March 2022 - 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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TPA-RFC-20: bullseye upgrade schedule
by Antoine Beaupré 23 Jun '22

23 Jun '22

Note: this proposal is also visible in: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy/tpa-rfc-20-bullse… Summary: bullseye upgrades will roll out starting the first weeks of April and May, and should complete before the end of August 2022. Let us know if your service requires special handling. # Background Debian 11 [bullseye][] was [released on August 14 2021][]). Tor started the upgrade to bullseye shortly after and hopes to complete the process before the [buster][] EOL, [one year after the stable release][], so normally around August 2022. In other words, we have until this summer to upgrade *all* of TPA's machine to the new release. New machines that were setup recently have already been installed in bullseye, as the installers were changed shortly after the release. A few machines were upgraded manually without any ill effects and we do not consider this upgrade to be risky or dangerous, in general. This work is part of the [%Debian 11 bullseye upgrade milestone][], itself part of the [OKR 2022 Q1/Q2 plan][]. # Proposal The proposal, broadly speaking, is to upgrade all servers in three batches. The first two are somewhat equally sized and spread over April and May, and the rest will happen at some time that will be announced later, individually, per server. ## Affected users All service admins are affected by this change. If you have shell access on any TPA server, you want to read this announcement. ## Upgrade schedule The upgrade is split in multiple batches: * low complexity (mostly TPA): April * moderate complexity (service admins): May * high complexity (hard stuff): to be announced separately * to be retired or rebuilt servers: not upgraded * already completed upgrades The free time between the first two will also allow us to cover for unplanned contingencies: upgrades that could drag on and other work that will inevitably need to be performed. The objective is to do the batches in collective "upgrade parties" that should be "fun" for the team (and work parties *have* generally been generally fun in the past). ### Low complexity, batch 1: April A first batch of servers will be upgraded in the first week of April. Those machines are considered to be somewhat trivial to upgrade as they are mostly managed by TPA or that we evaluate that the upgrade will have minimal impact on the service's users. ``` archive-01 build-x86-05 build-x86-06 chi-node-12 chi-node-13 chives ci-runner-01 ci-runner-arm64-02 dangerzone-01 hetzner-hel1-02 hetzner-hel1-03 hetzner-nbg1-01 hetzner-nbg1-02 loghost01 media-01 metrics-store-01 perdulce static-master-fsn submit-01 tb-build-01 tb-build-03 tb-tester-01 tbb-nightlies-master web-chi-03 web-cymru-01 web-fsn-01 web-fsn-02 ``` 27 machines. At a worst case 45 minutes per machine, that is 20 hours of work. At three people, this might be doable in a day. Feedback and coordination of this batch happens in issue [tpo/tpa/team#40690][]. ### Moderate complexity, batch 2: May The second batch of "moderate complexity servers" happens in the first week of May. The main difference with the first batch is that the second batch regroups services mostly managed by service admins, who are given a longer heads up before the upgrades are done. ``` bacula-director-01 bungei carinatum check-01 crm-ext-01 crm-int-01 fallax gettor-01 gitlab-02 henryi majus mandos-01 materculae meronense neriniflorum nevii onionbalance-01 onionbalance-02 onionoo-backend-01 onionoo-backend-02 onionoo-frontend-01 onionoo-frontend-02 polyanthum rude staticiforme subnotabile ``` 26 machines. If the worst case scenario holds, this is another day of work, at three people. Not mentioned here is the `gnt-fsn` Ganeti cluster upgrade, which is covered by ticket [tpo/tpa/team#40689][]. That alone could be a few day-person of work. Feedback and coordination of this batch happens in issue [tpo/tpa/team#40692][] ### High complexity, individually done Those machines are harder to upgrade, due to some major upgrades of their core components, and will require individual attention, if not major work to upgrade. ``` alberti eugeni hetzner-hel1-01 pauli ``` Each machine could take a week or two to upgrade, depending on the situation and severity. To detail each server: * `alberti`: `userdir-ldap` is, in general, risky and needs special attention, but should be moderately safe to upgrade, see ticket [tpo/tpa/team#40693][] * `eugeni`: messy server, with lots of moving parts (e.g. Schleuder, Mailman), Mailman 2 EOL, needs to decide whether to migrate to Mailman 3 or replace with Discourse (and self-host), see [tpo/tpa/team#40471][], followup in [tpo/tpa/team#40694][] * `hetzner-hel1-01`: Nagios AKA Icinga 1 is end-of-life and needs to be migrated to Icinga 2, which involves fixing our git hooks to generate Icinga 2 configuration (unlikely), or rebuilding a Icinga 2 server, or replacing with Prometheus (see [tpo/tpa/team#29864][]), followup in [tpo/tpa/team#40695][] * `pauli`: Puppet packages are severely out of date in Debian, and Puppet 5 is EOL (with Puppet 6 soon to be). doesn't necessarily block the upgrade, but we should deal with this problem sooner than later, see [tpo/tpa/team#33588][], followup in [tpo/tpa/team#40696][] All of those require individual decision and design, and specific announcements will be made for upgrades once a decision has been made for each service. ### To retire Those servers are possibly scheduled for removal and may not be upgraded to bullseye at all. If we miss the summer deadline, they might be upgraded as a last resort. ``` cupani gayi moly peninsulare vineale ``` Specifically: * cupani/vineale is covered by [tpo/tpa/team#40472][] * gayi is [TPA-RFC-11: SVN retirement][], [tpo/tpa/team#17202][] * moly/peninsulare is [tpo/tpa/team#29974][] ### To rebuild Those machines are planned to be rebuilt and should therefore not be upgraded either: ``` cdn-backend-sunet-01 colchicifolium corsicum nutans ``` Some of those machines are hosted at a Sunet and need to be migrated elsewhere, see [tpo/tpa/team#40684][] for details. `colchicifolium` will is planned to be rebuilt in the `gnt-chi` cluster, no ticket created yet. They will be rebuilt in new bullseye machines which should allow for a safer transition that shouldn't require specific coordination or planning. ### Completed upgrades Those machines have already been upgraded to (or installed as) Debian 11 bullseye: ``` btcpayserver-02 chi-node-01 chi-node-02 chi-node-03 chi-node-04 chi-node-05 chi-node-06 chi-node-07 chi-node-08 chi-node-09 chi-node-10 chi-node-11 chi-node-14 ci-runner-x86-05 palmeri relay-01 static-gitlab-shim tb-pkgstage-01 ``` ### Other related work There is other work related to the bullseye upgrade that is mentioned in the [%Debian 11 bullseye upgrade milestone][]. # Alternatives considered We have not set aside time to automate the upgrade procedure any further at this stage, as this is considered to be a too risky development project, and the current procedure is fast enough for now. We could also move to the cloud, Kubernetes, serverless, and Ethereum and pretend none of those things exist, but so far we stay in the real world of operating systems. Also note that this doesn't cover Docker container images upgrades. Each team is responsible for upgrading their image tags in GitLab CI appropriately and is *strongly* encouraged to keep a close eye on those in general. We may eventually consider enforcing stricter control over container images if this proves to be too chaotic to self-manage. # Costs It is estimates this will take one or two person-month to complete, full time. # Approvals required This proposal needs approval from TPA team members, but service admins can request additional delay if they are worried about their service being affected by the upgrade. Comments or feedback can be provided in issues linked above. # Deadline Upgrades will start in the first week of April 2022 (2022-04-04) unless an objection is raised. This proposal will be considered adopted by then unless an objection is raised within TPA. # Status This proposal is currently in the `proposed` state. # References * [TPA bullseye upgrade procedure][] * [%Debian 11 bullseye upgrade milestone][] [TPA bullseye upgrade procedure]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/howto/upgrades/bullseye/ [%Debian 11 bullseye upgrade milestone]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/tpa/-/milestones/5 [bullseye]: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianBullseye [released on August 14 2021]: https://www.debian.org/News/2021/20210814 [buster]: howto/upgrades/buster [one year after the stable release]: https://www.debian.org/security/faq#lifespan [OKR 2022 Q1/Q2 plan]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/roadmap/2022 [tpo/tpa/team#40690]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40690 [tpo/tpa/team#40692]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40692 [tpo/tpa/team#40693]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40693 [tpo/tpa/team#40471]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40471 [tpo/tpa/team#29864]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/29864 [tpo/tpa/team#33588]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/33588 [tpo/tpa/team#40684]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40684 [tpo/tpa/team#40694]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40694 [tpo/tpa/team#40695]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40695 [tpo/tpa/team#40696]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40696 [tpo/tpa/team#40472]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40472 [tpo/tpa/team#17202]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/17202 [TPA-RFC-11: SVN retirement]: policy/tpa-rfc-11-svn-retirement [tpo/tpa/team#29974]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/29974 [tpo/tpa/team#40689]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40689 -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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More resources required for Snowflake bridge
by David Fifield 04 Apr '22

04 Apr '22

It has been great to see all the support and encouragement for people running Snowflake proxies. Thank you! But there is a problem: the Snowflake bridge (which all the temporary proxies forward their traffic to) is going as fast as can on its current hardware. The server is running close to 100% on all CPUs more or less constantly. As more people use Snowflake, they each get a smaller share of the limited available performance. The limited capacity of the bridge is the cause of the [recent slowness of Snowflake](https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/t49i14)—in the past 2 weeks it's gone [from 12,000 to 16,000 users, without a proportional increase in bandwidth](https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/5481936581E23D2D1… We've spent significant engineering resources already to make the most of the hardware, such as [load balancing multiple tor instances](https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/103) since a few weeks ago. This effort has roughly doubled the available bandwidth of the bridge, but it's still not enough. Demand will only continue to rise. The bridge needs to be moved to faster hardware. Its current hosting is free of charge, but is already on the highest-spec VPS configuration (8 CPUs, 16 GB). Switching to a server with, say, double the CPUs will have an immediate positive effect: the proof of that is that while we were installing the load balancing on the main bridge, I paid for an only slightly higher-spec server to handle Snowflake traffic during the upgrade, and during that week the bandwidth [immediately rose to higher than where it is now](https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/103#issuecomment-1033067920). I used Snowflake a lot during that week, and the difference was palpable. The minimum server required has something like 16 CPUs and 32 GB of RAM. meskio found some suitable [dedicated servers for about $200/month](https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/anti-censorship-team/2022-February/000220.html) with unlimited bandwidth. (I estimate current needs are something like [100 TB/month of bandwidth](https://bugs.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transp…, of course expected to grow.) I'm writing this to make people aware that the current cause of poor Snowflake performance is known: it's limited CPU capacity at the bridge, not general Tor slowness or slowness of the temporary proxies. Solving the problem will cost a few hundred dollars per month, at least for the near future. I am open to suggestions about what to do. I promised myself I would not again get in the situation of paying out of pocket for important infrastructure. I've already contacted the Open Technology Fund about a possible rapid response grant, but have not gotten a response yet. I'm willing to continue administering the bridge, as I do now. * Since 2022-02-03, Tor Metrics graphs for the Snowflake bridge are 1/4 what they should be, until the fix for https://bugs.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/metrics/onionoo/40022 is deployed.

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Anti-censorship team meeting notes, 2022-03-31
by meskio 31 Mar '22

31 Mar '22

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2022/tor-meeting.2022-03-31-15.59.html And our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday April 7th 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 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&… * Sponsor 96 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/24 == Announcements == * == Discussion == * merge requests get assigned automatically for snowflake, rdsys and bridgedb repos by a bot * the hardware for the new snowflake bridge is expected to arrive tomorrow * dcf will install it * the telegram bot is in process to get integrated into rdsys * the remining question is how to keep the bridge quality * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/101 * the hosting Hosting Centralized Probe Log Collection Server on TPA managed VPS thing is progressing right now * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40661#note_2792420 == Actions == == Interesting links == * == Reading group == * We will discuss "Balboa: Bobbing and Weaving around Network Censorship" on April 7 * https://www.usenix.org/system/files/sec21-rosen.pdf * https://censorbib.nymity.ch/#Rosen2021a * 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. anadahz: 2022-01-27 Last week: - Increase timeout check cycles for default-bridge-felix-1 and default-bridge-felix-2 as they have been generating too many alerts: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/monit-configuration/-/mer… cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2022-03-31 Last week: - onboarded itchy onion onto s28 tasks - reviews - work on conjure PT This week: - continued work on conjure PT - continue to monitor snowflake broker stats Needs help with: dcf: 2022-03-31 Last week: - further review of forward-fingerprint patch https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - posted summary of performance observations on the interim snowflake bridge and a curious phenomenon with descriptors not all being published https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - corresponded on OTF rapid response grant application for snowflake bridge funding - sent some information to OONI about snowflake for their torsf test Next week: - approve last piece of forward-fingerprint patch https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - install snowflake bridge on linus's new server https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - install snowflake bridge on another new server, with a different bridge fingerprint, so it is ready for multiple-bridge testing https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Help with: agix: 2021-02-10 Last week: - Continued work on gettor-twitter Next week: - Hopefully finish the task Help with: - arlolra: 2022-03-31 Last week: - Revised !81 and merged some of it Next week: - Evergreen: - Figure out where in pion/webrtc ALPN should be configured and used - Maybe add Chacha20Poly1305 to pion/dtls https://github.com/pion/dtls#planned-features https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Help with: - maxb: 2021-09-23 Last week: - Worked on https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… re: utls for broker negotiation - Had conversation with someone about upstream utls http round tripper https://github.com/refraction-networking/utls/pull/74 - Too busy with work :/ Next week: - _Really_ want to get a PR for utls round tripper meskio: 2022-03-31 Last week: - telegram bot into rdsys (rdsys#77) - circumvention settings gives the full list of default bridges now (rdsys#100) - document settings and telegram distributors in bridges.tpo/info (bridgedb#40046) - select new bridges for probetest (team#77) - review docker snowflake-proxy using go 1.18 (docker-snowflake-proxy!5) - review lektor based bridgedb (bridgedb!31) Next week: - document circumvention settings API (bridgedb#40043) - ignore the running flag if all bridges doesn't have it (rdsys#102) Shelikhoo: 2022-03-31 Last Week: - [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64) - [Coding & Deployment] Proposal: Centralized Probe Result Collector (anti-censorship/team#54) - [Discussion] Centralized Probe Log Collection Ascension Request - [Discussion] Hosting Centralized Probe Log Collection Server on TPA managed VPS - [Discussion]Bridges should report implementation versions of their pluggable transports - [Coding] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64) - built-in DNS - [Coding] Distributed Snowflake Bridges - Broker - [Merge Request Review] Add a telegram distributor - [Merge Request Review] The assignments.log is now produced by rdsys Next Week: - [Coding] Distributed Snowflake Bridges - Broker(continue) Itchy Onion: 2022-03-31 Last week: - onboarding - s28 virtual site meeting - worked on a small snowflake MR !83 This week: - worked on https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - read s28 wikis (finally got all the required access on Tuesday) - read/experiment with testing snowflake locally Next week: - familiarize with the s28 process (build plugin binary, upload it, then test it with Rib) - familiarize with snowflake codebase (there is another issue assigned to me) - get better at testing snowflake Help with: - likely need help with s28 and testing snowflake locally. Let's see. HackerNCoder: 2021-12-16 This week: Last/done: Setup web mirror on tor.encryptionin.space Next: Get (new VPs with) new IP and setup new web mirror on new domain 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: - ln5: 2022-03-24 Last week: - Received hardware for a new home for snowflake.tpn; discussed OS configuration with dcf in private email Next week: - Install Debian 11 on new snowflake.tpn - Possibly rack new snowflake.tpn, if I can get access and find time to do the transportation Need help with: - Input on urgency appreciated, for my planning - Input on preferred CPU configuration, esp wrt HyperThreading -- lacking input before deployment in data centre, the machine will *not* have HT disabled and CPU bug mitigation will thus have to be carried out by the kernel -- meskio | https://meskio.net/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- My contact info: https://meskio.net/crypto.txt -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Nos vamos a Croatan.

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Updates from the web front
by Jérôme Charaoui 29 Mar '22

29 Mar '22

Hello, Just a quick note for anyone involved/interested in web development stuff at the Tor Project. From now on, all production deployments of web projects under the tpo/web GitLab namespace, in addition to the TPA status site, will need to be triggered manually by project maintainers via the GitLab CI web interface or the API. Before triggering those deployments, we encourage contributors to review their changes on the new staging websites for which deployments are themselves automatic. To access the staging version of a website, simply replace "torproject.org" with "staging.torproject.net" in the URL, so for instance the staging deployment of "www.torproject.org" is accessible at "www.staging.torproject.net", the one for "blog.torproject" is at "blog.staging.torproject.net", and so on. For details, please see the GitLab issue: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/team/-/issues/34 In addition, from now on both staging websites and review apps (under review.torproject.net) are concealed with a simple HTTP authentication prompt, to avoid regular visitors and web indexes from accessing them. To dismiss the prompt, simply enter "tor-www" (without quotes) in the username field, leaving the password field blank. Or simply add tor-www to the URL as in: https://tor-www@blog.staging.torproject.net For details about this change, see the GitLab issue: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/team/-/issues/35 Thanks, -- Jerome aka lavamind

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Community Team meeting notes - March 28 2022
by gus 28 Mar '22

28 Mar '22

Hi, Here's the Community Team meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2022/tor-meeting.2022-03-28-13.59.html And our meeting pad: ## Tor Community Team meeting pad Next meeting: Monday, April 4, 2022 - 1400 UTC Weekly meetings, every Monday at 14:00 UTC, in #tor-meeting at OFTC (channel is logged while meetings are in progress) ## Goal of this meeting Weekly checkin about the status of Community Team work at Tor. ## Links to Useful documents * Previous meetings: https://forum.torproject.net/tag/community-team * Monthly l10n hangout: * https://community.torproject.org/localization/hangouts/ * Known issues with Tor Browser : * https://tb-manual.torproject.org/known-issues/ and Tor Browser for Android: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/mobile-tor/#known-issues ## Discussion * Team 1:1s and Q2 roadmap: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/team/-/wikis/home * Tor Browser 11.5 documentation and front desk update (Q2): - Meet with UX team and join TB release meetings (April-June 2022) - Open tickets on Gitlab to track the changes: web/support, web/manual, community/support - review articles on frontdesk and cdr.link - QA party - Create Merge Requests to update the docs * Russia bridges usage spike: https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-country.html?start=2021-12-… ## Updates Joydeep: Last week: - support work on RT, Forum, cdr.link - small documentation fix review - helping with s125 report This week: - wrap-up https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40060 - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/support/-/issues/278 - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40063 - Tor relay operators meetup @ Apr 2 - Weekly check-in with the UX Team Help with: - discuss implementation of support#40060 with Gus and other forum moderators Gus: Last week: - A lot of Community/Network Health work - Tor Browser training in Brazil and Mexico - Added the telegram bot (@getbridgesbot) here: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/ - Community team ticket triage with Gaba - Sponsor9 meeting about the term of reference with Nah, Isa and Gaba. This week: - 1:1s with part of the team - Send the invitation for the next S30 trainings (Tor Browser and Tails) in BR and MX - Work on Tor on Mobile training material (S30) - S96 meeting - S9 meeting - Announcing the relay operator meetup: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/relays/-/issues/42 rhatto: Last week: - S123 - Onionprobe enhancements - S123 - Support - Research on Onion Services UX This week: - S123 - Onionprobe enhancements: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onionprobe - Start to organize the new Onion Services Gitlab Group: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services - Continue Research on Onion Services UX raya: Last week: - s123: handed over landing page high-fidelity design to nico and briefed kez on its development, also figured out language priorities - continued working on template training material - started march 2022 narrative report for s123 This week: - s123 work - training material Nina: Last week: - User support on email and cdr.link. - Added an article on software signature - Helped with s125 report This week: - User support. emmapeel: Last week: - Review new translations, improved howtos, along with translators to Ukrainian, Russian. - Consulted for sponsor123 landing page, translation plan - push for more RTL support fixes, and other l10n problems This week: - moving to weblate - russian translations sponsor125 -- The Tor Project Community Team Lead

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Community Team meeting notes - March 21 2022
by gus 28 Mar '22

28 Mar '22

Hi, Here are the meeting notes from the Community Team meeting. http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2022/tor-meeting.2022-03-21-13.59.html And our meeting pad: ## Discussion - translation accord: transliterate Tor Browser in Bangla: https://forum.torproject.net/t/proposal-bengali-bangla-transliterate-tor-br… ## Updates Gus: Last week: - S30 Orbot training in Brazil with Nah and Rhatto: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/training/-/issues/35 - Reviewed landing page for sponsor123 - Add the telegram bridges bot in the documentation: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/ - Pinged sursiendo and karisma about adding them in the Partners page: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/community/-/merge_requests/149 - Worked on breaking some tasks into smaller tasks, example: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/relays/-/issues/42 - Some network health work with GeKo This week: - S30 Tor Browser Training in Brazil and Mexico (overview https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/training/-/issues/25) - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/training/-/issues/36 - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/training/-/issues/37 - TBD Mexico training sessions - S9 - Sending the Latam meetup invitations to Colombia and Guatemala - S9 term of reference meeting - Meeting about 1:1s - S30 meeting - Meeting some relays operators with GeKo Help with: - Something you need help with. Joydeep: Last week: - support work on RT, Forum, cdr.link - authored the RT template on the latest Android bug: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40212 - some small documentation (support portal) fixes This week: - Help with S125 reporting - Finish all tasks related to https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40060 - Weekly check-in with the UX Team Help with: rhatto: Last week: - S123 - Work on Onionprobe, a Onion Services monitoring tool: https://gitlab.torproject.org/rhatto/onionprobe - S123 - Support - S30 - Help at 2022-03-15 Orbot training: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/training/-/issues/25 This week: - S123 - Onionprobe enhancements - S123 - Support - Research on Onion Services UX Raya: Last week: - Sponsor 123 meetings: localisation priorities, syncing with other partners. - Worked on progress tracker: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YwRzqududVisrXWHf_hpMXXP83I0k6foJY_… - Finalising landing page content and design: - Content: https://pad.riseup.net/p/sponsor123-landing-page-content-keep - LTR desktop landing page: https://www.figma.com/proto/ylutPeOncMsIvB52htTj0d/Low-Fi-2?node-id=24%3A12… - RTL desktop: https://www.figma.com/proto/cRtpNPRrFONCiC5fsrFX4n/Low-Fi-2-RTL?node-id=24%… - LTR mobile (in progress): https://www.figma.com/proto/LMh2rnNFotSTxFs0hirvYh/Low-Fi-2-Mobile?node-id=… This week: - Start with narrative report - Gauge training priorities for partners Help with: - All good :-) Nina: Last week: - User support on RT and Cdr.link (mostly cdr.link now). - Adding templates (not finished) This week: - Continue with user support - Review articles in Russian. emmapeel: Last week: - Updated community portal translations / new slides helping survivors - Review and publish Tor Browser Manual translations for zh-TW, ko, khmer - Support new Ukrainian translators - Reviewed landing page for sponsor123 This week: - Review and publish tpo website translations for zh-TW, ko, khmer Help with: - Lots of translations need review, please ask around if you know somebody that can review. -- The Tor Project Community Team Lead

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Tor Browser meeting moved to 2022-03-29
by Richard Pospesel 24 Mar '22

24 Mar '22

Hey Everyone, The regularly scheduled Tor Browser meeting next Monday (2022-03-28) will be moved to next Tuesday (2022-03-29) at 1500 UTC at the usual place (#tor-meeting on OFTC). Meeting pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-tbb-keep best, -Richard

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Anti-censorship team meeting notes, 2022-03-24
by meskio 24 Mar '22

24 Mar '22

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2022/tor-meeting.2022-03-24-15.59.html And our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday March 31th 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 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&… * Sponsor 96 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/24 == Announcements == * We have a new developer in the Anti Censorship team: Itchy Onion * Circumvention Settings API is deployed == Discussion == * dnstt bridges * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/trac… * Prepare all pieces of the snowflake pipeline for a second snowflake bridge(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transpor… * Ratify design * Assign Broker Coding Task To Shell * {Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support} is ready to be reviewed again, now with handwritten SOCKS5-DNS * handwritten DNS to get around go stdlib mindset * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… * archive state-of-censorship repo https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/state-of-censorship * supperseeded by moats censorship map * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys-admin/-/blob/main/c… == Actions == == Interesting links == * https://github.com/MatheusAvellar/snowflake-win * Tor's Snowflake, but for Windows. IT DOESN'T WORK! * No idea how they're interfacing C# code with WebRTC == Reading group == * We will discuss "Balboa: Bobbing and Weaving around Network Censorship" on April 7 * https://www.usenix.org/system/files/sec21-rosen.pdf * https://censorbib.nymity.ch/#Rosen2021a * 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. anadahz: 2022-01-27 Last week: - Increase timeout check cycles for default-bridge-felix-1 and default-bridge-felix-2 as they have been generating too many alerts: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/monit-configuration/-/mer… cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2022-03-24 Last week: - onboarded itchy onion onto s28 tasks - reviewed _5eba's snowflake-webext patches - reviewed pt event log scrubbing patch (snowflake!83) This week: - continued work on conjure PT - continue to monitor snowflake broker stats Needs help with: dcf: 2022-03-24 Last week: - discovered a problem with onion keys in the deployment of the interim snowflake bridge, and fixed it https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - spent some time looking at OONI snowflake bootstrap results, since the interim bridge https://explorer.ooni.org/chart/circumvention?since=2022-02-18&until=2022-0… - tried correlating with stunreachability measurements, but couldn't get that to work https://explorer.ooni.org/search?since=2022-03-16&until=2022-03-21&probe_cc… - commented on merge request to scrub pt.Log messages in snowflake-client https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - revised OTF rapid response grant application for a long-term snowflake bridge Next week: - make a post summarizing performance changes since switching to the interim bridge last week Help with: agix: 2021-02-10 Last week: - Continued work on gettor-twitter Next week: - Hopefully finish the task Help with: - arlolra: 2022-03-10 Last week: - Pass bridge fingerprint in SOCKS param to the broker https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: - Revise !81 - Start on the next piece of the multiple bridge design Evergreen: - Figure out where in pion/webrtc ALPN should be configured and used - Maybe add Chacha20Poly1305 to pion/dtls https://github.com/pion/dtls#planned-features https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Help with: - maxb: 2021-09-23 Last week: - Worked on https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… re: utls for broker negotiation - Had conversation with someone about upstream utls http round tripper https://github.com/refraction-networking/utls/pull/74 - Too busy with work :/ Next week: - _Really_ want to get a PR for utls round tripper meskio: 2022-03-24 Last week: - deploy circumvention settings (bridgedb#40025) - add daily bridge rotation for circumvention settings anti listing (rdsys#79) - integrate telegram bot into rdsys (rdsys#77) - review OnionSproutsBot (telegram gettor) code and move forward the deployment of it - update obfs4-bridge docker image to use the latest obfs4proxy from debian backports (docker-obfs4-proxy!9) - archive state-of-censorship repo Next week: - telegram bot support for dynamic bridges (rdsys#77) Shelikhoo: 2022-03-24 Last Week: - [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64) - [Merge Request Done] uTLS for broker negotiation - [Coding & Deployment] Proposal: Centralized Probe Result Collector (anti-censorship/team#54) - [Discussion] Centralized Probe Log Collection Ascension Request - [Discussion] Hosting Centralized Probe Log Collection Server on TPA managed VPS - [Discussion] Prepare all pieces of the snowflake pipeline for a second snowflake bridge(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transpor… - [Demo] Introducation to V2Ray + Tor in Demo Day Next Week: - [Coding] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64) - built-in DNS - [Coding] Distributed Snowflake Bridges - Broker HackerNCoder: 2021-12-16 This week: Last/done: Setup web mirror on tor.encryptionin.space Next: Get (new VPs with) new IP and setup new web mirror on new domain 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: - ln5: 2022-03-24 Last week: - Received hardware for a new home for snowflake.tpn; discussed OS configuration with dcf in private email Next week: - Install Debian 11 on new snowflake.tpn - Possibly rack new snowflake.tpn, if I can get access and find time to do the transportation Need help with: - Input on urgency appreciated, for my planning - Input on preferred CPU configuration, esp wrt HyperThreading -- lacking input before deployment in data centre, the machine will *not* have HT disabled and CPU bug mitigation will thus have to be carried out by the kernel -- meskio | https://meskio.net/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- My contact info: https://meskio.net/crypto.txt -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Nos vamos a Croatan.

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DEMO day is happening on March 23rd at 1600 UTC
by Gaba 23 Mar '22

23 Mar '22

Hi! The DEMO day for this month will happen on March 23rd at 1600 UTC. I will send the link for the BBB room a few hours before the event. What is a Demo Day? ------------------- An hour long session at Tir Project's all hands meeting where different people present 5 minutes ideas, tools, hacking or anything that they think it may be interesting for the Tor community. Presenters will have 5 to 8 minutes and people can ask questions via text in the pad for 3 minutes. For this month we will have: - Guardian Project: with Orbot for iOS https://orbot.app - Anarcat: Undertime - Dealing with the nightmare of timezone and time changes on the commandline in Python. - Shelikhoo: V2Ray - V2Ray is one of the external proxies one can use to connect to Tor network. It can help user bypass some of the most restrictive censorship here on this planet. Combined with Tor it help user to browse Internet freely, speedy and anonymously. Here is short demo of V2Ray and how to use it to connect to Tor. - Hiro: Metrics Dashboard. - Rhatto: Onionprobe - Jim: Using Shadow @ Tor - To test and tune tor's new congestion control algorithm, we've been using the [shadow] simulator to evaluate the performance of proposed changes. I'll begin by showing how to set up and run a tiny simulation with a web server and a client, and then show how we incrementally build up from there to push-button realistic Tor simulations run in Gitlab CI. [shadow]: https://shadow.github.io/ - PieroV: New censorship circumvention in about:connect in the Tor Browser. - Richard: update about Blueprint work on Gosling and show off some very hello world functionality. -- pronouns she/her/they GPG Fingerprint EE3F DF5C AD91 643C 21BE 8370 180D B06C 59CA BD19

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