, tech-savvy social change agents who thrive under self-direction. We are recruiting creative thinkers with a track record of advancing progressive social change and/or using innovative solutions to help communities. > > Project Requirements > One of the few early-stage fellowships, the Voqal Fellowship is designed to further progressive, social justice-oriented causes. Ideal applicants will have a specific issue or challenge they are looking to address over the course of their fellowship. Projects can be broad in scope, or a simple tool that will help resolve a social inequity or lead to progressive social change. Some of the types of projects fellows could pursue include: > Mobile Apps > Media Products > Information Access > Tools for Wrangling Big Data > Algorithms > Software for Social Change Agents > Websites > Program Details > Candidates for the latest round of the Voqal Fellowship must have three to five years of career experience and may not be enrolled in graduate school. Fellows have six months to complete their project and will receive a $30,000 stipend to build out an idea that would not be possible to accomplish with a full-time job. Additional stipends may be available to offset health insurance costs for qualifying fellows. > > Apply or Nominate Someone Today > Ready to apply? Apply now! <http://voqal.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=682ab4ed01d172b33902388e1&id…> > Do you know someone who would make a great Voqal Fellow? Nominate them! <http://voqal.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=682ab4ed01d172b33902388e1&id…> > > For more information visit the Voqal Fellowship webpage <http://voqal.us4.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=682ab4ed01d172b33902388e1&i…> or contact Leah Pryor-Lease at lpryor-lease(a)voqal.org <mailto:lpryor-lease@voqal.org>. > > follow on Twitter <http://voqal.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=682ab4ed01d172b33902388e1&i…> | forward to a friend <http://us4.forward-to-friend2.com/forward?u=682ab4ed01d172b33902388e1&id=0b…> > Copyright © 2016 Voqal, All rights reserved. > You are receiving this email because of your interest in the Voqal Fellowship. > Our mailing address is: > Voqal > 825 Delaware Ave > 5th Floor > Longmont, CO 80501 > > Add us to your address book <http://voqal.us4.list-manage1.com/vcard?u=682ab4ed01d172b33902388e1&id=a92f…> > <http://www.mailchimp.com/monkey-rewards/?utm_source=freemium_newsletter&utm…> > unsubscribe from this list <http://voqal.us4.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=682ab4ed01d172b33902388e1&id…> | update subscription preferences <http://voqal.us4.list-manage.com/profile?u=682ab4ed01d172b33902388e1&id=a92…> > >

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Notes from September 1 2016 Vegas team meeting
by Karsten Loesing 05 Sep '16

05 Sep '16

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 See this posting for context: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2016-April/000223.html Notes for September 1 2016 meeting: Georg: 1) The GSoC project Fingerprint Central (https://fpcentral.irisa.fr/) ("our" Panopticlick tool) is done and the question is what to do with the custom statistics. Current idea is to limit access to the 10 most popular values by unauthorized users and 200 by authorized ones. 2) I helped with the OTF proposal a bit and with getting the ISC work (porting the Security Slider to Android) going 3) Who can help me understand what's up with the tbb-build machine? Maybe we are still paying for it and it is not reachable for us? Kate: 1) Exciting to see people tweet that they are starting new Tor relays 2) New bridge authority uptake is increasing: https://people.torproject.org/~karsten/volatile/running-bridges-2016-09-01.… 3) Tor traffic questions: Tor metrics are not yet reflecting new Bifroest bridge authority, but will soon :) 4) Upcoming posts: Isis (about the new bridge authority), a Q and A with an exit relay operator, new Tor Messenger beta release, GSoC student 5) We are building relationships with a wider demographic range of software devs and anti-surveillance activists--they are following us now on Twitter for the first time and encouraging others to also. 6) Diversity = bigger array of skills, access to new networks of people, and greater resilience to attack (more groups of people have our back). We're less easy to pigeonhole, too (already true if you know us well). Alison: 1) Meeting planning progress: agenda engagement is going REALLY well! 2) Public hack day promotion: positive messaging 3) Metrics for relay operators: collecting ideas here https://pad.riseup.net/p/metricsneeds, then working with metrics and community teams to use Onionoo data to better support relay operators. Thinking of other ways we can support our relay community... 4) Community docs progress: working a lot on membership docs, getting some good feedback. I'd like to get these finished at the Tor meeting, ideally. I need other people to review them with me. 5) Support desk progress: phoul is setting up support.torproject.org and we hope to be able to share soon. also working on updating old RT tickets to use in the FAQ, building the glossary. 6) Rapid response project: the community team is just getting started on Isa's idea here https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/CommunityTeam/Proje… 7) Organizing Tor event at Aaron Swartz Day -- still need more Bay Area people to join us! Nick: 1) I coded this week! So did my team. 1b) Infrastructure diversions happen while coding; these are valuable. 2) Trying to advance project security policies w Georg, anyone else who can help. No time. 3) Team headcount: how do I know if I can hire? 4) Grants process: we should figure out how to improve. Shari 1) We were approved for $250k from MDF for general operating support! :) 2) Lots of grant proposals these past couple of weeks. Thanks to everyone for all of their hard work. OTF goes in today. I'm currently working on the budget. 3) Lots of meeting planning. 4) What do folks think about Amsterdam/Utrecht for next Tor meeting in March? 5) Job posting for chief grants/finance officer went up. We've got a couple of promising applicants. What should the process be? 6) Linda Lee accepted the UX lead job and starts on 9/21. Isabela: 1) organizing the kick off of the ISC tor browser mobile project 2) working on proposal for otf 3) organizing the internal launch of style guidelines 4) trying to prep for dev meeting Mike: 1) Got the Copperhead+Tor prototype build scripts working: https://github.com/mikeperry-tor/mission-improbable/. I'm using it now, but I have a couple more things to improve and then it should be ready for a much wider announcement as part of Tor Labs. I think it is time to start soliciting Tor Labs posts from tor-internal perhaps? 2) Working on the otf proposal Karsten: 1) Spent a fair amount of time on the Tonga/Bifroest migration, including updating metrics-related code to handle two concurrent bridge authorities. 2) Evaluated sanitized web server logs together with Georg to learn about Tor Browser downloads (~8M/quarter) and update pings (indicating 900k concurrent users). 3) Discussed the ExoneraTor database design with Sebastian who pretty much took over the testing; preliminary results are very promising. 4) Finally released metrics-lib/DescripTor 1.4.0. 5) Starting to prepare for the Berlin meetup next weekend. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJXzWixAAoJEC3ESO/4X7XBuRQH/RUraonnI2Ipt09XUtxfOVVF vmTGCM7dpK1fvuF+EUfcBACHjPtLNH7Kkglt7G6B2ikf9wBH0CwlUiNpII9wtxLR BO1a/1xkGX41r/rn2aFJZq96o5tnDP3ReBbyf/ZOvZyu2r26tNp+Lu95WlorFSbt 6oY/7UjjGzU0Mca8hTNyaIQrrwRBIT7t062qqByX/N6ty1BGFIKgpL51GQxC5Dpz umzthvUmmvbLlpTv8JKIxNWtWN55sna+bW3kRtTxCZ8g6UdSw0EwRyBBp+MZQWjQ Cgy3gym8LUJhjulNycxRg22jFt9mPJ44bAaxS3ImfBfRIdI4u2+X4A/2JRPJ+fs= =Oxyt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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