May 2022 - tor-project - lists.torproject.org

Joydeep's Monthly Status Report for April 2022
by Joydeep Sen Gupta 06 May '22

06 May '22

Hello everyone! This is my monthly report for the month of April. With two Tor Browser releases in the past month (11.0.10 and 11.5a9), we received a few reports of two Tor Browser for Android bugs, namely, "Tor Browser crashing on launch" [1] and "Bug in rendering webpages" [2], I worked with the users to gather feedback for the bug reports and have been collaborating with the UX team to discuss the same during the weekly team meetings. Other frequently asked questions involved questions about setting up and using Snowflake [3], resisting censorship with Tor, random websites blocking Tor connections and about how to change the search engine from the default DuckDuckGo on Tor Browser. Last month, we saw a total of 23 unique requests for unlisted obfs4 bridges (mostly from China). These requests are generally accompanied with troubleshooting with the user. As part of my ongoing work with improving the moderation workflow on the Tor Forum, I have been looking for ways to improve the moderation queue [4] and efficient use of the 'tags' on the forum [5]. I made some progress in both of those tasks. Documenting some our workflow with the Request Tracker for user support, I authored a Community wiki article [6] on tips, best practices and efficient use of RT. That pretty much sums up the highlights from last month and following are some quick stats and highlights from our official support channels. ## Frontdesk Timeline : 01 Apr - 30 Apr 2022 Tickets: new: 13 open: 1 resolved: 383 Breakdown of number of RT tickets received with respect to operating system: (Note: This includes tickets where the user mentioned the operating system or it was evident from the issue they were running into and/or enclosed screenshots.) Windows - 15 macOS - 5 GNU/Linux - 5 Android- 15 Breakdown of most frequent tickets (at least 3 RT tickets): 1. 133 RT Tickets - How to use Tor Bridges in Russia. [7] 2. 23 RT Tickets - Private Bridge requests. This is not related to the .ru censorship but requests from Tor users in China, Iran, etc. [8] 3. 4 RT Tickets - How to circumvent geo-based restrictions with Tor? 4. 4 RT Tickets - Tor Browser Android 11.0.8 crashes on launch [1] 5. 3 RT Tickets - How to change the default SE and add a new search engine to Tor Browser? [9] 6. 3 RT Tickets - Bug in rendering webpages (on Tor Browser for Android on Samsung S22) [2] 7. 3 RT Tickets - Questions about the Snowflake proxy [3] ## Tor Forum Most popular topics in the Support category (in terms of no. of views): 1. "Bridge Blocklist RU". [10] 2. "Administrator (on windows) vs root (on GNU/Linux) and Tor Browser". [11] 3. "“Secure Connection Not Available” on https sites" [12] 4. "Is the (tor) RPM repository no longer maintained?" [13] 5. "(Setup a ) Tor node on live USB" [14] Thanks, -- Joydeep [1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40212 [2]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40216 [3]: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/what-is-snowflake/ [4]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40060 [5]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40063 [6]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/team/-/wikis/Frontdesk:-Tips-fo… [7]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-blocked-in-russia-how-to-circumvent-cens… [8]: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/ [9]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/custom-search-engine-in-tor-browser/2574 [10]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/bridge-blocklist-ru/2989 [11]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/administrator-vs-root-and-tor-browser/2954 [12]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/secure-connection-not-available-on-https-sit… [13]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/is-the-rpm-repository-no-longer-maintained/2… [14]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-node-on-live-usb/2888

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Community Team meeting notes - May 2nd 2022
by gus 06 May '22

06 May '22

Hi, Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2022/tor-meeting.2022-05-02-13.59.log… And our meeting pad: ## Tor Community Team meeting pad Next meeting: Monday, May 9, 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 check-in 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 - Relay operator sysadmin 101 workshop: - (draft) form: https://nc.torproject.net/apps/forms/cDLPxryHJcP5kMeW - invitation: - (gus) oniondao folks - (gman999) bsd folks + RPI students - OONI+Tor training in Latam with Derechos Digitales: - Maria will run an OONI workshop with DD - We will have a training day to talk about Tor & anticensorship - Gus will share the survey pad with Raya - Ticket: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/training/-/issues/47 - Collecting Tor Browser alpha feedback from our support channels (RT and cdr.link): - Create a pad to collect user feedback from RT and cdr.link and track down TB alpha bugs - Create a template on RT to tag tickets - Add how to report a bug or give feedback in cdr.link text module (in Russian): https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40079 - Training page revamp discussion: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/community/-/issues/265 ## Updates Joydeep: Last week: - 1:1 with Gus - Testing Tor Browser 11.5a9 wrt. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/manual/-/issues/119 - Reviewed user trust levels on the forum with Gus (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40078) - Investigating some issues on our Telegram support channel / cdr.link with Nina (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40078) - user support work forum, RT, cdr.link - working with users to gather feedback on this fenix bug : https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40216 This week: - Testing Tor Browser alpha and prepare the documentation changes - S125 retrospective meeting Gus: Last week: - Worked on relay operator workshop form - Organized the Tor Latam meetup - S96 meeting - S9 meeting - Websites work: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/support/-/merge_requests/108 - Meeting with Derechos Digitales - Alix Dunn course - Met opensearch community manager - team 1:1s - Got more private bridges for frontdesk/cdr.link This week: - S125 retrospective meeting - S30 meeting - Team 1:1s - Alix Dunn course - Network Health work with dgoulet and geko - Organize the East Africa Meetup (05/26 @ 1300 UTC) with raya - Promote the Relay Operator meetup (05/21 @ 1900 UTC) - Publish the Tor news (newsletter.torproject.org) rhatto: Last week: - S123 - Continue the Onionprobe testbed setup: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-support/-/issues/59 - S123 - Continue to work on new deployments - S123 - Created Onionmine: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onionmine/ This week: - S123 - Continue the Onionprobe testbed setup: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onionprobe/-/merge_request… - S123 - Work on new deployments - 1:1 with Gus Nina: Last week: - Tor users' support on cdr.link (Telegram) and RT (email). - 1:1 with Gus - Checked Telegram support channel issues This week: - User support. - Final meeting s125 - alpha-version testing raya: Last week: - Met with s123 stakeholders, discussed infrastructure requirements for s123 landing pages - April narrative report for s123: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-support/-/issues/75 - Some touch-ups on training page proposal: - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/community/-/issues/265 - Started presentation on onion services for general audience (will help with s123, conference proposal, and general use within community work) - 1:1 with Gus - Gathered a list of entities who could be interested in a Tor Global South meetup This week: - Finalize s123 narrative report and send to grants - First draft of onion services presentation complete Help with: - Something you need help with. emmapeel: Last week: - support sponsors 123 and 125 - translation maintenance, updates, translators feedback This week: - support sponsors 123 and 125 - translation documentation - training page revamp Help with: - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/tpo/-/issues/290 to publish Khmer translation -- The Tor Project Community Team Lead

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Rhatto's Monthly Status Report, April 2022
by rhatto 05 May '22

05 May '22

Hi all :) This is my monthly status report for April 2022. Main activities during the period: 0. Onionprobe (an onion sites monitoring tool): * Uploaded to PyPI! https://pypi.org/project/onionprobe/ * Released Onionprobe version 0.3.0: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onionprobe/-/blob/main/Cha… https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onionprobe/-/tags/0.3.0 * Added Debian packaging support! https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onionprobe/-/issues/4 * Adapted for an instance monitoring the health of The Tor Project's onion sites: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40717 2. Onionmine: created this small set of scripts to help automating the generation of Onion Service vanity keys: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onionmine/ 3. Many other activities related to Sponsor 123 such as meetings, development and support :) -- Silvio Rhatto pronouns he/him

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Anti-censorship team meeting notes, 2022-05-05
by meskio 05 May '22

05 May '22

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2022/tor-meeting.2022-05-05-15.58.html And our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday May 12th 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 check-in 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 == * the bridges telegram bot is now in rdsys == Discussion == * Distributed Snowflake Server Support * there is a merge request now: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… * review is wellcome, there are mayor changes * RKS hackathon * RKS is organizing a hackathon: demhack.ru and asked TPO to be part of it * we are proposing whatsapp gettor+bridgesbot * they think it might be to small, we can extend it * another idea is to do it in iMessage * we'll discuss it in a ticket * due to monday == Actions == * == Interesting links == * == Reading group == * We will discuss "Understanding the Impact of Encrypted DNS on Internet Censorship, ACM WWW 2021" on May 19th, 2022 * https://shhaos.github.io/papers/www21-DoE.pdf * 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 2022-04-14 Last week: - moved tor-specific snowflake code out of client library (snowflake#40124) - merge request: snowflake!85 - bump version of webrtc dependency (snowflake#40127) - merge request: snowflake!86 - commented on snowflake web workflow (snowflake#40125) - opened issue to bump version of snowflake and webrtc in tor browser (tor-browser-build#40474) - work on conjure test environment setup This week: - continue work on conjure PT - continue snowflake maintenance tasks Needs help with: dcf: 2022-05-01 (will be absent 2022-05-05) Last week: - opened an issue for confusing client NAT check log messages https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - filed an OONI issue to get access to stunreachability measurements, in order to get more insignt into torsf (snowflake) failures https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/590 Next week: - look at STATUS VERSION proposal https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/torspec/-/merge_requests/63 - set up access control on the snowflake-02 bridge https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Help with: arlolra: 2022-04-07 Last week: - Merged the rest of snowflake !81 Next week: - Get to snowflake-webext #10 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: 2022-05-05 Last week: - deploy telegram in rdsys (rdsys#111) - advance on the onionsproutsbot deployment (team#78) - add onionsproutsbot to transifex (l10n#40070) - add the location to circumvention settings (rdsys#108) - API for dynamic bridges in telegram (rdsys#98) - review bridedb.tpo/info fixes (bridgedb!39) Next week: - bridges sharing the same IP should use the same distributor (rdsys#106) - finish and deploy the changes into circumvention settings API (rdsys#108) Shelikhoo: 2022-05-05 Last Week: >>> - [Merge Request] Add Distributed Snowflake Server Support (snowflake!87) <<< - [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64) - [Merge Request Review] Telegram distributor hands both new and old bridges to old accounts(snowflake!37) - [Merge Request Review] Don't mix up old and new telegram accounts(snowflake!38) - [Merge Request Review] Remove smallerRichard default bridge - [Research & Coding] WebSocket + CDN Based Probe Control Connection Forwarder (shelikhoo/LogCollectorAncillary#3) - [Coding & Deployment] Include frontdisk testing targets in probe tests (shelikhoo/LogCollectorAncillary#4) - [Coding & Deployment] Proposal: Centralized Probe Result Collector (anti-censorship/team#54) - [Discussion] Opening 8443 port on probetelemetry-01@ for V2Ray Websocket Connection Inbound Next Week: - [Coding] Distributed Snowflake Bridges (continue) - [Coding & Deployment] Proposal: Centralized Probe Result Collector (anti-censorship/team#54) - [Research] Implement metrics to measure snowflake churn(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transport… Itchy Onion: 2022-05-05 Last week: - go over snowflake code (in preparation for the next Georgetown meeting and also help with snowflake rebasing) This week: - prepare Georgetown meeting (read more docs and code) - starting to look at new RACE version (2.1.1) 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 -- meskio | https://meskio.net/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- My contact info: https://meskio.net/crypto.txt -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Nos vamos a Croatan.

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Nina's Monthly Status Report, April 2022
by nina13＠riseup.net 05 May '22

05 May '22

Hi, that's my monthly report for April 2022 Summary: Telegram tickets answered and solved - 554 Tickets received by email (frontdesk) answered and solved - 189 Total: 743 This month I took part in the Samsung S22 bug investigation[1] and spotted some issues with cdr.link[2]. Fortunately, minor ones. In April, we managed to get some feedback on censorship in Turkmenistan[3] and test some ways to circumvent it. Private bridges worked best. This month @ggus, @championquizzer, and I had a Ticket triage and backlog session for frontdesk tickets. I put some effort into educating as many users as possible about our bot https://t.me/@getbridgesbot so that they could get bridges anytime and immediately. That makes their experience using Tor Browser better and gives us more space to communicate with alpha-testers. [1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40216 [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40078 [3] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/iss… and https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/iss…

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PieroV's Monthly Status Report, April 2022
by Pier Angelo Vendrame 03 May '22

03 May '22

Hi everyone! Here is my status report for April 2022. As anticipated last month, I continued working on the about:torconnect page and on about:preferences#connection. We have merged the first revision, which you can find on the latest alphas of Tor Browser 11.5! Any feedback is more than welcome 😄️. But we have not stopped there, and we prepared a second iteration, which is being reviewed [1]. Apart from this, I have worked on Tor Browser for Android for the rest of the month. We really had a lot of trouble with the rebase to Geckoview/Android Components/Fenix v99. You can read the whole story on tor-browser-build#40446 [2]. It should solve the crash that some users reported to us. We are sorry it took us so long to fix them. I have also already rebased everything for a v99-base stable of Tor Browser for Android 11.0, and I hope to begin its preparation soon. However, Firefox 100 is coming soon. Therefore, I worked for a v100-based TBA in April last week [3]. In addition to the updates, my working branch makes the QA-signed build compatible with Android R+ [4]. Thanks, Pier [1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/merge_requests… [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/4… [3] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/4… [4] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/fenix/-/issues/40202

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