September 2023 - tor-project - lists.torproject.org

ebanam's monthly status report for August 2023
by ebanam 07 Sep '23

07 Sep '23

Hello everyone, We saw a uptick in user support requests from Chinese speaking users in the past month, but in general most of my work focussed on providing help to users in regions where Tor is censored. With the release of Proof of Work (PoW) defense for Onion Services[0], I also worked on gathering some initial feedback. # PoW defense for Onion Services feedback Most of the initial feedback and questions have been about (1) how it will affect user's connecting to Onion Services, (2) whether users will have to solve a captcha puzzle, and, (3) discussion about the underlying algorithm used. Following is a thorough breakdown of tickets our user support team handled in August: Timeframe: 01 - 31 August 2023 # Frontdesk (email) * 1041 (↑) RT tickets created * 942 (↑) RT tickets resolved Most frequent tickets by numbers: 1. 650 (↑) RT tickets: circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries. 2. 284 (↑) RT tickets: private bridge requests from Chinese speaking users. 3. 1 (↓) RT ticket: circumventing censorship with Tor in Farsi. # Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal Support channel * 642 (↓) tickets resolved Breakdown: * 609 (↓) tickets on Telegram * 22 (↑) tickets on WhatsApp * 11 (↑) tickets on Signal The most frequent tickets on cdr.link have been about: 1. 393 (↓) tickets: Circumventing censorship in Russian speaking countries. 2. 16 (↑) tickets: Circumventing censorship in Chinese speaking users. 3. 16 (↓) tickets: Circumventing censorship in Farsi. # Highlights from the Tor Forum 1. Proof of Work (PoW) defense for Onion Service is released.[1] 2. "How Snowflake works?"[2] 3. EFF’s university Tor relay campaign[3] 4. New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 13.0a3 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)[4]. Help us test the 13.0ax series of Tor Browser for Alpha prior to the Tor Browser 13 stable release. 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://blog.torproject.org/introducing-proof-of-work-defense-for-onion-ser… [1]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/proof-of-work-pow-defense-for-onion-service-… [2]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/how-about-snowflake-works/8710 [3]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-relays-effs-university-tor-relay-campaig… [4]: https://forum.torproject.org/t/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-13-0a3-android…

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Anti-censorship team meeting notes, 2023-09-07
by meskio 07 Sep '23

07 Sep '23

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2023/tor-meeting.2023-09-07-15.57.html And our meeting pad: Anti-censorship -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday, Sep 14 16:00 UTC Facilitator: onyinyang 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: meskio == 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 * there is an issue on the metrics side: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/metrics/website/-/issues/4… * is already developed and will be deployed next week * Upgrading Go toolchain for snowflake * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… * some dependencies like uTLS need go 1.20+ * debian stable has go 1.19, it will be harder to make packages for backports * we'll try to get the package in apt.tpo * we think is more important to keep up to date with dependencies * release new snowflake version * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… * is broken in android API 30+ we need a release to fix it * shelikhoo will make a release * snowflake-02 outage https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/anti-censorship-team/2023-September/… * https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/teaching-learning/2023/… * the university got disconnected from the internet for we days == Actions == == Interesting links == * Firefox planning to ship ECH by default. Think about resurrecting meek-esni? * https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/280 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/meek… * https://opencollective.com/censorship-circumvention/projects/snowflake-dail… == 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): 2023-09-07 Last week: - finished writing shadow simulations guide for PTs (will post later today) - discussed weird increase in Snowflake client polls This week: - deploy the lox distributor for testing with rdsys - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/issues/19 - followup on conjure reliability issues - visualize and write up some snowflake shadow simulation results Needs help with: dcf: 2023-09-07 Last week: - investigated a snowflake-02 bridge outage that caused a temporary increase in client polls https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/anti-censorship-team/2023-September/… - merged goptlib STATUS TYPE=version and tagged v1.5.0 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/gopt… - opened a merge request to remove the unique proxy IP address counting code from the broker https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: - 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: 2023-09-07 Last week: - vacation :) - coordinate with TPA to get a VM for a rdsys staging server - review lyrebird merge requests Next week: - deploy the rdsys staging server Shelikhoo: 2023-09-07 Last Week: - [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64) (stalled) - logcollector alert system - Add Remote Network Address Mapping in HTTP Upgrade Transport (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/webt…) - Merge request reviews Next Week/TODO: - Add Remote Network Address Mapping in HTTP Upgrade Transport (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/webt…) (Continue) - Release new version of snowflake - Merge request reviews onyinyang: 2023-09-07 Last week(s): - Finished up implementation of new approach for getting resources https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/merge_requests/24 - Bug hunting for what turned out to be a serialize/deserialize issue caused by the Dedup filter implementation https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/merge_requests/42 - Updating dependencies from renovate bot MRs This week: - Continue updating dependencies, check how complicated it will be to update failing updates, such as: - aes-gcm: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/merge_requests/35 - base64: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox-rs/-/merge_requests/36 - 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? -- meskio | https://meskio.net/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- My contact info: https://meskio.net/crypto.txt -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Nos vamos a Croatan.

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Rhatto's Monthly Status Report, August 2023
by rhatto 05 Sep '23

05 Sep '23

Hi all :) This is my monthly status report for August 2023 with the main relevant activities I have done during the period. ## 0. Research * Tor Browser Quality Assurance for Onion Services: * Started the next round of testing with the recent TBB releases. * Went back to some reported issues to research on how they can be addressed. * Results reported to the Applications Team. * Continued research on TLS certificates for Onion Services and Tor Browser. ## 1. Development * Brainstorming and discussion in how Proof of Work (PoW) can be brought to Onionbalance: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onionbalance/-/issues/13 ## 2. Support * PoW defense for Onion Services: helped with the release strategy and documentation: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-support/-/wikis/Docu… https://forum.torproject.org/t/proof-of-work-pow-defense-for-onion-service-… * The usual sponsored work with deployment, maintenance and monitoring of Onion Services. ## 3. Organization * Helped organizing the next Hackweek: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2023-August/003675.html https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/hackweek Time spent (from the total available for Tor-related work): | Category | Percentage |---------------|------------ | Research | 17 | Development | 5 | Support | 44 | Organization | 34 |---------------|------------ | Total | 100 -- Silvio Rhatto pronouns he/him

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Nina’s Monthly Status Report: August 2023
by Nina 05 Sep '23

05 Sep '23

Hi! This is my August'23 report! In August, I resolved 1164 tickets: On Telegram (@TorProjectSupportBot) - 496 On RT (frontdesk@tpo) - 650 On WhatsApp (+447421000612) - 11 and on Signal (+17787431312) - 7. Main lines of my work remain the same: 1. Helping Russian-speaking users download and install the Tor Browser and then resolve any issues with connecting to the Tornetwork. 2. Helping in censorship circumvention 3. Collectinguserfeedback. The most common issues I noticed during this month are: 1. Antivirus software interrupts the TB work 2. Tor for iOS - Users now need to install Onion Browser + Orbot app on their devices 3. The Tor error:"[WARN] Pluggable Transport process terminated with status code 0", which often occurs in the regions with severe internet censorship. I've also submitted a small bug found in TBA Alpha.[1] [1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42038

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cohosh's monthly status report, August 2023
by Cecylia Bocovich 04 Sep '23

04 Sep '23

Hi! This is my status report for contract work done in August 2023. # Reputation-based bridge distribution - Reworked the reproducible build of Lox client pieces for Tor Browser integration https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/merge_re… # Conjure pluggable transport - Started debugging conjure dependencies to fix a stall in the retry loop https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/conj… - Updated Conjure test environment for most recent version of station and pt https://gitlab.torproject.org/cohosh/phantombox

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PieroV's Monthly Status Report, August 2023
by Pier Angelo Vendrame 04 Sep '23

04 Sep '23

Hi everyone! Here is my status report for August 2023. At the beginning of the month, I continued with Tor Browser's Tor integration refactor. The latest merge request [0] should be close to the final form I would like to have. Apart from that, I worked on some Firefox code audits, such as pingsender2 [1] and the API to save PDFs from pdf.js on Android [2]. I also investigated an issue about the favicon "supercookie" [3] and possible subpixel leaks from resolution media queries [4]. During the month, I also helped with rebases and releases. At the end of the month, I started working on changes to allow system-wide installations of Mullvad Browser. I plan to continue from there these days and to fix the default browser functionality. We are getting closer and closer to the release date for Tor Browser 13.0. So, please consider doing some alpha testing, especially if you do not use a "standard" setup (e.g., system tor daemon, etc.). Thank you very much! Pier [0] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/merge_requests… [1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41969 [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41993 [3] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42021 [4] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42044

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Tor Browser weekly meeting moved to Tuesday (2023-09-05)
by richard 03 Sep '23

03 Sep '23

Hi everyone, Tomorrow is an official Tor holiday so we will move our weekly meeting to Tuesday (2023-09-05) in #tor-meeting on OFTC. See you then! best, -richard

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