January 2021 - tor-project - lists.torproject.org

Are there countries where using Tor is illegal?
by Cristian Consonni 11 May '25

11 May '25

Hi, (Sorry if this question has already been asked in the past, feel free to point me to the relevant resources.) I know that the legal FAQs by the EFF state that: «we believe that running a Tor relay — including an exit relay that allows people to anonymously send and receive traffic — is legal under U.S. law.»[1] I also know there is a list of countries for which there is legislation that exclude communication service providers from liability. They are indicated in the Legal of the Tor Exit Guidelines page[2], they are USA, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, France, and Sweden. >From some articles in the press[3a][3b] it may be illegal - depending on how you interpret the wording[*] - to use Tor (and other technologies such as VPNs or proxies) in the UAE, with fines ranging in the millions of dirhams (hundreds of thousand of dollars). A couple of weeks ago it was discussed - on this list as well - that a law was introduced to the state parliament to ban Tor[4a][4b]. This follows a case of some months ago of a Russian Tor exit node operator being arrested for inciting mass riots and terrorism[4c][4d]. The idea of blocking VPNs or Tor seems to have already been considered in the past[4e]. This infographic about pluggable transports[5] suggests access to the Tor network is censored or limited in China, Uzbekistan, Iran, and Kazakhstan. Tor being censored orblocked may be different from it being illegal. What about other countries? Is there a place where I can find more about this topic? Cristian [1]: https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-legal-faq.html.en [2]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorExitGuidelines [3a]: http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/dh500-000-fine-if-you-use-fraud-ip… [3b]: http://news.softpedia.com/news/people-caught-using-vpns-tor-or-proxies-in-t… [*]: «Whoever uses a fraudulent computer network protocol address (IP address) by using a false address or a third-party address by any other means for the purpose of committing a crime or preventing its discovery» [4a]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2017-June/043293.html [4b]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22055 [4c]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2017-April/043109.html [4d]: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/24/dmitry-bogatov-tor-russia/ [4e]; https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-and-tor-ban-looming-on-the-horizon-for-russia-… [5]: https://www.torproject.org/images/PT/2016-07-how-to-use-PT.png

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 28 January 2021
by Cecylia Bocovich 28 Jan '21

28 Jan '21

Hi everyone, Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-01-07-15.58.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday January 28th 16:00 UTC Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 16:00 UTC, in #tor-meeting at OFTC (channel is logged while meetings are in progress) == Goal of this meeting == Weekly checkin about the status of anti-censorship work at Tor. Coordinate collaboration between people/teams on anti-censorship at Tor. == Links to Useful documents == Our anti-censorship roadmap: Roadmap: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/boards The anti-censorship team's wiki page: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/home Past meeting notes can be found at: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/ Tickets that need reviews: from sponsors we are working on: All needs review tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/merge_requests?s… Sponsor 30 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/4 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/7 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/5 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/6 Sponsor 28 must-do tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/10 possible tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… Anti-censorship related tickets that we want other teams to fix: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-tickets-keep <-- it will be moved into gitlab with TPO labels <-- do we still need this? The label is 'for anticensorship team' Public bug-reporting pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep == Announcements == There's a job opening in the anti-censorship team: https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/software-developer-anticensorship/ <-- please apply! Default bridges are supposed to work again in Tor Browser 10.5a8 https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-105a8 \o/ == Discussion == == Actions == January 2021 monthly report: https://pad.riseup.net/p/mmoiMFOsC0MKLtL7zhc6 == Interesting links == MariaV is inviting teams to opt in to an anonymous GitLab reporting system (see 2021-01-27 tor-team email). https://anonticket.onionize.space/ https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/anon_ticket == Reading group == We will discuss "" Questions to ask and goals to have: What aspects of the paper are questionable? Are there immediate actions we can take based on this work? Are there long-term actions we can take based on this work? Is there future work that we want to call out, in hopes that others will pick it up? == Updates == Name: This week: - What you worked on this week. Next week: - What you are planning to work on next week. Help with: - Something you need help with. phw: This week (2020-01-21): Wrapped up persistence layer in rdsys. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/5 Lots of handover work. Filed issue to make Relay Status page link to rdsys's bridge status page. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/metrics/relay-search/-/issues/40003 More work on wrapping up censorship snapshot. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/outreach/-/issues/28531 Next week: Help with: cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-01-28 Last week: - bump version of snowflake in tor-browser (tor-browser-build#40212) - improved logging for standalone proxies (snowflake#30498) - reviewed and deployed gettor/trac!16 - edits to snowflake survey (snowflake#40007) - generalized distribution proportions for rdsys (rdsys#37) - work on anti-censorship hiring - upgraded snowflake broker and bridge machines (https://www.sudo.ws/alerts/unescape_overflow.html) - adjusted how proxies handle NAT type checks (snowflake-webext#20) - knowledge transfer about bridgedb This week: - snowflake overhead/throughput issues (snowflake#40026) - integrate gettor and rdsys (rdsys#32) - provide feedback on sproutsbot - sponsor 28 evaluation prep - pick up some rdsys tickets? Needs help with: - review of snowflake!27 arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2021-01-28 Last week: - reviewed plan to reclassify unknown NAT as restricted https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: - review proxy-go throughput logging https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: agix:2021-01-28 Last week: -Research on httpt #4 Next week: -(For sure) finish rdsys #6 Help with: - hanneloresx: 2021-1-28 Last week: - Finished gettor #34058 - Submitted merge request for emma #6 Next week: - Start on bridgestrap #14 Help with: - HashikD: 2021-01-22 This week: - Next week: - Help with: -

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minutes from the sysadmin meeting: 2021 roadmap adopted
by Antoine Beaupré 26 Jan '21

26 Jan '21

TL;DR: the 2021 roadmap was adopted, see the details here: <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/roadmap/2021> Followup of the [last meeting][] to complete the work on the 2021 roadmp. [last meeting]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/meeting/2021-01-19 # Roll call: who's there and emergencies anarcat, gaba, hiro [Problem with gmail][], not a rush but priority. [problem with gmail]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40149 # Roadmap review We looked at the [draft 2021 roadmap proposal][] anarcat sent last week. [draft 2021 roadmap proposal]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/roadmap/2021 ## Need to have / nice to have / non-goals * need to prioritise fixing the blog (formatting, moderation), but those fixes will probably not come before Q3, because of capacity * we decided to *not* retire schleuder: hiro fixed a bunch of stuff yesterday, it should work better now. no need to retire it as we will still want encrypted mailing lists in the future * service admins; let's not reopen that discussion * added the bullseye upgrade to "nice to have", but not a hard priority for 2021 (and will be, along with the python3 upgrade, for 2022) * search.tpo (#33106) and "web metrics" (#32996) are postponed to 2022 * people suggested retiring "testnet" in the survey, but we don't quite know what that is, so we presumably need to talk with the network team about this * we agreed to cover for some metrics: we updated [ticket 40125][] with the remaining services to reallocate. covering for a service means that TPA will reboot services and allocate disk/ram as needed, but we are not in a position to make major reengineering changes [ticket 40125]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40125 ## Quarterly prioritization * there's a lot in Q1, but a lot of it is actually already done * sponsor 9 requires work from hiro, so we might have capacity problems We added a few of the "needs to have" in the quarterly allocation to make sure those are covered. We agreed we'd review the global roadmap every quarter, and continue doing the monthly "kanban board" review for the more daily progress. # Next meeting Going back to our regular programming, i have set a recurring meeting on tuesdays, 1500UTC on the first tuesday of the month, for TPA. # Metrics of the month Skipped because last meeting was a week ago. ;) -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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Anti-Censorship Team Update & Job Opening
by Erin Wyatt 20 Jan '21

20 Jan '21

Hello everyone, We have an update and a new job opening to share! 1. Cecylia Bocovich (cohosh), presently our developer on the Anti-Censorship Team, will stepping up to lead the team as Philipp moves on. Thank you, Cecylia! 2. With the upcoming vacancy on the Anti-Censorship Team, we have a new job opening! You can find the job description pasted below, attached as a PDF, and on our website athttps://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/software-developer-anticensorship/. We are hoping to fill this position as soon as possible, so please help us spread the word! :) Thank you! Best, Erin Wyatt Director of People Operations ewyatt(a)torproject.org PGP: 35E7 2A9F 6655 45F9 2CB6 6624 BA0C 9400 F80F 91CE https://www.torproject.org | http://expyuzz4wqqyqhjn.onion/ ----------------------------->8 Internet Freedom Nonprofit Seeks Software Developer for Anti-Censorship Team The Tor Project, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization advancing human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies, is seeking an experienced Software Developer to take our anti-censorship work to the next level. This developer will be tasked with improving the user experience and process of finding alternate routes to the Tor network when global censorship events block access to the Tor network. A personal commitment to free and open source software and the application of advanced programming skills for the greater good is essential. This is a full-time remote position. This developer position will be an integral part of our Anti-Censorship Team. Main responsibilities for this position are: - Continue development of our bridge distribution system, rdsys. - Maintain and improve the pipeline that distributes bridges to censored users. - Evaluate and incorporate new pluggable transports. - Collaborate with other teams in the Tor Project, external software projects (e.g. OONI), and research groups to move forward anti-censorship technology. Required qualifications: - Experience with designing, implementing, testing, and reviewing complex codebases (ideally in Go and Python). - Ability to work in a self-directed and independent way. - Comfortable with working remotely, across time zones. - Strong familiarity with computer science fundamentals. - Familiarity with Internet security and censorship circumvention technologies. Preferred qualifications: - Familiarity with reading research papers and turning research ideas into prototypes. - Understanding of the Tor pluggable transport ecosystem and the censorship circumvention research space. - Past contributions to and familiarity with the practices of free software projects. - Passion and dedication to Internet freedom is an added plus. To apply, submit a cover letter, your CV/resume (including three professional references), and a link to a code sample or some non-trivial software project you have significantly contributed to. In your cover letter, please include the reason you want to work at the Tor Project. IMPORTANT: Please email application materials in plain text or PDF format, if possible, to job-anticensor at torproject dot org with “Anti-Censorship Developer” in the subject line. Tor is for everyone, and we are actively working to build a team that represents people from all over the world — people from diverse ethnic, national, and cultural backgrounds – people from all walks of life. We encourage applications from BIPOC, non-cis people, women, and from people in any group that is underrepresented in tech. The Tor Project's workforce is smart, committed, and hard working. We currently have a paid and contract staff of around 24 developers and operational support people, plus many thousands of volunteers who contribute to our work. The Tor Project is funded in part by government research and development grants, and in part by individual, foundation, and corporate donations. Salary for this position depends on experience and there is voluntary opt-in salary transparency for employees and contractors. The Tor Project has a competitive benefits package, including a generous PTO policy, 16 paid holidays per year (including the week between Christmas and New Year's, when the office is closed), and flexible work schedule. Insurance benefits vary by employment status and country of residence. The Tor Project, Inc., is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.

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minutes from the sysadmin meeting
by Antoine Beaupré 20 Jan '21

20 Jan '21

Hi! It feels so strange to say that this year around, but... happy new year everyone! Let's hope we can do better this time around. ;) Here's your first sysadmin report for 2021, hopefully we'll keep you informed of our progress steadily in the coming year. Right now we're working on the roadmap and, even though we asked you for feedback in the user survey, it's still time to steer us in the good direction. We have a meeting coming up where we're likely to set that more in stone, so now is a good time if you forgot to respond to the survey... Now onto the minutes. Agenda: - Roll call: who's there and emergencies - Dashboard review - Roadmap 2021 proposal - 2020 retrospective - Services survey - Goals for 2021 - Other discussions - Next meeting - Metrics of the month # Roll call: who's there and emergencies present: hiro, gaba, anarcat [GitLab backups are broken][]: it might need more disk space than we need. just bump disk space in the short term, consider changing the backups system, in the long term. [GitLab backups are broken]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40143 # Dashboard review We [reviewed the dashboard][], too much stuff in January, but we'll review in February. [reviewed the dashboard]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards # Roadmap 2021 proposal We discussed the [roadmap project][] anarcat worked on. We reviewed the 2020 retrospective, talked about the services survey, and discussed goals for 2021. [roadmap project]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/roadmap/2021 ## 2020 retrospective We reviewed and discussed the [2020 roadmap evaluation][] that anarcat prepared: [2020 roadmap evaluation]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/roadmap/2021#2020-roadma… * **what worked?** we did the "need to have" even through the apocalypse, staff reduction and all the craziness of 2020! success! * **what was a challenge?** * monthly tracking was not practical, and hard to do in Trac. things are a lot easier with GitLab's dashboard. * it was hard to work through the pandemic. * **what can we change?** * do quarterly-based planning * estimates were off because so many things happened that we did not expect. reserve time for the unexpected, reduce expectations. * ticket triage is rotated now. ## Services survey We discussed the [survey results analysis][] briefly, and how it is used as a basis for the roadmap brainstorm. The two major services people use are GitLab and email, and those will be the focus of the roadmap for the coming year. [survey results analysis]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/roadmap/2021#survey-resu… ## Goals for 2021 * email services stabilisation ("submission server", "my email end up in spam", CiviCRM bounce handling, etc) - consider [outsourcing email services][] * gitlab migration continues (Jenkins, gitolite) * simplify / improve puppet code base * stabilise services (e.g. gitlab, schleuder) [outsourcing email services]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/howto/submission#cost Next steps for the roadmap: * try to make estimates * add need to have, nice to have * anarcat will work on a draft based on the brainstorm * we meet again in one week to discuss it # Other discussions Postponed: metrics services to maintain until we hire new person # Next meeting Same time, next week. # Metrics of the month Fun fact: we crossed the 2TiB total available memory back in November 2020, almost double from the previous report (in July), even with the number of hosts in Puppet remained mostly constant (78 vs 72). This is due (among other things) to the new Cymru Ganeti cluster that added a whopping 1.2TiB of memory to our infrastructure! * hosts in Puppet: 82, LDAP: 85, Prometheus exporters: 134 * number of Apache servers monitored: 27, hits per second: 198 * number of Nginx servers: 2, hits per second: 3, hit ratio: 0.86 * number of self-hosted nameservers: 6, mail servers: 12 * pending upgrades: 3, reboots: 0 * average load: 0.29, memory available: 2.00 TiB/2.61 TiB, running processes: 512 * bytes sent: 265.07 MB/s, received: 155.20 MB/s * [GitLab tickets][]: 113 tickets including... * open: 0 * icebox: 91 * backlog: 20 * next: 12 * doing: 10 * (closed: 2165) [Gitlab tickets]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards Now also available as the main Grafana dashboard. Head to <https://grafana.torproject.org/>, change the time period to 30 days, and wait a while for results to render. -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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Anti-censorship team monthly report: December 2020
by Cecylia Bocovich 14 Jan '21

14 Jan '21

Hi everyone, Here's our monthly report on anti-censorship work: Snowflake --------- * Improved throughput bottlenecks in Snowflake. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… * Updated webrtc version in Snowflake. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Rdsys ----- * Implemented an initial set of prometheus metrics. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/14 * Refactored the way rdsys interacts with bridgestrap, so rdsys no longer accumulates goroutines if bridgestrap does not respond. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/30 * Spent some time experimenting with a persistence layer for rdsys. More work is necessary though. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/5 Bridgestrap ----------- * Implemented more idiomatic prometheus metrics. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/10 * Finished deploying bridgestrap. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/5 * Realised that tor's dormant mode breaks bridgestrap and implemented a workaround. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/12 obfs4proxy ---------- * Dealt with an unexpected failure in obfs4proxy. Microsoft rotated its Azure certificates, which were pinned in obfs4proxy, resulting in obfs4proxy rejecting connections to Azure. That broke both meek-azure and moat in Tor Browser. We updated obfs4proxy's pinned certificates and worked with the Tor Browser team to push out an emergency update. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/meek… * obfs4proxy has an -unsafeLogging command line switch which didn't actually work. We wrote a patch that makes it work. https://gitlab.com/yawning/obfs4/-/merge_requests/1 Other ----- * Discussed building and integrating a new PT with the creators of Protozoa * Added rdsys as monitoring target to our monit configuration file. * Brainstormed a way to incorporate emma into OONI. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/emma/-/issues/5

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UX team monthly meeting notes, Jan 12th
by Duncan Larsen-Russell 12 Jan '21

12 Jan '21

Hello! Thanks everyone who made it to the first UX team meeting of the year, and I’m looking forward to seeing you all again in February. Here are the minutes: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-01-12-13.58.log… <http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-01-12-13.58.log…> Today’s meeting included the presentation of the Community Team Feedback Report for December 2020 by championquizzer, discussion about potential UX improvements to Tor Browser's download page following user feedback, progress on the upcoming Tor Browser usage survey, and finally a review of Tor’s open user research needs which we hope to update in the coming weeks. *** Open IRC meetings happen monthly usually every first Tuesday of the month 1400 UTC in #tor-meeting on OFTC. == User Experience Team Monthly Meeting == Open IRC meetings happen monthly on the first Tuesday of the month at 1400 UTC in #tor-meeting on OFTC. Next meeting will be held on Tuesday 9th February at 1400 UTC in #tor-meeting on OFTC. Here are the minutes for the meeting of January 12th: Log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-01-12-13.58.log… <http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-01-12-13.58.log…> Here are the minutes for the meeting of November 10th: Log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-11-10-13.58.log… <http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-11-10-13.58.log…> Here are the minutes for the meeting of October 13th: Log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-10-13-13.59.log… <http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-10-13-13.59.log…> Here are the minutes for the meeting of September 1st: Log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-09-01-13.59.log… <http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-09-01-13.59.log…> -------------------------- Tuesday January 12th 14:00 UTC -------------------------- == What projects are we working on? == S9 - Usability and Community Intervention on Support for Democracy and Human Rights https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… S30 - Empowering Communities in the Global South to Bypass Censorship https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… S58 - Tor Browser Security, Performance, & Usability Improvements https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… S84 - Onion Guides https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… == Announcements == * Onion Guide Fanzine Published: • https://community.torproject.org/outreach/kit/ <https://community.torproject.org/outreach/kit/>* Tor Browser 10.0.7 Release: • https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1007 <https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1007> == Agenda == 1. Community team User Feedback Report for December 2020: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2021-January/003040.html <https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2021-January/003040.html> 3. Tor Browser Usage Survey: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/11 <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/11> 2. Tor's Open User Research needs: https://community.torproject.org/user-research/open/ <https://community.torproject.org/user-research/open/> == Open Call for User Research == - AXIS Feedback Collection - josernitos

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User Feedback Report - December 2020
by Joydeep Sen Gupta 11 Jan '21

11 Jan '21

Hello everyone! This is a report of some of the work done by the Community Team in the past month (December 2020) and general user feedback that we've received across our official support channels. --- Request Tracker --- Tickets Resolved in the past month: ~230 (December 2020) Here is a list of issues which got the most attention (at least 3 tickets on RT): # Tor Browser Breakdown with respect to operating system: Windows (10,8,7 ..all the way upto XP) - 31 MacOS - 21 GNU/Linux - 8 Android - 26 (Note: This includes tickets where the user mentioned the operating system or it was evident from the issue they were running into or enclosed screenshots.) 1. 24 tickets - Failure to launch Tor Browser. We created a "Six-point basic troubleshooting" article (a template) on the RT to help users. 2. 9 tickets - Tabs crashing on Tor Browser running on Apple Silicon (M1) chip on the latest Macbooks. We opened an umbrella ticket [1] covering this issue and also to collect user responses. This ticket also got a mention in Mozilla's bugzilla [2]. 3. 4 tickets - Cannot upload or download files on Tor Browser for Android. Issues with download was fixed with the latest release but issue with uploading files still persists. Here's a GitLab ticket [3]. 4. 4 tickets - Tor Browser for Android not working on older versions of Android (reports for 5.1, 6, 7 and 8). Gus and myself couldn't reproduce this issue on our older Android devices, i.e. running Android 5.1,6 and 7. Feedback - 5. "Can't set Tor Browser as default on Android because urls won't directly open in the browser. Either you have to have Tor Browser running in the background or launch (the browser) and manually paste the url in the url bar." # UI/UX and documentation 1. Lot of discussion around the new UI after the latest releases of Tor Browser for Android. 1.1 On Google Play Store, the responses have been mixed. Mostly negative (with 1-2 star ratings) but the 'top'(most 'liked') responses are positive responses with a 5 star rating. 1.2 On RT, there were 2 tickets related to this topic. Negative reviews. We updated the 'Tor Mobile' documentation [4] in mid-December and have not been receiving any UI related tickets on RT ever since. 2. Complaints about wiki pages on GitLab. "Cannot search for something specific. We miss trac." 3. Some complaints about 'Relay Operators' documentation. We have a ticket on our GitLab covering one aspect of this issue. [5] 4. Some complaints on "verifying Tor Browser signature" documentation. # Anti-censorship and metrics 1. In the aftermath of the Meek-Azure and Moat issue [6] we got 3 private bridge requests on RT and 2 on IRC. 2. In general, including RT and #tor, we got a total of 10 requests for bridges which have been mostly from China (six requests) and Iran (two requests). 3. Users unable to connect to some of the bridges and/or relay statistics not showing up on metrics. We have the following GitLab tickets to cover this issue. [7][8] We created/updated the following articles (templates) on the RT: 1. Six-point basic troubleshooting (to launch Tor Browser) 2. Fake Tor Browser apps on iOS 2. How to help us with Translations 3. Tor Browser Signing Key update 4. Tabs crashing on M1 Macbook # Tor Stack Exchange Unfortunately we haven't been officially providing support here but these are the statistics of what the discussion has been about (10 most active tags): 1.tor-browser-bundle- 1263 questions 2.configuration (questions about configuring Tor software)- 873 questions 3.hidden-services- 546 questions 4.anonymity- 482 questions 5.security- 459 questions 6.relays- 437 questions 7.tails- 315 questions 8.windows- 291 questions 9.exit relays- 279 questions 10.onion-routing- 224 questions If you have any suggestions, questions or want to discuss anything in detail please feel free to reach out to me and the Community Team! Thanks, Joydeep Links: [1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40262 [2]: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1682976#c3 [3]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40283 [4]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/mobile-tor/ [5]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/community/-/issues/72 [6]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/meek… [7]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/outreach/-/issues/40001 [8]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40005 -- Joydeep Sen Gupta GPG: C8C8 6A4B E247 2D2D C345 9046 5B57 1AA7 D685 E67D IRC: championquizzer

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Tails report for December 2020
by sajolida＠pimienta.org 08 Jan '21

08 Jan '21

Tails report for December, 2020 [1] IN MEMORIAM OF KARSTEN LOESING We join the Tor project in mourning Karsten Loesing [2]. Our sincere condolences to Karsten's family and colleagues. Those of us who were lucky enough to cross Karsten's path remember him as a very kind, thoughtful, and smart person. Rest in peace, Karsten. RELEASES * Tails 4.14 was released on December 15 [3]. * Tails 4.15 is scheduled for January 26 [4]. The following changes were introduced in Tails 4.15: * Add support for the Ledger hardware wallets in _Electrum_. (#15353 [5]) * Remove the _Unifont_ font. (!263 [6]) * Fix Additional Software by updating the APT key for deb.torproject.org. (#18042 [7]) * Fix changing the administration password stored in the Persistent Storage. (#18018 [8]) * Fix opening the Persistent Storage of another Tails USB stick in the _Files_ browser. (#18050 [9]) * Restore automatically a _GnuPG_ public keyring from its backup when it gets corrupt. (#17807 [10]) 🎉 NEW CORE DEVELOPER 🎂 Today, we celebrate the arrival in our Foundations Team [11] of a new member: boyska. His skills and experience in operating systems, software development, and collective projects will: * Accelerate development of new features, user experience improvements, and bug fixes. * Make our day-to-day maintenance work more sustainable. This work has no visible impact most of the time, except that Tails is still alive after more than a decade, and here to stay! * Decrease our reliance on a tiny number of key persons. This is one important step we're taking, among others, towards making Tails a healthier project. > I'm boyska, a fellow who always loved computers. When I realized the profound social implications of technology, I tried to make my part: that's how I got involved with free software, security and hacking in general. A post-it note in my brain remembers me that computing should be fun, not scary. Additionally, we would like to thank: * the thousands of people whose donation allowed us to fund this new position Please consider donating today [12] to fight surveillance and censorship. * the dozens of people who applied to this job offer [13] It's been truly heart-warming to see so many great applicants interested in working with us. Welcome, boyska! :) CODE * We implemented a mechanism for adding a "Don't Show Again" button to some notifications. We'll try it out in Tails 4.15 for the warning displayed when starting Tails in a virtual machine; then we'll iterate from there. * We finished porting our Python code to Python 3. Yeah! * We made plans for rewriting _Persistent Storage_ in Python, making it compatible with Wayland, and redesigning its UX from scratch. DOCUMENTATION AND WEBSITE * Started rewriting /doc/about/warning: * Samuel DiBella rewrote the section about contextual identities [14] (#17882 [15]) * We rewrote the sections about confirmation attacks and global adversaries [16] (#17869 [17]) * Added an FAQ about "Is it safe to use an older version of Tails? [18]" (#18001 [19]) * Improved our security [20] page and replaced "hole" by "vulnerability" everywhere on our website, as per our style guide. (#18032 [21]) USER EXPERIENCE * Started analyzing the search queries on our website, following a methodology by Susan Farrell [22]. (#11649 [23]) * Started preparing the redesign of the Persistent Storage that we'll work on in January. (#15572 [24]) * Investigated what it would take to stop distributing ISO images: * #18047 [25]: Users unintentionally install ISO to USB instead of the .img * #18054 [26]: Distribute USB images by default for all virtual machines * #18055 [27]: Stop distributing ISO images * Added some depth to the buttons on our website. (#15111 [28]) FUNDING GRANTS * Our proposal to the UXFund to work on a replacement for Tor Launcher was approved buy scaled down by 20%. DONATIONS * Received 57.8kEUR from 88 donations at CCT since the beginning of the campaign. It's 70% more donations, that's the important part, and 599% more money thanks to a 50kEUR donation from some crypto trading company, that's the big cherry on top of the cake! * Blogged about our achievements in 2020 [29]. SPONSORS * Renamed "partners" as "sponsors [30]" after DeepOnion listed Tails as their partner on their website. The word "partners" implies reciprocity and a deeper relationship, while the word "sponsor" doesn't and is more accurate, honest, and common. * Got invited to the Lifetime Raffle [31] of ProtonMail. OUTREACH PAST EVENTS * Tails and Tor were presented (among other tools) to journalism students at Sciences Po Rennes [32] (Rennes, France) as part of their digital safety lessons. TRANSLATIONS ALL THE WEBSITE * fr: 79% (5378) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy * es: 48% (3273) strings translated, 6% strings fuzzy * it: 28% (1945) strings translated, 9% strings fuzzy * de: 27% (1829) strings translated, 14% strings fuzzy * fa: 20% (1359) strings translated, 12% strings fuzzy * pt: 18% (1266) strings translated, 9% strings fuzzy CORE PAGES OF THE WEBSITE [33] * es: 82% (1741) strings translated, 6% strings fuzzy * fr: 79% (1676) strings translated, 10% strings fuzzy * it: 54% (1151) strings translated, 20% strings fuzzy * de: 44% (935) strings translated, 24% strings fuzzy * pt: 38% (818) strings translated, 14% strings fuzzy * fa: 19% (407) strings translated, 15% strings fuzzy CORE PAGES OF THE WEBSITE FOR LANGUAGES NOT ACTIVATED ON THE WEBSITE YET * zh_TW: 21% (451) strings translated, 14% strings fuzzy * zh: 10% (218) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy * tr: 7% (155) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy * ca: 7% (153) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy * ru: 7% (152) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy * pl: 7% (150) strings translated, 6% strings fuzzy * ar: 7% (146) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy * id: 5% (115) strings translated, 5% strings fuzzy * sr_Latn: 4% (93) strings translated, 4% strings fuzzy METRICS * Tails has been started more than 978 192 times this month. This makes 31 554 boots a day on average. How do we know this? [34] Links: ------ [1] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/news/report_2020_12.html [2] https://blog.torproject.org/in-memoriam-of-karsten-loesing [3] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/news/version_4.14.html [4] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/contribute/calendar.html [5] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/15353 [6] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/merge_requests/263 [7] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18042 [8] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18018 [9] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18050 [10] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/17807 [11] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/contribute/working_together/roles/foundations_team.html [12] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/donate.html [13] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/jobs/Linux_generalist.html [14] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/doc/about/warning.html#identities [15] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/17882 [16] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/doc/about/warning.html#correlation [17] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/17869 [18] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/support/faq.html#older-version [19] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18001 [20] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/security.html [21] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18032 [22] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/search-log-analysis/ [23] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/11649 [24] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/15572 [25] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18047 [26] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18054 [27] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18055 [28] https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/15111 [29] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/news/achievements_in_2020.html [30] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/sponsors.html [31] https://protonmail.com/blog/lifetime-account-auction-2020/ [32] http://www.sciencespo-rennes.fr/en/ [33] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/contribute/l10n_tricks/core_po_files.txt [34] file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/support/faq.html#boot-statistics

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UX team meeting on January 12th
by Duncan Larsen-Russell 07 Jan '21

07 Jan '21

Hello & happy new year everyone! Our first User Experience team meeting of the year will be held on Tuesday 12th January at 1400 UTC in #tor-meeting.* During this meeting we'll discuss upcoming work for the UX team across key projects, in addition to hosting an open call for user research, during which we’ll outline ways in which community members can help contribute towards user research for Tor. If you'd like to get involved please feel free to add yourself to the pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/1D8sK8Zy74b_0qclC97I-ux-team-monthly-2020-keep <https://pad.riseup.net/p/1D8sK8Zy74b_0qclC97I-ux-team-monthly-2020-keep> Remember, User Experience team meetings are an open space for discussion around ethical user research, user interface design, and user experience, meanwhile building privacy-enhancing products. See you soon! Duncan [*] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/team/-/wikis/home <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/team/-/wikis/home>

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