Hi!
The Tor Project and Tor community is going to be gathering online
from November 6th to November 9th this year for a 4 days hackweek.
## About
This is a call for projects for whoever wants to participate, put
together a team and hack through one working week with us. In the
context of this hackweek, a project is anything related to Tor
documentation that you can work with other people in 4 days. It could be
improving the documentation for a project, a tutorial or could also be a
cartoon, a screencast or anything that do not necessary requires coding
skills. You will work on this project during 4 days with other people in
your team.
This is an opportunity to discuss how documentation is working or not in
your projects, as well as thinking, proposing, researching and testing
solutions. Documentation is very important for any free software project
as it is the way for people to start understanding the work we are
doing, the way they can use our tools and start contributing with it.
In the next All-Hands following the Hackweek we are going to have a demo
in a Big Blue Button's room where your team will present the work you
did through the hackweek.
## Timeline
This will be the timeline for the hackweek this year:
* Until Monday, November 6th:
* Send hackweek project proposals to this issue queue:
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/hackweek/-/issues
(please use the "Proposal" issue template for the ticket
Description).
* Before hackweek begins, start looking for other people to join
your team.
* In order to join a proposal you liked, subscribe yourself to it's
ticket.
* Wednesday, November 1st - 16:00 UTC: All-Hands session prior to the
Hackweek were people/teams will present their project proposals for
other people to join their team if they want to.
* Monday, November 6th: Hackweek begins. People start working on
whatever they want related to documentation. By this time, you should
have a few members of your team already identified.
Hack hack hack hack... in whatever way you organize yourself. We will
have the room #tor in irc.oftc.net to discuss general hackweek things.
* Thursday, November 9th: Hackweek ends.
* Wednesday, November 15th - 16:00 UTC: Each team presents the work they
did in the All-Hands session happening after the Hackweek.
## Projects
The updated list of projects will be available at
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/hackweek/-/issues. Each
project can have one pad (you can use https://pad.riseup.net) and also
use it's ticket to add all information that people need to add
themselves to that project.
## References
For best practices on documentation, we recommend the following
material:
* Diátaxis, "The Grand Unified Theory of Documentation":
https://diataxis.fr/
* How to pick up a project with an audit:
https://bluesock.org/~willkg/blog/dev/auditing_projects.html
cheers,
--
Silvio Rhatto
pronouns he/him
Hello!
The Foundations Team at Tails is hiring a Linux generalist. Tails is a portable
operating system that protects against surveillance and censorship.
The Foundations Team is responsible for maintaining, releasing, and improving
Tails. We work remotely, and do not have a traditional office space.
Full job description and instructions on how to apply:
https://tails.net/jobs/Linux_generalist/
Please share this with anyone you know who might be a fit!
Thank you,
--
intrigeri
Summary: I deployed a new GitLab CI runner backed by Podman instead of
Docker, we hope it will improve the stability and our capacity at
building images, but I need help testing it.
# Background
We've been having [stability issues][] with the Docker runners for a
while now. We also started looking again at container image builds,
which are currently failing without Kaniko.
[stability issues]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/41295
[ships instructions on how to build containers inside Podman]: https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/executors/docker.html#use-podman-to-build-co…
# Proposal
## Testers needed
I need help testing the new runner. Right now it's marked as not
running "untagged jobs", so it's unlikely to pick your CI jobs and run
them. It would be great if people could test the new runner.
See the [GitLab tag documentation][] for how to add tags to your
configuration. It's basically done by adding a `tags` field to the
`.gitlab-ci.yml` file.
Note that in TPA's [ci-test gitlab-ci.yaml file][], we use a
`TPA_TAG_VALUE` variable to be able to pass arbitrary tags down into
the jobs without having to constantly change the .yaml file, which
might be a useful addition to your workflow.
The tag to use is `podman`.
You can send any job you want to the `podman` runner, but we'd like to
test a broad variety of things before we put it in production, but
especially image buildings. Upstream even has a [set of instructions
to build packages inside podman][].
[ci-test gitlab-ci.yaml file]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/ci-test/-/blob/main/.gitlab-ci.yml
[GitLab tag documentation]: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#tags
[set of instructions to build packages inside podman]: https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/executors/docker.html#use-podman-to-build-co…
## Long term plan
If this goes well, we'd like to converge towards using `podman` for
all workloads. It's better packaged in Debian, and better designed,
than Docker. It also allows us to run containers as non-root.
That, however, is not part of this proposal. We're already running
Podman for another service (MinIO) but we're not proposing to
*convert* all existing services to `podman`. If things work well
enough for a long enough period (say 30 days), we might turn off the
older Docker running instead.
# Alternatives considered
To fix the stability issues in Docker, it might be possible to upgrade
to the latest upstream package and abandon the packages from
Debian.org. We're hoping that will not be necessary thanks to Podman.
To build images, we could create a "privileged" runner. For now, we're
hoping Podman will make building container images easier. If we do
create a privileged runner, it needs to take into account the long
term [tiered runner approach](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/41044).
# Deadline
The service is already available, and will be running untagged jobs in
two weeks unless an objection is raised.
# Status
This proposal is currently in the `proposed` state.
# References
Feedback can be provided in the [discussion issue][].
[discussion issue]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/41296
--
Antoine Beaupré
torproject.org system adminicd stration
Hey everyone,
I hope everyone is doing well :)
I started working on eRPC <https://gitlab.torproject.org/rishadbaniya/erpc>
few weeks back as part of GSoC and since I've started this project, new
doors of knowledge have opened every single day for me. I never thought the
abstractions on which the tor browser runs would be this fun to peel
through "arti". I've had days where I spent my entire day just trying to
understand how different tor spec files were implemented in "arti", it was
a fun journey that I still want to continue.
The problem this project(*eRPC) *aims to solve is, a tool for checking
partition among relays(by attempting to create all possible two hop
circuits) and using the circuits that were built by OnionPerf running
hosts(they release OnionPerf analysis file). Currently *eRPC* handles the
basic fundamentals i.e creating two hop circuits, taking OnionPerf analysis
file as input and adds extra feature on top of it, such as distributing
among different host machines using gRPC, pause and resume the state of the
application, saving data to relational database sqlite or/and graph
database neo4j. This data then can be used to visualize the partition
within the Tor Network. You can view more about the project at
https://gitlab.torproject.org/rishadbaniya/erpc
I've attached a report regarding the current state and future plans of this
project, you can find the most details regarding the project at the WiKi of
the repository.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone at the Tor community for being
extremely helpful every time and guiding me through the entire journey,
especially to my mentors "GeKo" and "juga".
With regards,
Rishad Baniya
Hello Tor community,
Attention researchers! There is a new grant opportunity from a coalition
of funders (Ford Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Omidyar
Network, Schmidt Futures and Open Collective) that may be of interest to
you called the Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund:
https://fordfoundation.forms.fm/2023-digital-infrastructure-insights-fund-r….
This funding is for research projects designed to gain a deeper
understanding of how open digital infrastructure is built, deployed and
maintained. They are looking for projects that examine:
> * underlying free and open-source software (FOSS) interacts with
> politics, sovereign responsibilities, diverse economic sectors,
> and the advancement of knowledge in the sciences and beyond.
>
> * the convergence of open-source software and digital infrastructure
> with social movements focused on democracy, rights, justice, the
> environment and scientific research.
>
> * the issue of under-maintenance and occasional undermining of FOSS,
> as well as explore any geographical or other disparities within
> the communities responsible for providing and sustaining these
> software components amid evolving regulatory and socio-technical
> circumstances.
>
If you have a project in mind related to the Tor community, you can let
the Tor Fundraising team (grants(a)torproject.org, or directly to me)
know; we'd be happy to help you develop your idea.
Al
--
Al Smith (they/them)
Fundraising Director
The Tor Project
Hey everyone!
Here are our meeting logs:
http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2023/tor-meeting.2023-08-24-15.58.html
And our meeting pad:
Anti-censorship work meeting pad
--------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THIS IS A
PUBLIC PAD
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-censorship
--------------------------------
Next meeting: Thursday, Sep 07 16:00 UTC
Facilitator: meskio
Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 16:00 UTC, in #tor-meeting at OFTC
(channel is logged while meetings are in progress)
This week's Facilitator: shelikhoo
== 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 the
Tor Project and Tor community.
== 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 96 <-- meskio, shell, onyinyang, cohosh
* https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/24
* Sponsor 139 <-- hackerncoder, irl, joydeep, meskio, emmapeel
working on it
* https://pad.riseup.net/p/sponsor139-meeting-pad
== Announcements ==
No meeting August 31st due to TPI wide AFK
== Discussion ==
* No webtunnel and conjure options at
https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-transport.html
== Actions ==
* Next week (August 10th): follow up on Snowflake/Pion
incompatibility with Android 11+ and SDK >29) when Guardian project
responds and shelikhoo returns:
*
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
* might only affect android apps that target android>11, but
google will start requiring it soon (end of August 2023)
*
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/11926878
* Issue on pion side, closed as wontfix:
https://github.com/pion/transport/issues/228
* we ought to be up to date with dependencies, as renovatebot
is connected to the snowflake repo
* meskio will cc Guardian Project on #40278 to see if they have
any insight
* shelikhoo will try to reproduce and will try the available
patches
* no news 2023-08-03
== Interesting links ==
* "Citation Filtered: Iran’s Censorship of Wikipedia" (ca. 2013)
* https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/37498
*
https://web.archive.org/web/20181226101810/http://citationfiltered.org/
* https://github.com/collina/citationreference
*
https://en.greatfire.org/blog/2023/aug/14-million-people-used-freebrowser-c…
== 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): 2023-08-17
Last week:
- rebased tor-browser-build MR for lox client integration
-
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/merge_re…
This week:
- tidy up and share shadow simulations guide for PTs
- deploy the lox distributor for testing with rdsys
-
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/issues/19
- finish testing tor-browser-build MR for lox client integration
- followup on conjure reliability issues
Needs help with:
dcf: 2023-08-24
Last week:
- snowflake Azure CDN bookkeeping
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Snowflake-co…
Next week:
- merge goptlib STATUS TYPE=version
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/gopt…
- revise encapsulation.ReadData redesign to return an error in
the case of a short buffer
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
- open issue to have snowflake-client log whenever KCPInErrors
is nonzero
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
- parent:
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
- open issue to disable /debug endpoint on snowflake broker
Help with:
meskio: 2023-08-10
Last week:
- review webtunnel documentation for the community portal
(web/community!310)
- fix snowflake release CI (snowflake!157)
- create an issue to discuss HTTP CONNECT and MASQUE for the
future of PTs (team#130)
- lox reviews (lox-rs!22 lox-rs!20)
Next week:
- be AFK at CCCamp
Shelikhoo: 2023-08-24
Last Week:
- [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to
snowflake (snowflake!64) (stalled)
- [Deployment] Collect prometheus data from Centralized Probe
Log(probetelemetry-01@)
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/41302
- [Merge Request] Workaround for Android 30+ restriction for
netlinkrib API
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
- [Merge Request Review] **** Too many ****
Next Week/TODO:
- logcollector alert system <- immediate todo
- Add Remote Network Address Mapping in HTTP Upgrade Transport
(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/webt…)
onyinyang: 2023-08-24
Last week(s):
- Vacation!
- Finalized db implementation in sled
- Working on a different approach for getting resources from
rdsys since Lox requires knowledge of bridge state over time:
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/issues/8#note_29…
This week:
- Continue with refactoring of rdsys_backend_api and
integration with lox-distributor
- Work on adding metrics
(long term things were discussed at the meeting!):
https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-ac-community-azaleas-room-keep
- brainstorming grouping strategies for Lox buckets (of
bridges) and gathering context on how types of bridges are
distributed/use in practice
Question: What makes a bridge usable for a given user, and
how can we encode that to best ensure we're getting the most appropriate
resources to people?
1. Are there some obvious grouping strategies that we
can already consider?
e.g., by pt, by bandwidth (lower bandwidth bridges
sacrificed to open-invitation buckets?), by locale (to be matched with a
requesting user's geoip or something?)
2. Does it make sense to group 3 bridges/bucket, so
trusted users have access to 3 bridges (and untrusted users have access
to 1)? More? Less?
Itchy Onion: 2023-06-08
Last week:
- fixed snowflake pipeline due to outdated Debian image
- continue working on rdsys#56 implementation. Still need to do the
following:
- finish up computing bridge distribution in Kraken
- does it have to be deterministic?
- does the disproportion have to be strictly followed
- finish writing tests
- refactor code because some functions are getting extremely long
- what to do with stencil package?
This week:
- review MRs
- continue working on rdsys#56 implementation. Still need to do the
following:
- fixed a problem with vanilla bridges not being added properly
to the database
- still working on tests
- adding a migaration patch
(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/56#note_29…)
Hey everyone!
Here are our meeting logs:
http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2023/tor-meeting.2023-08-17-15.57.html
And our meeting pad:
Anti-censorship work meeting pad
--------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THIS IS A
PUBLIC PAD
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-censorship
--------------------------------
Next meeting: Thursday, Aug 24 16:00 UTC
Facilitator: shelikhoo
Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 16:00 UTC, in #tor-meeting at OFTC
(channel is logged while meetings are in progress)
This week's Facilitator: shelikhoo
== 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 the
Tor Project and Tor community.
== 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 96 <-- meskio, shell, onyinyang, cohosh
* https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/24
* Sponsor 139 <-- hackerncoder, irl, joydeep, meskio, emmapeel
working on it
* https://pad.riseup.net/p/sponsor139-meeting-pad
== Announcements ==
== Discussion ==
* No webtunnel and conjure options at
https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-transport.html
== Actions ==
* Next week (August 10th): follow up on Snowflake/Pion
incompatibility with Android 11+ and SDK >29) when Guardian project
responds and shelikhoo returns:
*
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
* might only affect android apps that target android>11, but
google will start requiring it soon (end of August 2023)
*
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/11926878
* Issue on pion side, closed as wontfix:
https://github.com/pion/transport/issues/228
* we ought to be up to date with dependencies, as renovatebot
is connected to the snowflake repo
* meskio will cc Guardian Project on #40278 to see if they have
any insight
* shelikhoo will try to reproduce and will try the available
patches
* no news 2023-08-03
== Interesting links ==
* "Citation Filtered: Iran’s Censorship of Wikipedia" (ca. 2013)
* https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/37498
*
https://web.archive.org/web/20181226101810/http://citationfiltered.org/
* https://github.com/collina/citationreference
== 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): 2023-08-17
Last week:
- rebased tor-browser-build MR for lox client integration
-
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/merge_re…
This week:
- tidy up and share shadow simulations guide for PTs
- deploy the lox distributor for testing with rdsys
-
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/issues/19
- finish testing tor-browser-build MR for lox client integration
- followup on conjure reliability issues
Needs help with:
dcf: 2023-08-17
Last week:
-
Next week:
- merge goptlib STATUS TYPE=version
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/gopt…
- revise encapsulation.ReadData redesign to return an error in
the case of a short buffer
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
- open issue to have snowflake-client log whenever KCPInErrors
is nonzero
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
- parent:
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
- open issue to disable /debug endpoint on snowflake broker
Help with:
meskio: 2023-08-10
Last week:
- review webtunnel documentation for the community portal
(web/community!310)
- fix snowflake release CI (snowflake!157)
- create an issue to discuss HTTP CONNECT and MASQUE for the
future of PTs (team#130)
- lox reviews (lox-rs!22 lox-rs!20)
Next week:
- be AFK at CCCamp
Shelikhoo: 2023-08-17
Last Week:
- [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to
snowflake (snowflake!64) (stalled)
- [Invesagate] Snowflake failed to connect on Android 11 and
above
(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…)
Next Week/TODO:
- logcollector alert system <- immediate todo
onyinyang: 2023-08-03
Last week(s):
- Implemented db
- decided against polodb and went for sled instead
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/merge_requests/22
- not sure if reading/writing the lox-context to json
should still be supported at all or just removed
- Implemented and tested a basic k-invites for open entry distribution
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/merge_requests/20
- Thought more deeply about how best to sync Lox with rdsys given
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/168
- the rdsys API is really not designed for a distributor
like Lox that needs persistence. Even a lastPassed flag will only be
helpful for `gone` resources if Lox stores all of the resource info from
rdsys and checks it regularly. This diverges from the original intention
of rdsys, in which rdsys should be the 'arbiter of truth' for the status
of resources
- The next step is to check the rdsys API and see if the
get functionality can improve this situation. I think ideally we want a
list of all resources assigned to Lox and their current statuses that
can then be checked against something like the `lastPassed` flag each
time Lox polls rdsys.
This week:
- Continue with implementing db and synchronization between
Lox/rdsys (possibly reliant on some aspects of the former point)
- Work on adding metrics
- AFK from August 5 - 21!
(long term things were discussed at the meeting!):
https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-ac-community-azaleas-room-keep
- brainstorming grouping strategies for Lox buckets (of
bridges) and gathering context on how types of bridges are
distributed/use in practice
Question: What makes a bridge usable for a given user, and
how can we encode that to best ensure we're getting the most appropriate
resources to people?
1. Are there some obvious grouping strategies that we
can already consider?
e.g., by pt, by bandwidth (lower bandwidth bridges
sacrificed to open-invitation buckets?), by locale (to be matched with a
requesting user's geoip or something?)
2. Does it make sense to group 3 bridges/bucket, so
trusted users have access to 3 bridges (and untrusted users have access
to 1)? More? Less?
Itchy Onion: 2023-06-08
Last week:
- fixed snowflake pipeline due to outdated Debian image
- continue working on rdsys#56 implementation. Still need to do the
following:
- finish up computing bridge distribution in Kraken
- does it have to be deterministic?
- does the disproportion have to be strictly followed
- finish writing tests
- refactor code because some functions are getting extremely long
- what to do with stencil package?
This week:
- review MRs
- continue working on rdsys#56 implementation. Still need to do the
following:
- fixed a problem with vanilla bridges not being added properly
to the database
- still working on tests
- adding a migaration patch
(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/56#note_29…)
Hey everyone!
Here are our meeting logs:
http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2023/tor-meeting.2023-08-10-15.57.html
And our meeting pad:
Anti-censorship
--------------------------------
Next meeting: Thursday, Aug 17 16:00 UTC
Facilitator: meskio
Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 16:00 UTC, in #tor-meeting at OFTC
(channel is logged while meetings are in progress)
This week's Facilitator: shelikhoo
== 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 the Tor Project and Tor community.
== 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 96 <-- meskio, shell, onyinyang, cohosh
* https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/24
* Sponsor 139 <-- hackerncoder, irl, joydeep, meskio, emmapeel working on it
* https://pad.riseup.net/p/sponsor139-meeting-pad
== Announcements ==
* Webtunnel documentation in the community portal:
* https://community.torproject.org/relay/setup/webtunnel/
== Discussion ==
* HTTP CONNECT and MASQUE for the future of PTs
* https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/130
* coordination with other PT teams?
* https://github.com/Pluggable-Transports/Pluggable-Transports-spec
* https://github.com/twisteroidambassador/ptadapter
* https://community.internetfreedomfestival.org/community/channels/pluggable-…
== Actions ==
* Next week (August 10th): follow up on Snowflake/Pion incompatibility with Android 11+ and SDK >29) when Guardian project responds and shelikhoo returns:
* https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
* might only affect android apps that target android>11, but google will start requiring it soon (end of August 2023)
* https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/11926878
* Issue on pion side, closed as wontfix: https://github.com/pion/transport/issues/228
* we ought to be up to date with dependencies, as renovatebot is connected to the snowflake repo
* meskio will cc Guardian Project on #40278 to see if they have any insight
* shelikhoo will try to reproduce and will try the available patches
* no news 2023-08-03
== 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): away until 2023-08-17
Last week:
This week:
Needs help with:
dcf: 2023-08-10
Last week:
- contributed some review to STATUS TYPE=version for server pluggable transports in core tor https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/merge_requests/731
- reviewed STATUS TYPE=version in goptlib https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/gopt…
- did more investigation of past snowflake blocking in Turkmenistan, particularly the rise an fall in users from May to August 2022 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/iss…
Next week:
- merge goptlib STATUS TYPE=version https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/gopt…
- revise encapsulation.ReadData redesign to return an error in the case of a short buffer https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
- open issue to have snowflake-client log whenever KCPInErrors is nonzero https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
- parent: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow…
- open issue to disable /debug endpoint on snowflake broker
Help with:
meskio: 2023-08-10
Last week:
- review webtunnel documentation for the community portal (web/community!310)
- fix snowflake release CI (snowflake!157)
- create an issue to discuss HTTP CONNECT and MASQUE for the future of PTs (team#130)
- lox reviews (lox-rs!22 lox-rs!20)
Next week:
- be AFK at CCCamp
Shelikhoo: 2023-07-27
Last Week:
- [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64) (stalled)
- [Research] HTTPT Planning https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/http…
- logcollector alert system - ongoing
- Reviewing & comment on merge requests
- FOCI Keynote and attendence
Next Week/TODO:
- logcollector alert system <- immediate todo
onyinyang: 2023-08-03
Last week(s):
- Implemented db
- decided against polodb and went for sled instead
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/merge_requests/22
- not sure if reading/writing the lox-context to json should still be supported at all or just removed
- Implemented and tested a basic k-invites for open entry distribution
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/merge_requests/20
- Thought more deeply about how best to sync Lox with rdsys given https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/168
- the rdsys API is really not designed for a distributor like Lox that needs persistence. Even a lastPassed flag will only be helpful for `gone` resources if Lox stores all of the resource info from rdsys and checks it regularly. This diverges from the original intention of rdsys, in which rdsys should be the 'arbiter of truth' for the status of resources
- The next step is to check the rdsys API and see if the get functionality can improve this situation. I think ideally we want a list of all resources assigned to Lox and their current statuses that can then be checked against something like the `lastPassed` flag each time Lox polls rdsys.
This week:
- Continue with implementing db and synchronization between Lox/rdsys (possibly reliant on some aspects of the former point)
- Work on adding metrics
- AFK from August 5 - 21!
(long term things were discussed at the meeting!):
https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-ac-community-azaleas-room-keep
- brainstorming grouping strategies for Lox buckets (of bridges) and gathering context on how types of bridges are distributed/use in practice
Question: What makes a bridge usable for a given user, and how can we encode that to best ensure we're getting the most appropriate resources to people?
1. Are there some obvious grouping strategies that we can already consider?
e.g., by pt, by bandwidth (lower bandwidth bridges sacrificed to open-invitation buckets?), by locale (to be matched with a requesting user's geoip or something?)
2. Does it make sense to group 3 bridges/bucket, so trusted users have access to 3 bridges (and untrusted users have access to 1)? More? Less?
Itchy Onion: 2023-06-08
Last week:
- fixed snowflake pipeline due to outdated Debian image
- continue working on rdsys#56 implementation. Still need to do the following:
- finish up computing bridge distribution in Kraken
- does it have to be deterministic?
- does the disproportion have to be strictly followed
- finish writing tests
- refactor code because some functions are getting extremely long
- what to do with stencil package?
This week:
- review MRs
- continue working on rdsys#56 implementation. Still need to do the following:
- fixed a problem with vanilla bridges not being added properly to the database
- still working on tests
- adding a migaration patch (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/56#note_29…)
--
meskio | https://meskio.net/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My contact info: https://meskio.net/crypto.txt
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Nos vamos a Croatan.
Hello everyone,
Most of my work, during July, revolved around helping
users in places where Tor is censored. This, in general, involved
helping people use Connection Assist, use Pluggable Transports in Tor
Browser and little-t-tor. I also worked to collect Tor logs and general
user feedback during the ongoing webtunnel soft launch. With two Tor
Browser release in this month (one stable, one alpha) some of my work
went into providing post-release user support.
Apart from this, I made some changes to our user-facing documentation on
the Tor Browser Manual and Support Portal. Added updated instructions on
installing, updating and uninstalling Tor Browser for Android from the
Play Store[0] and improved the section about how to prioritize onion
sites in Tor Browser (thanks to feedback from a translator)[1] and
section on how to make Tor Browser work with antivirus software on the
Support Portal[2]. Also helped with reviewing the support templates that
we have for the webtunnel soft release.
Following is a breakdown of tickets our user support team handled in
July:
Timeframe: 01 - 31 July 2023
# Frontdesk (email)
* 648 (↑) RT tickets created
* 514 (↓) RT tickets resolved
Most frequent tickets by numbers:
1. 203 (↑) RT tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries.
2. 61 (↓) RT tickets: private bridge requests from China.
3. 6 (-) RT tickets: circumventing censorship with Tor in Iran.
# Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal Support channel
* 959 (↑) tickets resolved
Breakdown:
* 932 (↑) tickets on Telegram
* 20 (↑) tickets on WhatsApp
* 7 (↑) tickets on Signal
The most frequent tickets on cdr.link have been about:
1. 653 (↑) tickets: Circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries.
2. 41 (↓) tickets: Circumventing censorship in Iran.
3. 10 (↓) tickets: Circumventing censorship in China.
# Highlights from the Tor Forum
1. We updated the instructions on the Support Portal regarding how to
make Tor Browser work with antivirus[2] owing to some user feedback on
the Forum[3]
2. Update about censorship in Turkmenistan (thanks to
Gus)[4]
3. "How do I connect to a WebTunnel bridge?"[5]
4. (Upcoming Event) "Tor Project sessions for the Feira at Global Gathering"[6]
5. Outgoing email outage on Forum (issue resolved. thanks to TPA!)[7]
Thanks!
e.
Note: (↑), (↓) and (-) are indicative if the number of tickets we
received for these topics have been increasing, decreasing or have been
the same from the previous month respectively
[0]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/mobile-tor/
[1]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/onion-services/
[2]: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/tbb-10/
[3]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/new-release-tor-browser-12-5/8105/4
[4]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-relays-help-turkmens-to-bypass-internet-…
[5]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/how-do-i-connect-to-a-webtunnel-bridge-i-wis…
[6]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-project-sessions-for-the-feira-at-global…
[7]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/outgoing-email-outage-on-forum-resolved/8412