June 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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PSA: fpcentral / forrestii retirement notice
by Matthew Finkel 21 Oct '21

21 Oct '21

Hello! The service "fpcentral" (https://fpcentral.tbb.torproject.org/) will be retired on October 20th 2021 (6 months from now), along with the server it is running on (forrestii). We do not have the resources to maintain the service. Besides, other, and better alternatives have emerged since then, like, for example the EFF's Cover Your Tracks service (https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/, previously known as the Panopticlick) and TorZillaPrint (https://arkenfox.github.io/TZP/) On the retirement date, the server will be shutdown, rendering the service completely unavailable. A week later, the server will be destroyed, and its backups will be destroyed 30 days after the retirement date. The Internet Archive has an up to date copy of the site's static assets and will be able to keep it for posterity. It is recommended that you fix any bookmarks, links, or other references you have to this site. If you have concerns about the retirement or wish to delay the procedure, you can add a comment to the tracking issue (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40009) or contact TPA: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy/tpa-rfc-2-support…

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Sponsor 38 (Shadow simulator) update
by Jim Newsome 29 Jun '21

29 Jun '21

We've shared the latest project update at https://github.com/shadow/shadow/discussions/1485; copied below: This is part of a series of periodic updates of development in Shadow. This work is sponsored by the NSF <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/blob/main/docs/nsf_sponsorship.md>. Previous update: 2021-04 <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/discussions/1274>. Shadow 2.0.0-pre release Shadow 2.0, which features the new process-based architecture <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/projects/1> is now in pre-release! We've merged <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/pull/1441> the |dev| branch into |main|, and tagged v2.0.0-pre.1 <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/releases/tag/v2.0.0-pre.1>. For users, this means: * Users cloning the repository at head will get Shadow 2.0 (pre). * We've /mostly/ stabilized some major changes to command-line options, config files, and topology files; enough so that users preparing to set up new simulations, or perhaps even heavily modify existing simulations or scripts, are better off targeting 2.0 than the Shadow 1.x series. * Because this is a pre-release, we're still reserving the right to make breaking changes without further bumping the version number, but we expect such changes to be minimal. Users migrating existing simulations and scripts should have a look at our migration guide <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/blob/main/docs/migrating_from_1x.md>. Progress since the last update We're still experimenting a bit with how to use GitHub's various project management tools. We've started using "projects" to represent Shadow releases. For example, you can see the issues for the v2.0.0 release here <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/projects/3>. Notable changes since the April update: (By milestone; #'s are GitHub PR or issue #'s): * Minimum viable prototype of process-based simulation architecture <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/milestone/16>: Closed, now that Shadow 2.x runs Tor simulations, and we've cross-validated simulation results with Shadow 1.x. o Added new internal APIs for accessing managed process memory, and used them to reduce the number of data copies. (#1264, #1280, #1290) * Fully support process-based simulation architecture <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/milestone/22> o This milestone is a bit of a catch-all, and includes a number of stability and performance improvements <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/pulls?q=is%3Apr+merged%3A2021-04-06..2021-…> that we wanted to finish before the full 2.0 release. o We're in the process of adding seccomp-based syscall interposition in combination with preload-based interposition. More on that in "What's next", below. So far we've already implemented and enabled it (#1452, #1471). * Convert existing modules to Rust <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/milestone/28> o We've ported several of Shadow's core internal objects into Rust (#1325, #1336, #1367, #1376, #1434). o We've reduced our reliance on globals to fit better in the Rust ownership model (#1386, #1393, #1396) * Updates to and new formats for Shadow configuration <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/milestone/27> o We've changed the configuration file format from XML to YAML (#1278). o We've changed the topology format from graphml (XML) to gml (YAML-like) (#1369). o Lots of updates to configuration options and defaults, making things clearer, giving more sensible defaults, and fixing parsing bugs. (#1263, #1266, #1270, #1304, #1305). o Additionally, we've /unified/ much of the configuration and command-line parsing to reduce code duplication and inconsistencies, and migrated it to Rust. (#1258, #1286) o Most numbers in our configuration and command-line options can now include explicit units. (#1300) o Made updates to tornettools to stay consistent with Shadow's new config option and network graph formats, and other 2.x changes (tornettools#7 <https://github.com/shadow/tornettools/pull/7>, tornettools#8 <https://github.com/shadow/tornettools/pull/8>, tornettools#17 <https://github.com/shadow/tornettools/pull/17>) * Code health and maintenance <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/milestone/24>: o Fixed some sources of nondeterminism in simulation results (#1460). o Improve and automate Tor simulation test (#1411, #1458). o Updated documentation for Shadow 2.0. (#1412, #1417, #1406, #1403) o Changed default install prefix from |~/.shadow| to |~/.local|. (#1404) o More <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/pulls?q=is%3Apr+merged%3A2021-04-06..2021-…> What's next We'll be continuing to gain experience running Shadow experiments with the 2.0.0 pre-release. We will be working to fix bugs, tie up some loose ends and smooth out some rough edges, and generally stabilize the code as we continue to prepare for a 2.0.0 stable release. We're currently tracking outstanding work on the 2.0.0 release page <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/projects/3>. Seccomp In the course of our work on the 2.x architecture we've largely been exploring two system call interposition mechanisms that allow us to co-opt running processes into a simulation - |LD_PRELOAD| (similar to what Shadow 1.x uses), and |ptrace|. While preload-based interposition has better performance, and plays better with debuggers, we've largely been focusing on the ptrace-based approach because it can reliably catch all syscalls without having to re-implement large parts of libc and/or rely on undocumented glibc implementation details. This has allowed us to work out all of the Shadow internals that needed to change to support interposition at the Linux system call interface. Recently, though, we added seccomp-based interposition to the preload-based interposition mode. This reliably catches any syscalls that would otherwise be missed by our |LD_PRELOAD| wrappers. We also have a working prototype of this mode of operation with /thread support/, which was previously the biggest missing functionality in preload-mode. Assuming thread support gets merged as expected and no other problems crop up, this is likely to become the new default mode of operation; it's faster than ptrace, and it allows us to trace the processes running in Shadow using debugging tools such as |gdb|. Happy simulating! The Shadow team <https://github.com/shadow/shadow/blob/master/docs/nsf-sponsorship.md#people>

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[gitlab] moving metrics group into network health group in Gitlab
by Gaba 28 Jun '21

28 Jun '21

Hi! We are moving the metrics group [0] into the network health group [1] as we are going to incorporate it in the network health work we do at the Tor project. Please, update your local repositories to point to the new location[2]. [0] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/metrics [1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/metrics cheers, gaba -- pronouns she/her/they GPG Fingerprint EE3F DF5C AD91 643C 21BE 8370 180D B06C 59CA BD19

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Anti-censorship meeting notes
by Cecylia Bocovich 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-06-24-16.00.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday June 24th 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. == Announcements == No announcements this week == Discussion == - do we have previous info on the requirements to run a snowflake proxy? - (re https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/anti-censorship-team/2021-June/00017…) - we currently have https://community.torproject.org/relay/setup/snowflake/standalone/ - we have an issue to improve documentation for a standalone proxy https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - we could add Jacobo's hardware observations to it == Actions == No actions this week == Interesting links == Jacobo provided some details on the snowflake proxies they are running https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/anti-censorship-team/2021-June/00017… == 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 2021-06-24 Last week: - wrote, deployed snowflake!43 to solve a stats bug - fixed up snowflake!42 and found a few more race conditions - commented on bridgestrap#15 - worked on debugging snowflake memory leak (snowflake#40052) - deployed some memory profiling tools - wrote a fix snowflake!45 - started reviewing rdsys!11 - s28 deadline work - planning for new s96 - reviewed bridgedb!20 This week: - finish reviewing rdsys!11 - review bridgstrap#15 when ready - work on bridgedb#32276 deployment - follow up on arlo's snowflake broker work - afk next week Needs help with: - review of snowflake!45 arlolra: 2021-06-10 Last week: - More snowflake!39 Next week: - Maybe get back to snowflake-webext #10 Help with: - snowflake !39 dcf: 2021-06-24 Last week: - did a security upgrade of tor on the snowflake bridge https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - helped debug snowflake server memory leak https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - answered a core tor question about managed transports https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/40414 Next week: - review fix for snowflake server resource leak https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - begin AMP cache rendezvous for snowflake https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Help with: maxb: 2021-06-03 Last week: - Made some improvements to github.com/max-b/nat-testing for https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - Now have separate containers for each piece along w/ a reasonably simulated network topology - Got really good feedback from cohosh as always Next week: - Make config fixes cohosh suggested - Implement alternative NAT types - Add testing wrapper w/ "pass/fail" conditions meskio: 2021-06-24 Last week: - proof of concept of gettor in rdsys (rdsys!11 rdsys#32) - add bridgestrap CollecTor exporter (bridgestrap!7 bridgestrap#15) - code reviews: snowflake!44 snowflake!43 snowflake!42 Next week: - modify snowflake proxy to assign proxies based on self-reported client load (snowflake#40048) - act on snowflake!11 review - merge access keys translators help brdigedb!20 Help with: -

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Re: [tor-project] Turning on timing obfuscation (iat-mode=1) for some default bridges
by たくたく 23 Jun '21

23 Jun '21

iPhoneから送信

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Onionoo 8.0-1.26.1 released
by Iain R. Learmonth 19 Jun '21

19 Jun '21

Hi, I have released Onionoo 8.0-1.26.1. Onionoo is a web-based protocol to learn about currently running Tor relays and bridges. Onionoo itself was not designed as a service for human beings—at least not directly. Onionoo provides the data for other applications and websites which in turn present Tor network status information to humans. The latest changes: * Minor changes - Restore the "AS" prefix string to the as field in documents. - Fix search by AS number. You can find the release at: https://dist.torproject.org/onionoo/8.0-1.26.1/ You can find the sources at: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/metrics/onionoo/-/tree/onionoo-8.0-1.26.1 This is already deployed to the Onionoo backends, although it may take a few hours for the updater to correct all relays AS numbers. Thanks, Iain.

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

17 Jun '21

Hi everyone! Two new sysadmins were hired, so we're holding meetings again! Welcome again to kez and lavamind, who both joined us last week. Here are the minutes from the meeting we held on June 14 and 16. # Roll call: who's there and emergencies * anarcat * gaba * kez * lavamind No emergencies. # Triage & schedules * Introduce the triage system * the "triage star of the weeks" rotates every two weeks * the star triages the boards regularly, making sure there are no "Open" tickets, and assigning tickets or dealing with small tickets * see also [TPA-RFC-5][] for the labeling nomenclature * we were doing weekly checkins with hiro during the handover on wednesday, since we were both part time * work schedules: * j: monday, tuesday - full day; wednesday - partially * kez: flexible - TBD * anarcat: monday to thursday - full day [TPA-RFC-5]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy/tpa-rfc-5-gitlab#… # Communication in the team What is expected? When to bring it in IRC versus email versus ticket? Acknowledgements. * we expect people to update tickets when they work on them * we expect acknowledgements when people see their names mentions on IRC # Short term planning: anarcat going AFK This basically involves making sure our new hires have enough work while they are gone. We reviewed the Doing/Next columns and assign issues in the [TPA board][] and [web board][]. [web board]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/web/-/boards [TPA board]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/tpa/-/boards We also reviewed the letter anarcat later sent to `tor-internal@` (private, not linked here). Then the meeting paused after one hour. When we returned on wednesday, we jumped to the roadmap review (below), and then returned here to briefly review the Backlog. We reviewed anarcat's queue to make sure things would be okay after he left, and also made sure kez and lavamind had enough work. gaba will make sure they are assigned work from the Backlog as well. # Roadmap review Review and prioritize: * [yearly TPA roadmap][] * web * [board][] * [priorities][] [yearly TPA roadmap]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/roadmap/2021 [board]: board [priorities]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/team ## Web priorities allocations (sort out by priorities) We reviewed the priorities page and made sure we had most of the stuff covered. We don't assign tasks directly in the wiki page, but we did a tentative assignation pass here: * Donations page redesign (support to Openflows) - kez * Onion Services v2 deprecation support - lavamind * Improves bridges.torproject.org - kez * Remove outdated documentation from the header - kez & gus * Migrate blog.torproject.org from Drupal To Lektor: it needs a milestone and planning - lavamind * Support forum - lavamind * Developer portal - lavamind & kez * Get website build from jenkins into to gitlabCI for the static mirror pool (before December) - kez * Get up to speed on maintenance tasks: * Bootstrap upgrade - lavamind * browser documentation update (this is content and mostly is on gus's plate) gus * get translation stats available - kez * rename 'master' branch as 'main' - lavamind * fix wiki for documentation - gaba * get onion service tooling into tpo gitlab namespace - lavamind ## TPA roadmap review We reviewed the TPA roadmap for the first time since the beginning of the year, which involved going through the first two quarters to identify what was done and missed. We also established the priorities for Q3 and Q4. Those changes are mostly contained in [this commit on the wiki][]. [this commit on the wiki]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/wiki-replica/-/commit/5968075c75d4249… # Other discussions No new item came up in the meeting, which already was extended an extra hour to cover for the extra roadmap work. # Next meeting * we do quick checkin on monday 14 UTC 10 eastern, at the beginning of the office hours * we do monthly meetings instead of checkins on the first monday of the month # Metrics of the month Those were sent on June 2nd, it would be silly to send them again. -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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The Tor Project's priorities for the period June to September 2021
by Gaba 15 Jun '21

15 Jun '21

Hi! In the last couple of weeks we reviewed teams priorities for the next few months. We will do this again at the end of September. I'm sending this mail for transparency on what the Tor Project is focus on right now. # General priorities for the Tor Project performance network health moving tor from C to Arti improving censorship circumvention usability Work board: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/boards # Applications 1. V2 Deprecation UI/UX 2. about:torconnect 3. Desktop ESR Transition - starts in July 4. Enable HTTPS-Only Mode 5. Integrate libhttps-everywhere-core (replacing https-everywhere webextension) - tor-browser#40458 6. Go/Rust/Java dependency resolution: how to resolve dependencies ahead of time. 7. improve bridge selection in tor browser Work board: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/applications/-/boards # Core 1. security fixes 2. tor network performance - shadow experiments - congestion control 3. arti - margot things for network health team - shadow simulations should be possible with arti 4. CI with follow up with sysadmin teams 5. HS v2 deprecation - Onion Balance for V3: Multi-service support. Possibly to reduce memory consumption to avoid having to run multiple instances. 6. Shadow v2 will come out in this period. 7. Update the fallbackdirs list Work board: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/core/-/boards # Network Health 1. Run the "bad hsdir" hunter scripts and other bad-relay detection scripts. 2. Deploy sbws on all bandwidth authorities replacing Torflow and fix critical issues 3. Various work within our performance and scalability project 4. Support for researchers for network experiments 5. Integrate metrics into network-health 6. bad-relay tooling improvements 7. Improve user support for relays operators 8. Handle EOL relays 9. sbws2 10. Start accumulating a list of metrics we want to have from arti-based relays 11. Map out possible plans for quantifying and improving our trust in relays/operators 12. Surprise 'anomaly analysis' on the network as needed Work board: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/network-health/-/boards # Anti-Censorship 1. Better bridge distribution strategies (e.g. Conjure, Salmon) 2. Make GetTor more reliable and reduce maintenance burden 3. Rewrite gettor in Go to include it in rdsys 4. Complete integration of bridgedb into the more general rdsys 5. Improve the performance of Snowflake for users in Asia 6. Provide more feedback to users that run Snowflake proxies 7. Tor reachability from various countries Work board: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/boards # TPI Websites 1. Donations page redesign 2. Improve bridges.torproject.org 3. Remove outdated documentation from the header 4. Migrate blog.torproject.org from Drupal To Lektor 5. Support forum 6. Developer portal 7. Get website build from jenkins into to gitlabCI for the static mirror pool (before December) 8. Maintenance tasks: - Bootstrap upgrade - browser documentation update - get translation stats available - rename 'master' branch as 'main' - fix wiki for documentation - get onion service tooling into tpo gitlab namespace Work board: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/web/-/boards # Tor Project Administrators Priorities: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/roadmap/2021 Work board: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards/117 # User Experience 1. Tor Browser 10.5 > V2 Onion Services Deprecation. 2. Tor Browser 10.5 > Improving connecting to Tor. 3. Tor Browser 10.5 release, 11.0 planning. 4. User Research > Reporting Tor Browser survey from Q1/Q2 2021. 5. Working with net on arti DX. 6. Working with applications on enabling HTTPS-Only Mode. 7. Working with circumvention on improving bridges.torproject.org. 8. Working with community on publishing peers material in community.torproject.org. 9. Working with community on Tor Documentation Hackathon. 10. Working with community on support.torproject.org. 11. Working with fundraising on donate.torproject.org. 12. Working with web on dev.torproject.org. 13. Working with comms on social media suppport. Work board: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/boards?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… # Community Team 1. Organize Tor facilitators meetup with human rights defenders and partners in Latam and East Africa. 2. Release the new Community section with Tor training resources. 3. Work with Outreachy intern to help Tor users and delivery user monthly feedback report to Tor Browser developers and other teams. 4. Organize the 3rd #DocsHackathon to update Tor websites and user support documentation. 5. Work on the new support forum and blog comments platform with UX, Web, and TPA team. 6. Contributing with Comms team on contents and campaigns related to our community, mission, and values. 7. Contact and build partnerships with new human rights defenders organizations in the Global South. 8. Localize the new donate.torproject.org website. 9. Follow up #KeepItOn and Stop Stalkerware coalitions work and campaigns. 10. Monthly Tor localization hangout with translators. 11. Meet with Tor relay associations and relay operators for Network Health team & research. 12. Build stats and automation for localization and Tor websites. 13. Publish reviewed translations to the websites and Tor Browser. Work board: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/community/-/boards cheers, gaba

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L10n Monthly Hangout this Friday June 18th!
by emma peel 15 Jun '21

15 Jun '21

Hello everybody: Prepare yourself for this Friday June 18th Localization Hangout! We are going to go through the priorities of translation for the Tor Project, solve doubts, share localization tricks and tools, favorite translation music, funny anecdotes, long held questions... We are starting at 12 UTC on the chat, and we will have a BBB call as well, at 13 UTC. More information and how to join: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/l10n/-/wikis/Monthly-Tor-Locali… emmapeel Localization Coordinator Tor Project

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