February 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, 25 February 2021
by Cecylia Bocovich 25 Feb '21

25 Feb '21

Hi everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-02-25-15.58.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday February 25th 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 == Snowflake user survey posted https://blog.torproject.org/learning-more-about-tor-users https://survey.torproject.org/index.php/491436 == Discussion == Snowflake bridge users suspiciously plateau at ~180 last week https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/5481936581E23D2D178105D44DB6… Possible blocking in Belarus https://ntc.party/t/shift-in-tor-obfs4-and-meek-users-on-2021-02-13/890 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/iss… == Actions == == Interesting links == https://www.protocol.com/china/i-built-bytedance-censorship-machine == Reading group == We will discuss "Investigating Large Scale HTTPS Interception in Kazakhstan" on 2020-03-04 https://censoredplanet.org/assets/Kazakhstan.pdf https://censoredplanet.org/kazakhstan 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. cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-02-25 Last week: - patched stem on polyanthum to fix bridgedb#40006 issue - wrote bridgedb!13 to continue parsing remaining extrainfo descriptors if one was malformed - lots of interviews! - s28 meetings - started setting up network emulations for snowflake#40026 - worked on some logging patches to measure congestion for snowflake - helped a user debug possible blocking Belarus and found some interesting metrics: https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/46#issuecomment-782897099 This week: - connect bridgedb to rdsys (rdsys#12) - a few more sponsor 28 meetings - hiring interviews - congestion logging patches for snowflake#40026 - more work on snowflake throughput and overhead (snowflake#40026) - revise gettor.torproject.org instructions (gettor-web#1) Needs help with: arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2021-02-25 Last week: Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: agix:2021-02-25 Last week: -More research on httpt #4 -Inspired by cohosh's bridgebox I worked on a local test environment for rdsys, still facing issues with running bridgestrap locally Next week: -Fix issues regarding bridgestrap Help with: - hanneloresx: 2021-2-11 Last week: - Finished emma #6 Next week: - Work on bridgestrap #14 Help with: - HashikD: 2021-01-22 This week: - Next week: - Help with: -

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February 2021 Tor DEMO Day - (Open) Call for proposals
by gus 23 Feb '21

23 Feb '21

Hi Tor, Tor DEMO days are back! And this is happening at the end of the month, February 24 @ 1600 UTC. Feel free to list yourself in the pad. http://kfahv6wfkbezjyg4r6mlhpmieydbebr5vkok5r34ya464gqz6c44bnyd.onion/p/tor… https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-demo-day-february-2021-keep cheers, Gus Tor DEMO DAY ============ Why? ---- - We want to spice up our remote working routine and also break the silos between teams. - Tor Demo Days are a success and we want to share this experience with the broad Tor community! How? ---- - We will call for presenters. - The agenda will be set before the meeting and will be shared with tor-project. - We want 5 to 8 minutes length presentations. We will handle questions at the end of all presentations. - Slides are allowed, but not mandatory. You may share your screen or a pre-recorded video if that makes you less anxious. - We like the adrenaline of the live presentations, but if they wish, presenters can share pre-recorded videos with us. They should be sent a few hours in advance and will be lined up and shared with assistants during the session. - This is a place where people should feel safe to engage, share their point of view, and participate. Read our Code of Conduct: https://gitweb.torproject.org/community/policies.git/tree/code_of_conduct.t… Who? ---- - Anyone who wants to share what they have been hacking on. It doesn't need to be a finished feature but a work in progress. It can be small like a Tor Browser feature or something you have been hacking around Tor not officially. - Presenters have 5 to 8 minutes. People can ask questions via text in the pad for 3 minutes. - Gus will moderate at this time. We can rotate this role. Where? ------ At our BBB instance. A public link will be shared soon. When? ----- Wednesday, FEBRUARY 24 at 1600 UTC Questions will be written in text on the pad in any time during the presentation. Presenters will answer them in audio. Agenda ------ Presentations: ADD HERE THE PROPOSAL YOU HAVE FOR A SHORT PRESENTATION. https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-demo-day-february-2021-keep -- The Tor Project Community Team Lead http://expyuzz4wqqyqhjn.onion/

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 18 February 2021
by Cecylia Bocovich 18 Feb '21

18 Feb '21

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-02-18-15.57.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday February 18th 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 == == Discussion == == Actions == == Interesting links == == 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. cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-02-18 Last week: - updated bridgedb readme - created a test environment to test out changes to bridgedb: https://github.com/cohosh/bridgebox - touched up bridgedb scripts - found cause of bridgedb#40006 - confirmed access to snowflake azure subscription - hiring stuff - starting setting up network simulations to detect snowflake bottlenecks (snowflake#40026) - anti-censorship roadmapping This week: - connect bridgedb to rdsys (rdsys#12) - sponsor 28 meetings - more work on snowflake throughput and overhead (snowflake#40026) - fix extra-info parsing bug for bridges (bridgedb#40006) - hiring stuff Needs help with: arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2021-02-18 Last week: - commented on Snowflake FAQs https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: agix:2021-02-18 Last week: -More research on httpt #4 -Worked on rdsys #6 Next week: -Work on rdsys #6 Help with: - hanneloresx: 2021-2-11 Last week: - Finished emma #6 Next week: - Work on bridgestrap #14 Help with: - HashikD: 2021-01-22 This week: - Next week: - Help with: -

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 11 February 2021
by Cecylia Bocovich 14 Feb '21

14 Feb '21

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-02-11-15.58.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday February 11th16:00 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 <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 <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/home> * Past meeting notes can be found at: * https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/ <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… <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/4> * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/7 <https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/7> * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/5 <https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/5> * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/6 <https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/6> * Sponsor 28 * must-do tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/10 <https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/10> * possible tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… <https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&…>%5b%5d <https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&…>=Sponsor%2028&milestone_title=None <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 <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 <https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep> == Announcements == * Research ideas page: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Research-ide… <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Research-ide…> == Discussion == * What are the FAQs? * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…> == Actions == * == Interesting links == * Signal simple TLS proxy: https://signal.org/blog/help-iran-reconnect/ <https://signal.org/blog/help-iran-reconnect/> * Interesting approach to the proxy distribution problem: post #IRanASignalProxy and wait for people to DM you * https://github.com/kpcyrd/signal-doh-ech <https://github.com/kpcyrd/signal-doh-ech> * Experimental source dump for pluggable transport for signal-desktop * https://groups.google.com/g/traffic-obf/c/vYrOFSWZif0/m/7vEPJz-KAgAJ <https://groups.google.com/g/traffic-obf/c/vYrOFSWZif0/m/7vEPJz-KAgAJ> * Pluggable Transports spec v2.2 Draft 1 == 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. cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-02-11 Last week: - so many meetings - finished working on a snowflake survey (snowflake#40007) - lots of hiring things - looked into network simulation for analyzing snowflake performance issues (snowflake#40026) - worked on connecting bridgedb to rdsys backend (rdsys#12) - sponsor 28 evaluation prep - made a research ideas wiki page - meeting with grad student to talk about reputation-based bridge distribution project - debugged an issue with bridgedb not reporting obfs4 bridges (bridgedb#40006) This week: - integrate gettor and rdsys (rdsys#32) - connect bridgedb to rdsys (rdsys#12) - sponsor 28 meetings - more work on snowflake throughput and overhead (snowflake#40026) - debug lack of bridgedb IPv6 obfs4 bridges (bridgedb#40006) Needs help with: arlolra: 2020-10-29 * Last week: * - * Next week: * - getting back up to speed * - follow ups to #33365 * - start on #31201 * Help with: * - dcf:2021-02-11 * Last week: * - opened a ticket to update links in Snowflake webextension description https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…> * - updated bug reporting instructions on the Snowflake wiki page https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…> * Next week: * 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: 2021-2-11 * Last week: * - Finished emma #6 * Next week: * - Workon bridgestrap #14 * Help with: * - HashikD: 2021-01-22 * Thisweek: * - * Next week: * - * Help with: -

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User Feedback Report - January 2021
by Joydeep Sen Gupta 11 Feb '21

11 Feb '21

Hello everyone! This is a report of some of the work done by the Community Team in the past month and general user feedback that we've received across our official support channels. --- Request Tracker --- Tickets received in the past month: 257 Tickets resolved in the past month: 190 # New RT templates We aggregated statistics of what issues Tor users are frequently running into and made their solutions into articles/templates on the RT. This will help folks working on the RT to better support users. We created/updated the following articles: 1. Basic troubleshooting when users can't access any particular website 2. Antivirus software blocking Tor Browser 3. How to contribute? - code, report issues, help with docs, etc. 4. How Tor works? 5. How to obtain Tor logs and share them with us? 6. How to connect to built-in Bridges? Here is a list of issues which got the most attention (at least 3 tickets on RT): # Tor Browser Breakdown of number of RT tickets received with respect to operating system: Windows (10,8,7 ...all the way upto XP) - 17 MacOS - 9 GNU/Linux - 3 Android - 14 (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. 14 RT tickets - Failure to launch Tor Browser. We point users to the "Six-point basic troubleshooting" article (template) on the RT to help users. 2. 4 RT tickets - Cannot upload files on Tor Browser for Android. Regarding this we have a ticket open on our GitLab [1]. We have also added this issue to the 'Known Issues' section in the Tor Browser User Manual [2] 3. 4 RT tickets - Questions on how to bookmark webpages in Tor Browser. We direct users to the article in the Support Portal [3] 4. 3 RT tickets - Error "RSA_get0_d could not be located in the dynamic link library tor.exe" on Windows. We have a GitLab ticket regarding this long standing issue [4] 5. 3 RT tickets - Confusion around what apk to download from our Download page (under Android) [5] # Onion Services 3 tickets- v3 onion service outages. All of these tickets have come from folks who read random clickbait articles on the internet and wanted our comments on the same. # General Issues 1. 5 RT tickets - Lot of queries around Mozilla's blog post in January and how that 'affects' Tor Browser. [6] 2. 3 RT tickets - Users unable to subscribe to the Newsletter since some major email services are bouncing our emails. There's some discussion on this ticket. [7] 3. 3 RT tickets - Users unable to subscribe to the newsletter when visiting it's onion address. We have a ticket to cover this issue [8] 4. This is an issue **we** are facing. We are receiving a large amount of spam on the RT every day. In the past month, 1770 spam tickets were either detected by the filters or we had to sort them by hand (the actual number of spam tickets is much larger than that) :) # UI/UX and documentation 1. 7 RT tickets - Reddit blocking Tor. Youtube making it very difficult for users to connect to while using Tor. We are covering this issue under a ticket to document websites, especially the ones in the top 500 in terms of traffic, which are blocking or making it difficult for users to connect to while using Tor [9]. Also see a post on Reddit regarding this issue [10] 2. Before the launch of the survey regarding Snowflake with the next version of Tor Browser Alpha [11], we have added some FAQ entries on Snowflake in the Support Portal [12] 3. We also made some notable changes to the documentation and updated the 'Known Issues' page [13] and added instructions on how users can obtain their Tor logs and share them with us [14]. We have been unable to officially provide support in the following channels but here's what the discussion was about in the past month: 4. Google Play Store - In terms of user experience, I am happy to report that unlike last month, we have received more positive reviews. The 'most liked' comments either have a 4-star or 5-star rating reviews. We still have some heavily liked comments with one 1-star and negative reviews though. 5. Tor Stack Exchange - Statistics of what the discussion has been about (5 most active tags): tor-browser-bundle- 27 questions configuration (questions about configuring Tor software)- 10 questions hidden-services- 8 questions anonymity- 15 questions security- 7 questions 6. Reddit- Discussion has mostly been around the v3 onion service outages, censorship and internet shutdown events in the Global South and Reddit itself blocking connections over Tor. # Anti-censorship and metrics 1. Including RT and #tor, we got a total of 8 requests for private bridges which have been from China (three requests), Turkmenistan (two requests), Turkey (one request), Iran (one request) and Eastern Europe (Russian locale) (one request). 2. In the past month, there have been numerous instances of censorship and internet shutdowns in the Global South - namely in Uganda, India and Myanmar. For one user in Uganda who was using an iOS device and didn't have OnionBrowser installed on their phone before Apple's App Store was censored, we collaborated with folks to provide them with configuration files to activate VPN natively on their device in order to access the App Store and download OnionBrowser (for some context, apps cannot be sideloaded on iOS and therefore the GetTor method doesn't work in this case). 3. Ongoing issue of 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. [15][16] If you have any suggestions, questions or want to discuss anything in detail please feel free to reach out to me and/or anyone from the Community Team! Thanks, Joydeep Links: [1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40283 [2]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/mobile-tor/#known-issues [3]: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/export-and-import-bookmarks/ [4]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/33702 [5]: https://www.torproject.org/download/#android [6]: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ [7]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40164 [8]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/newsletter/-/issues/13 [9]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40013 [10]: https://old.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/l4cexf/tor_and_reddit_problems_faq/ [11]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… [12]: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/ [13]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/known-issues/ [14]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/troubleshooting/ [15]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/outreach/-/issues/40001 [16]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40005 -- Joydeep Sen Gupta IRC: championquizzer GPG: C8C8 6A4B E247 2D2D C345 9046 5B57 1AA7 D685 E67D

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UX team monthly meeting notes, Feb 9th
by Duncan Larsen-Russell 09 Feb '21

09 Feb '21

Hello! Thanks everyone who made it to today's UX team monthly meeting, and we're looking forward to seeing you all again in March. Here are the minutes: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-02-09-13.58.log… <http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-02-09-13.58.log…> During today’s meeting we introduced a new project for the UX team: S103 – Collaborative ResistancE to Web Surveillance (CREWS), planned the final details of the upcoming Tor Browser and Snowflake user surveys, onboarded two new user research contributors who we’re very excited to have running their own sessions in the near future, and lastly received an update from josernitos on their developing research project. *** 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 2nd March at 1400 UTC in #tor-meeting on OFTC. Here are the minutes for the meeting of February 9th: Log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-02-09-13.58.log… <http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-02-09-13.58.log…> 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…> -------------------------- Tuesday February 9th 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&… S84 - Onion Guides • https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… == Announcements == * Tor Browser 10.0.9 Release: • https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1009 * Tor Browser Alpha 10.5.a8 Release: • https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-105a8 == Agenda == 1. New Project: S103 – Collaborative ResistancE to Web Surveillance (CREWS) • https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… <https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&…> 2. Final planning for the upcoming surveys: * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/11 <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/11> * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…> * Chat about TB lang versions 3. Onboarding for new UR contributors: * Introductions Questions for UR contributors: * Is this your first contribution to the Tor Project? * Where will your research take place? * Who are your audience? Questions for the Tor * What are Tor's research priorities? == Open Call for User Research == Materials and next steps for the contributors who attended today's session: - Subscribe to the UX mailing: • https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo <https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo> - Find out more about user research for Tor on our Community portal: • https://community.torproject.org/user-research/ <https://community.torproject.org/user-research/> - Create an account on Gitlab, browse the UX Research repo, and get up to speed on Tor's personas: • https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research> - Read the guidelines on how to do user research with Tor: • https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/blob/master/README.md <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/blob/master/README.md> - Familiarize yourself with the User Needs Discovery activity: • https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/blob/master/scripts%20and%2… <https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/blob/master/scripts%20and%2…> - Begin to think about the details of your session (i.e. Where are your participants joining the session from? How many will be attending? What materials/support will you need? When will your session take place?) - Lastly: when you're ready, head back to the #tor-ux channel or email the team to review your session plan :) For anyone else who'd like to get involved: the UX team meets monthly on IRC in the #tor-meeting channel on the OFTC network. If you’re not familiar with IRC here are some instructions to get started: https://support.torproject.org/get-in-touch/#irc-help <https://support.torproject.org/get-in-touch/#irc-help>

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The Tor Project job opening - Metrics Team
by Erin Wyatt 05 Feb '21

05 Feb '21

Hello everyone, We have another new job opening to share: Metrics Data Architect (https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/metrics-data-architect/) The job description is attached as a PDF and pasted below in plain text. We are also 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 Metrics Data Architect February 4, 2021 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 Data Architect to take our metrics work to the next level. 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. Racial minorities, non-gender-binary people, women, and people from any group that is generally underrepresented in tech are encouraged to apply. This is a full-time remote position. Our Metrics Team has been collecting data since 2004 to help improve the tools we build and learn more about the Tor network. For example, we monitor the number of relays and clients in the network, their respective capabilities, the number of clients connecting via bridges, fluctuations in network speed, etc. Gathering this data results in huge data archives, so we are also working to develop tools to process this data and make it available to everyone. How we achieve our goals: • Robustness (We want to avoid bugs and/or bad design decisions that cause us to miss data) • Timeliness (users need up-to-date network status information) • Scalability (as the network grows, so does our data) • Transparency (our community rightly wants to know what data we're collecting) The most interesting challenge for metrics collection at Tor is how to gather data on an anonymity system without de-anonymizing users. We are integrating the metrics team with a new network health team that will be also focusing on taking care of the health of the Tor network. Additionally, Tor has just begin a large network performance improvement project that will vastly increase network utilization and client performance. There will be close interaction between this role and our performance effort, in the form of ensuring data is collected properly during deployment of new performance features and performance tuning. This will also include producing custom visualizations, doing analysis, and comparisons between historical and current data. The person in this position will work directly with helping us maintain existing systems, and design new systems for gathering and analyzing data. They will help the rest of the teams understand the data available to improve our tools as well as the Tor network's health. The bulk of our code is written in Java, but smaller portions are written in R, Python, PostgreSQL, and JavaScript. Part of this job will be to analyze and fix bugs in our current code and review patches. You will be working with the existing teams in Tor with support and advice on data collection and measurements for their needs in their respective projects. Our main five codebases: • Collector • metrics-lib • Onionoo • Exonerator • metrics-web Requirements: Technical abilities/experience: • Have experience finding your way into existing Java, R, and PostgreSQL-based code bases and the ability to review patches and make changes to fix bugs/smaller enhancements. • Have experience with web application development in the Python programming language. Experience with known frameworks is a plus. • Able to identify shortcomings in our data pipeline and suggest improvements to reduce complexity and future maintenance efforts. • Experience working with Git and Gitlab or similar issue tracking tools. • Ability to learn quickly and can adapt to our current processes; being able to improve future processes for releasing software and operating services. • Understanding of the inherent privacy implications of gathering data in an anonymity system, the security implications of gathering metrics data from semi-trusted relays in the Tor network, and the challenges of processing large amounts of data per day (specifically performance and scalability challenges). • Data analysis: Ability to make sense of data sets and use data analysis tools to find and visualize interesting patterns. • Mathematics: Knowledge of basic statistics. Collaborative requirements: • Ability to work remotely 100% of the time, as synchronization happens via email and/or IRC. • Participation in weekly IRC meetings and monthly team video chats. • Language: write and speak fluent English. • Comfortable posting to a public mailing list or speaking up in a public IRC channel to ask questions, even when you think the question might be obvious or silly. Bonus skills: • Open source experience: You have contributed to an open source project before, and you're accustomed to a pattern of early and frequent releases without attempting to finalize things on your own. • Scientific writing: Experience writing technical reports about data findings. • Networking background: Experience working with networks and measurements in the past. • You support Internet Freedom! 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 to job-metrics at torproject dot org with “Metrics Data Architect” in the subject line. 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 05 Feb '21

05 Feb '21

Hi everyone, Here's a (somewhat late) report from our monthly sysadmin meeting. # Roll call: who's there and emergencies anarcat, gaba, hiro * hiro will be doing security reboots for [DSA-483][] [DSA-483]: https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4843 # Dashboard review We reviewed the [dashboard][] to prioritise the work in February. [dashboard]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards anarcat is doing triage for the next two weeks, as now indicated in the IRC channel topic. # Communications discussion We wanted to touch base on how we organise and communicate, but didn't have time to do so. Postponed to next meeting. Reminder: * Documentation about documentation: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/service/documentation * Policies: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy # Next meeting March 2nd, 2021, same time # Metrics of the month * hosts in Puppet: 83, LDAP: 86, Prometheus exporters: 135 * number of Apache servers monitored: 27, hits per second: 182 * number of Nginx servers: 2, hits per second: 3, hit ratio: 0.83 * number of self-hosted nameservers: 6, mail servers: 12 * pending upgrades: 11, reboots: 71 * average load: 0.41, memory available: 1.94 TiB/2.67 TiB, running processes: 520 * bytes sent: 281.62 MB/s, received: 163.47 MB/s * [GitLab tickets][]: 130 tickets including... * open: 0 * icebox: 96 * backlog: 18 * next: 10 * doing: 7 * (closed: 2182) [Gitlab tickets]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards I've been collecting those dashboard metrics for a while, and while I don't have pretty graphs to show you yet, I do have this fancy table: | date | open | icebox | backlog | next | doing | closed | |------------|------|--------|---------|------|-------|--------| | 2020-07-01 | 125 | 0 | 26 | 13 | 7 | 2075 | | 2020-11-18 | 1 | 84 | 32 | 5 | 4 | 2119 | | 2020-12-02 | 0 | 92 | 20 | 9 | 8 | 2130 | | 2021-01-19 | 0 | 91 | 20 | 12 | 10 | 2165 | | 2021-02-02 | 0 | 96 | 18 | 10 | 7 | 2182 | Some observations: * the "Icebox" keeps piling up * we are closing tens and tens of tickets (about 20-30 a month) * we are getting better at keeping Backlog/Next/Doing small * triage is working: the "Open" queue is generally empty after the meeting As usual, some of those stats are available in 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 meeting notes, 4 February 2021
by Cecylia Bocovich 04 Feb '21

04 Feb '21

Hi everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-02-04-15.58.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday February 4th 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! Added snowflake and snowflake-webext to anonymous reporting system for GitLab Opened a ticket to update snowflake.torproject.org: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Does anyone else want an account to be able to approve tickets? == Discussion == == Actions == == 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 2020-02-04 Last week: - closed snowflake#40030, things look good for users with symmetric NATs now :) - so many meetings this week x_x - reviewing job applications - started connecting bridgedb with rdsys backend (rdsys#12) - preparing snowflake for sponsor 28 evaluations - gave a talk for matt green's class at JHU - confirmed something is up with proxy-go instances (snowflake#30498) This week: - snowflake overhead/throughput issues (snowflake#40026) - integrate gettor and rdsys (rdsys#32) - provide feedback on sproutsbot - sponsor 28 evaluation prep - connect bridgedb with rdsys backend (rdsys#12) - debug potential issues with standalone proxies (snowflake#30498) Needs help with: arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2021-02-04 Last week: - archived snowflake-webextension-0.5.3 - reviewed proxy-go throughput logging https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: 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: 2021-2-4 Last week: - Updated merge request for emma #6 per comment from phw Next week: - Work on bridgestrap #14 Help with: - HashikD: 2021-01-22 This week: - Next week: - Help with: -

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