March 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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hackweek starting this Monday at 15UTC!
by Gaba 01 Apr '21

01 Apr '21

Hi! Next week we are hacking on small projects all week! There are 10 proposals so far from visualizing metrics data to adding onion services v3 support to arti. To kickoff the week we will have an opening session on **Monday March 29th at 15UTC**. Projects will be presented at that session and teams will be created. The link for the opening session room will be posted on Monday. We will close the hackweek on Friday with a demo session where teams will be able to show the work done during the week. You can take a look at the proposed projects in https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/hackweek 1 Torify signal-cli with torsocks Summary: Work through blocking bugs for getting signal-cli working with torsocks. Interesting because signal is being blocked in some locales. Lead by jnewsome and/or dgoulet 2 Prometheus alerts for anti-censorship metrics Summary: We have BridgeDB exporting prometheus metrics so far, and we could implement this for Snowflake. It would be great if we could get alerts when usage changes to notify us of possible censorship events. Somewhat related, it would also be nice to get alerts when default bridge usage drops off suddenly or directly connecting Tor users from different regions. Lead by cohosh and anarcat 3 Prototype network-namespace-based torsocks Summary: Use network namespaces (or maybe something else?) to run target software in an environment where it can't talk to the real network; it can only talk to the tor socks port and/or some "shim" adapter. Might be able to remove or lessen dependence on LD_PRELOAD (which isn't available everywhere, can be "escaped", and can be a bit fragile). If we continued to use LD_PRELOAD could at least be used to prevent accidental connections to the real network. Lead by jnewsome and/or dgoulet 4 Add support for UDP sockets over onion services, possibly with enabling support for WebRTC in Tor Browser Lead by sysrqb 5 Visualize Tor metrics's data in ways that it can be useful for community Summary: The goal is to have a dashboard with Tor usage per country in a way that is easy to see big changes happening. Right now we need to select each country to see the Tor usage. It would be good to have a way to see all the countries and the onews where usage is increasing (via bridge and direct connection) Lead by gus and gaba 6 Prototype Rust+Arti-based HTTP frontend cache for directory authorities Summary: Directory authorities are under a lot of unnecessary load from excessive download requests. We have other projects in mind to reduce those requests, but one workaround is to add a frontend cache in front of one or more of the authorities' HTTP ports. With this project we'll write a Rust server use Arti's download and validation code to fetch directory information from an authority, and expose that information via a set of HTTP requests. With luck, our code will be reuseable in the future when relays or authorities are rewritten in Rust. Lead by nickm 7 Onionshare download accelerator Summary: Journalists are requesting ways to download large files from onion services faster. This is actually possible already with HTTP, without any Tor client modifications. By splitting up requests into 250k chunks using HTTP range requests, and using SOCKS username and password to allocate these requests properly onto different circuits, we can hit ~6 megabytes/sec per guard (so ~12 megabytes/sec with 2 gaurds), with a custom HTTP download acelerator. This download accelerator could be provided as part of onionshare. For more details, see https://github.com/micahflee/onionshare/issues/1295. Lead by mike 8 Vanguards doc updates, bugfixes, packages for onionshare and/or Tor Browser Summary: The vanguards Tor control port addon provides defense against Guard discovery attacks, as well as other attacks against onion services, onion clients, and even Tor Browser exit traffic. Vanguards is in need of some doc updates, bugfixes, and we could even package it for one of onionshare or Tor Browser. Packaging it with Onionshare also helps improve the security properties of the above download accelerator item. See the bugtracker for specific items: https://github.com/mikeperry-tor/vanguards/issues Lead by mike 9 Circuit Padding Simulator Summary: The Tor circuit padding framework is under active use by researchers to improve padding defenses against website traffic fingerprinting, and onion service circuit fingerprinting. The simulator is in need of update to the latest Tor release, as well as in need of performance improvements, and a more accurate way to deal with time-based features. See https://github.com/pylls/circpad-sim/blob/master/README.md Lead by mike 10 Onion service v3 support for arti Summary: arti currently does not do v3 onion services. Let's do some solid work towards making that possible. Lead by asn

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Anti-censorship meeting, 2021 March 25
by Cecylia Bocovich 25 Mar '21

25 Mar '21

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-03-25-15.58.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday March 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&… Public bug-reporting pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep <-- we have anonymous tickets handling now. Let's see which anti-censorship repos to include. == Announcements == == Discussion == Do we need to upgrade bridges for today's OpenSSL advisories? https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20210325.txt Next week is hackweek and we're working on anti-censorship alerts == Actions == == Interesting links == == Reading group == We will discuss "" on 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 2020-03-25 Last week: - merged snowflake!30 - updated the link to our snowflake documentation wiki on snowflake.torproject.org - updated wiki to include a link to jacobo's ansible playbook - updated pion webrtc version in snowflake (snowflake#40037) - started a tor browser build for it - worked on candidate refactor of snowflake (snowflake#40036) - responded to bridgestrap outage (bridgestrap#16) - sponsor 28 integration prep - tried out new private bridges This week: - hackweek work on anti-censorship alerts Ongoing: - connect bridgedb to rdsys (rdsys#12) - congestion logging patches for snowflake#40026 - install our snowflake app on android and try it out for a few days - prepare snowflake for sponsor 28 evaluations Needs help with: - review of snowflake!31 arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2021-03-25 Last week: Next week: - snowflake CDN accounting - look at PT v2 branch https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: agix:2021-03-25 Last week: -Been busy with university stuff for the last few weeks Next week: -Work on bridgebox for rdsys -More research on httpt #4 Help with: - hanneloresx: 2021-3-4 Last week: - Submitted MR for bridgestrap issue #14 Next week: - Finish bridgestrap #14 - Find new issue to work on Help with: - HashikD: 2021-01-22 This week: - Next week: - Help with: -

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Fwd: Using tor as transport network for LBRY
by Antonela D 24 Mar '21

24 Mar '21

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Ole Tange <ota(a)prosa.dk> Date: Sat, Mar 20, 2021 at 4:36 PM Subject: Using tor as transport network for LBRY To: antonela(a)torproject.org <antonela(a)torproject.org> LBRY is a distributed, open source alternative to YouTube. They currently use their own protocol for data transfer and has problem with hole punching (through NAT walls). I have raised this ticket with LBRY (there are also other privacy concerns that Tor would solve): https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-sdk/issues/3235#issuecomment-800547084 Given that you said you are willing to help others using the tor network, I hope you will ask one of your technicians to post a note, saying you are here to help them out. /Ole -- Antonela Debiasi UX Team Lead torproject.org @antonela E2330A6D1EB5A0C8

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OONI Monthly Report: January 2021
by Maria Xynou 19 Mar '21

19 Mar '21

Hello, Apologies for sharing this late. Throughout January 2021, the OONI team worked on the following sprints: * Sprint 30 - Rough Shark (4 - 17 January, 2021) * Sprint 31 - Rhincodon (18 - 31 January, 2021) Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. ## Report on internet blocks and outages in Uganda amid 2021 general election In collaboration with DefendDefenders, Defenders Protection Initiative, and CAIDA, we published a new research report documenting the internet disruptions in Uganda amid its 2021 general election. Our report is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2021-uganda-general-election-blocks-and-outage/ We based our investigation on: * OONI measurements collected from Uganda: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2021-01-23&since=2020-12-23&probe_cc… * OONI experiments using the `miniooni` research client (which we plan to eventually integrate into the OONI Probe apps) * Public data sources monitoring internet outages (IODA data, Google traffic data, Oracle Internet Intelligence data, and CloudFlare Radar data) In the days leading up to Uganda’s 2021 general election, ISPs blocked access to the Google Play Store (hampering people’s ability to download apps), as well as to a number of social media apps (including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram) and websites (such as facebook.com) – regardless of OTT tax payment. Access to certain circumvention tool websites (such as protonvpn.com) was blocked as well, though both Tor and Psiphon worked throughout the election period. Starting from the eve of Uganda’s 2021 general election (in the evening of 13th January 2021), Uganda was disconnected from the internet entirely. The country experienced a 4-day internet outage (which included election day), as shown through several public data sources: Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA), Oracle’s Internet Intelligence Map, Cloudflare Radar, and Google traffic data. In our report, we also share network-level analysis of the internet outage based on IODA data. The internet outage is further corroborated by the absence of OONI measurements from Uganda during this time period (since OONI Probe requires internet connectivity to perform tests), as well as by the drastic drop in Tor users and Psiphon users during this period. Even though internet connectivity in Uganda was restored on 18th January 2021, access to social media and circumvention platforms remained blocked. Notably, Ugandan ISPs only appear to have started blocking access to YouTube on 18th January 2021, even though the platform is not included on the OTT list of taxed platforms. Further details are available through our report. ## Blocking of Signal in Iran On 25th January 2021, Iran started blocking access to the Signal messaging app. Thanks to OONI Probe users in Iran (who contributed relevant measurements), we were able to detect the blocking of signal.org within a few hours since the blocking started. We reported this through OONI’s Twitter account (sharing relevant OONI measurements): https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1353637360727109633 OONI measurements on the blocking of signal.org were also shared by Zoomit, an Iranian technology media outlet: https://twitter.com/TheZoomit/status/1353636089647558656 Recent OONI measurements show that signal.org remains blocked on several networks in Iran: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2021-03-20&since=2021-02-18&domain=s… ## OONI Probe Mobile In January 2021, we released OONI Probe mobile 2.9.0 and 2.9.1 on: * Android: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.9.0 & https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.9.1 * iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.9.0 & https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.9.1 With these new releases, we shipped a new OONI Probe test for RiseupVPN (which was developed by the LEAP collective). We also: * Completed UI tests: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1272 * Made various code quality improvements: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/pull/402 * Completed the implementation of the check-in API in the OONI Probe engine and wrote wrappers and integration tests for this implementation: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1158 * Wrote a script to facilitate mobile app releases: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1287 * Worked on adding support for dark mode on iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/925 * Improved the crash reporting system: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1332 ## OONI Run We added localization support to OONI Run (https://run.ooni.io/) to accommodate translations: https://github.com/ooni/run/pull/50 We prioritized adding localization support to OONI Run in response to community requests to translate the platform to Chinese (Taiwan). ## OONI Probe Desktop Throughout January 2021, we worked towards the OONI Probe Desktop 3.2.2 release. This involved development work towards ensuring feature parity with the OONI Probe mobile app: creating a new Dashboard (with the same UI as the OONI Probe mobile app), adding support for running all tests with a single button, and adding the “Choose websites” button for custom URL testing (similarly to the OONI Probe mobile app). We also: Added support for setting the maximum execution time of the Web Connectivity test: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1280 Added support for storing measurements in the OONI backend (and not on disk): https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1313 Worked towards integrating the new RiseupVPN test into the OONI Probe desktop app ### Updated OONI Probe macOS homebrew package We upgraded the OONI Probe homebrew package to run the new ooniprobe 3.x command line interface. In order to do this, we implemented native system scheduling features inside of the command line tool (see: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/192) This allows users to enable automatic testing by running the command: `ooniprobe autorun start` More details about this can be found in the following issue: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1289 The maintenance of the package has since been taken up by the homebrew community, which is doing an excellent job at keeping it up to date: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pulls?q=is%3Apr+ooniprobe+is%3Acl… We updated the installation instructions for the OONI Probe Command Line Interface (CLI) on our website to enable users to get the latest version of the OONI Probe command line tool: https://ooni.org/install/cli/macos ## Released Debian package for OONI Probe We released a Debian package for OONI Probe with support for automatic testing. As part of the installation process, this package displays the informed consent procedure through the use of native Debian packaging features. Packages are automatically built as part of the continuous integration workflow. See: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1061 We updated the OONI Probe installation page for Linux to feature the new Debian package: https://ooni.org/install/cli/ubuntu-debian ## OONI Probe engine We released v.0.22.0 of the OONI Probe measurement engine: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/releases/tag/v0.22.0 Highlights from this release include: * Significantly improved QUIC implementation * Significantly improved DNSCheck implementation * New `run` experiment that takes in input a list of experiments to run along with their options as a JSONL This release includes a series of API changes, improvements, updates, and bug fixes, as documented here: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/releases/tag/v0.22.0 ## Expanding OONI Probe measurement methodologies We improved upon our QUIC experiment, as documented through the following pull requests: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1196 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1126 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1197 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1176 We also improved upon our DNSCheck (https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1166) and urlgetter (https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1182) experiments. We collaborated with community members who volunteered to work with us on these experiments. ### New OONI Probe RiseupVPN test In January 2021, we shipped a brand new OONI Probe test for RiseupVPN! You can now check whether RiseupVPN works on your network. Learn all about this test here: https://ooni.org/nettest/riseupvpn/ The RiseupVPN test (developed by the LEAP collective) was first made available through the 2.9.1 release of the OONI Probe mobile app (https://ooni.org/install/mobile) The test is now also available in the OONI Probe desktop app. All RiseupVPN test results from around the world are openly published in near real-time on OONI Explorer: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?since=2020-12-30&test_name=riseupvpn ## OONI Explorer We released OONI Explorer 2.4.0 (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/releases/tag/v2.4.0) which includes improvements to the metadata of the measurement pages for the purpose of search engine optimization. We also integrated percy.io for the visual testing of OONI Explorer (https://percy.io/407b7763/ooni-explorer/) and fixed some issues in measurements (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/543) ## OONI backend Throughout January 2021, we worked on the following backend activities: * Deployed an event detector on test and updated it for the new ams-pg codebase * Monitored the dashboard for the reactive test-list * Investigated the counters bug and created a new counters_hourly_software table * Investigated the cause of the measurement drops * Handled measurement keys in the fastpath pipeline * Fixed the counters table update bug * Fixed the pagination in the API * Changed the DB query timeout in the API to fix test-url timeout bugs in probes * Fixed the API enumeration/paging bug * Worked on implementing the probe check-in API * Generated report IDs * Fixed the category code filtering ## New partnership We formed a new partnership with civil society members in Sudan. We previously had the opportunity to collaborate with this partner as part of Internews’ 6-week internet shutdown measurement training program for human rights defenders, which we helped lead. This training program (which also included OONI modules) helped lay the ground for this partnership. ## Test list updates In January 2021, we made a few minor updates to the Citizen Lab test lists, as documented through the following pull requests: * Hong Kong test list: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/711 * Global test list: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/713 ## Community activities ### OTF Virtual Summit 2021 Between 11th-15th January 2021, we attended the OTF Virtual Summit 2021. On 13th January 2021, we participated as a panelist in the online session “Collaboration between organizations in the internet freedom field”, during which we shared some of the challenges, opportunities, and best practices we have identified in forming partnerships and working with digital rights organizations around the world. ## Userbase In January 2021, 7,188,644 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 5,270 networks in 203 countries around the world. This information can also be found through our measurement stats on OONI Explorer (see chart on “monthly coverage worldwide”): https://explorer.ooni.org/ ~ OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 2021 March 18
by Cecylia Bocovich 19 Mar '21

19 Mar '21

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-03-18-15.57.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday March 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&… Public bug-reporting pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep <-- we have anonymous tickets handling now. Let's see which anti-censorship repos to include. == Announcements == Cure53 is currently doing a security audit of the Turbo Tunnel parts of Snowflake. == Discussion == AlwaysLivid has some updates on Tor Browser distribution work gtsatsis has started developing a Signal bot for distributing binaries of the Tor Browser https://gitlab.com/gtsatsis/signal-gettor (Idea from a friend of AlwaysLivid, which they have also thought of beforehand: Distributing binaries of gettor via decentralized VPN-based networks, such as Lokinet, Zeronet, or dn42.) downloads.json shenanigans? (Some tickets have already been opened, - AlwaysLivid) https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/4… https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/4… https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40380 Using the Matrix platform and bridges as a unified, perhaps temporary means of distributing links with minimal maintenance? Bonus: No Twitter bot rewrites, and writing different bots for platforms where uploading binaries isn't possible. == Actions == == Interesting links == https://www.cnet.com/news/china-appears-to-be-blocking-signal-messaging-app… == Reading group == We will discuss "" on 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 2020-03-18 Last week: - mostly just sponsor28 prep of snowflake - talked with nickm and started thinking about what PTv2/3 spec support in Snowflake would look like (snowflake#40036) - lots of meetings - discussed finding volunteers to run private bridges (bridgedb#40010) This week: - connect bridgedb to rdsys (rdsys#12) - follow up on bridge bridge situation - congestion logging patches for snowflake#40026 - install our snowflake app on android and try it out for a few days - prepare snowflake for sponsor 28 evaluations - follow up on pending reviews 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: 2021-03-18 Last week: - upgraded tor on the Snowflake bridge for a security vulnerability https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - reviewed merge request to reduce spurious error logging in snowflake server https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - commented on snowflake server stale OR connections https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: agix:2021-03-18 Last week: -Been busy with university stuff for the last few weeks Next week: -Work on bridgebox for rdsys -More research on httpt #4 Help with: - hanneloresx: 2021-3-4 Last week: - Submitted MR for bridgestrap issue #14 Next week: - Finish bridgestrap #14 - Find new issue to work on Help with: - HashikD: 2021-01-22 This week: - Next week: - Help with: -

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minutes from the sysadmin meeting
by Antoine Beaupré 17 Mar '21

17 Mar '21

Hello! Here's a (late, again) report from our monthly sysadmin meeting. # Roll call: who's there and emergencies * anarcat * hiro * gaba No emergencies. # Roadmap review Review and prioritize [the board][]. [the board]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards * CiviCRM setup discussion. gaba will look at plan * anarcat sent a formal proposal to the tor-internal mailing list with [jenkins retirement plan][] ([issue 40167][]), will be proposed to tor-internal soon * SMTP out only server is resuming in ~Next * Discourse situation: wait for a few months until hiro can take it back ([issue 40183][]) [issue 40183]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40183 [issue 40167]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40167 [jenkins retirement plan]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy/tpa-rfc-10-jenkin… # Documentation and communication Are the current processes to document our work okay? Do we have communication problems? Let's clarify expectations on how to manage work and tickets. ## What is working * anarcat's docs work great, but could use a TL;DR (:+1:) * monthly meetings in voice calls * jump on a call when there is an issue or misunderstanding (:+1:) ## What can be improved * irc can be frustrating when communicating, jump on a voice call when necessary! * wiki is good for documentation, but not great to get feedback, because we don't want to delete other people's stuff and things get lost. better to use issues with comments for proposals. * hard time understanding what is going on some tickets, because of the lack of updates. We can write more comments in the tickets. * when triaging: if you assign to someone, then that person needs to know. when assigning an active queue (~Next or ~Doing), make sure the ticket is assigned. # Triage Is our current triage system working? How can others (AKA gaba) prioritize our work? Note that ahf is also working on triage, automation, more specifically, through the [triage ops][] project. [triage ops]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/ahf/triage-ops/ We might want to include the [broader TPA dashboard][] eventually, but this requires serious triage work first. [broader TPA dashboard]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/tpa/-/boards Discussion postponed. # On call Which services/issues we can call TPA about when nobody is working? Review and discuss the [current support policy][], which is basically "none, things may be down until we return"... Discussion postponed. [current support policy]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy/tpa-rfc-2-support… # Other discussions ## Anonymous ticket system Postponed. # Next meeting April 6th, 15:00UTC, equivalent to: 08:00 US/Pacific, 12:00 America/Montevideo, 11:00 US/Eastern, 17:00 Europe/Paris. # Metrics of the month * hosts in Puppet: 85, LDAP: 88, Prometheus exporters: 139 * number of Apache servers monitored: 28, hits per second: 50 * number of Nginx servers: 2, hits per second: 2, hit ratio: 0.87 * number of self-hosted nameservers: 6, mail servers: 7 * pending upgrades: 4, reboots: 0 * average load: 0.93, memory available: 1.98 TiB/2.73 TiB, running processes: 627 * bytes sent: 267.74 MB/s, received: 160.59 MB/s * [GitLab tickets][]: ? tickets including... * open: 0 * icebox: 107 * backlog: 15 * next: 9 * doing: 7 * (closed: 2213) [Gitlab tickets]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards # Grafana dashboards of the month The [Postfix dashboard][] was entirely rebuilt and now has accurate "acceptance ratios" per host. It was used to manage the latest newsletter mailings. We still don't have great ratios, but at least now we know. [Postfix dashboard]: https://grafana.torproject.org/d/Ds5BxBYGk/postfix-mtail The [GitLab dashboard][] now has a "CI jobs" panel which shows the number of queued and running jobs, which should help you figure out when your precious CI job will get through! [GitLab dashboard]: https://grafana.torproject.org/d/QrDJktiMz/gitlab-omnibus?orgId=1 -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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No network team meeting on Monday 15 March
by Nick Mathewson 14 Mar '21

14 Mar '21

Hi! Two of our members are off on monday, so we'll be skipping this week's regular network team meeting. But feel free to drop by #tor-dev anyway if you've got anything to chat about! best wishes, -- Nick

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 2021 March 11
by Cecylia Bocovich 11 Mar '21

11 Mar '21

Hey everyone, Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-03-11-15.58.html and the meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday March 11th 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&… Public bug-reporting pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep <-- we have anonymous tickets handling now. Let's see which anti-censorship repos to include. == Announcements == Over 1,000 responses to Snowflake user survey https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… == Discussion == == Actions == == Interesting links == https://ntc.party/t/twitter/907 == Reading group == We will discuss "" on 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 2020-03-11 Last week: - deeper dive into belarus blocking (censorship-analysis#40002) - looked into snowflake censorship in china (snowflake#32657) - responded to snowflake bridge outage (snowflake#40033) - opened a ticket about snowflake's OR conns (snowflake#40035) - wrote a patch to clean up snowflake logging a bit (snowflake!30) - more hiring things - followed up on bridgestrap!6 review - planning how to recover from most of our private bridges going away - patched GetTor in response to outage (gettor#77) This week: - connect bridgedb to rdsys (rdsys#12) - pull more bridges from our unallocated pool for private distribution (bridgedb#40010) - congestion logging patches for snowflake#40026 - more hiring things - install our snowflake app on android and try it out for a few days - prepare snowflake for sponsor 28 evaluations Needs help with: - review of snowflake!30 arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2021-03-11 Last week: - updated Go version requirement in Snowflake README https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - opened an issue to upgrade tor on the Snowflake bridge for a security vulnerability https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: agix:2021-03-11 Last week: -Been busy with university stuff for the last few weeks Next week: -Work on bridgebox for rdsys -More research on httpt #4 Help with: - hanneloresx: 2021-3-4 Last week: - Submitted MR for bridgestrap issue #14 Next week: - Finish bridgestrap #14 - Find new issue to work on Help with: - HashikD: 2021-01-22 This week: - Next week: - Help with: -

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Invitation to Tor's Hackweek from March 29th to April 2nd
by Gaba 10 Mar '21

10 Mar '21

Hi Tor people! During the last week of March, the Tor Project is running a hackweek. The idea is to promote small projects that can be wrapped up in 5 days. We have a list of projects proposed by people from the Tor community and are open to any other project people may want to propose. You can find the list of projects (as well as other info) in https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/hackweek For each project, you will find information on who is coordinating/leading it, what is the project about and a pad where you can add yourself to if you are interested in it. Write your name under the section "Team". Each team will meet in IRC or BBB and coordinate work through the week. On Friday each team will demo the work they did during the week. On Monday March 29th, we are going to hold an open session to present the projects people are going to work on. cheers, gaba -- pronouns she/her/they GPG Fingerprint EE3F DF5C AD91 643C 21BE 8370 180D B06C 59CA BD19

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