- tor-project - lists.torproject.org

Tor Browser Release meeting this week: Wednesday 4th March @ 19UTC
by Pili Guerra 03 Mar '20

03 Mar '20

Hi everyone, We’ll be having our Tor Browser release meeting this week. Please join us on Wednesday 4th March @ 19UTC on #tor-meeting. Thank you! Pili — Project Manager: Tor Browser, UX and Community teams pili at torproject dot org gpg 3E7F A89E 2459 B6CC A62F 56B8 C6CB 772E F096 9C45

1 0

February 2020 report for the Network Health team
by Georg Koppen 03 Mar '20

03 Mar '20

Hello! Highlights in February from the network health side were: 1) We finished our roadmap. For finding out what we have in our pipeline for the coming weeks have a look at our team site[1] or our bug tracker:[2] the keyword to look for/keep in mind is `network-health-roadmap-2020Q1`. 2) Together with the network team we tried to get traction (again) to complete the remaining pieces for our new bandwidth scanner, sbws, so it can finally get deployed on all of our bandwidth authorities. 3) As usual somewhat unexpected items show up. This time we got busy with starting to contact relay operators running obsolete Tor versions, 0.2.9.x and 0.4.0.x, which we plan to reject from the network soon.[3] For March we have planned to make substantial progress on sbws and finish the preparations for rejecting relays running 0.2.9.x and 0.4.0.x from the network (there are probably bridges running those Tor versions, too, which we should try to get to upgrade before we pull the switch). Additionally, I plan to pick up work to get an overview of DNS failures at exit relays and act upon that[4][5], and I want to look closer at issues of our bad relay scanners and fix them[6]. Georg [1] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/NetworkHealthTeam [2] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=accepted&status=assig… [3] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32672 [4] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32864 [5] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/33179 [6] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/33180

1 0

Network health meeting notes, 3 Mar 2020
by Georg Koppen 03 Mar '20

03 Mar '20

Hi! Yesterday, we held our first weekly sync about network health issues in March 2020. The IRC log can be found at: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-03-02-19.00.log… What we were up to in the previous week and what we plan for the coming one (plus discussion items we had) can be found below: Discussion: Guidelines on ethical operating a relay with operators * https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2020-February/018154.html * https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2020-January/018040.html [GeKo: ggus will start contacting folks to figure out where we are here] Changes to DNSBL service: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2020-February/018189.html Is everybody ok with this changes? [GeKo: Looks good to me] Statuses: GeKo: Last week: - getting up-to-speed for sbws review/work - making scripts for better bad relay rejecting available to others (see: #33182) - more work on #32672 - feedback reviews This week: - more sbws work - looking at the bridges situation for #32672 - resume work on #32864 and maybe start improving Arthur's exit scanning (#33179) - feedback reviews - look at ggus' Tor legal questions pad - maybe pick up #33009 gus: Last week: - Contacted relay operators from Latin America. Some of them replied and updated their relays. - Worked on EFF Legal FAQ - this is ready - https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-legal-questions-keep This week: - Start to contact relay organizations so we can share our census form. - Send our commenets about EFF Legal FAQ to EFF. juga: Last week: - Worked on #30899 include the commit hash in the sbws version - Revised #30196 Add the tor version to the sbws bandwidth file header - Started #30726 Missing relay keys in bandwidth file spec Next week: - Continue with #30726 Missing relay keys in bandwidth file spec - Continue with Revised #30196 Add the tor version to the sbws bandwidth file header - Continue with #30735 Work out which relays are ignored by all sbws instances - Introduce sbws to gk? Georg

1 0

Damian's Status Report - February 2020
by Damian Johnson 03 Mar '20

03 Mar '20

Aloha all! Just posted what I was up to this last month. As always please follow my blog if curious about the happenings in Stem-land. https://blog.atagar.com/february2020/ Cheers! -Damian

1 0

Research Janitor Cleanup Work in February, and March Plans
by Mike Perry 02 Mar '20

02 Mar '20

Phew this month was exhausting. But not because I got a lot done. When compared to January[1], I barely kept my head above water, while a stream of low-priority interrupts tried to drown me. About a dozen times, I got a couple hours into a topic, and then was interrupted by a request for a different topic, which I then had to evaluate if it was more important than what I was currently working on. Sometimes, it was more important and so I dealt with it, but most times it was not. By the end of each context switch, I had lost track of what I was working on before, erasing most of the progress I had made. I tried to restart, and then a new interrupt came in. Rinse, repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Then I had to explain to folks why their pet topic was not getting attention. This was about as pleasant as you might expect, and so I decided to spend the remainder of the month to diagnose and figure out how to correct this failure mode. For this reason, I'm changing my scheduling algorithm. From now on, all requests of my time must come either through the Tor Project team leads meeting, or be added to the below pad's request section. Random interrupts will be dropped. If you are lucky, you will be referred to this mail and/or this pad, on which you can add your pet idea to the appropriate section: https://pad.riseup.net/p/research-janitor-cleanup-schedule Here's the TL;DR, lol: February plans: - More metrics + graph analysis for Rob's experiment - Iterate on sbws eval metrics + graphs w/ Karsten - Funding proposal assistance - Tor Performance Pipeline R&D migration to gitlab February accomplishments: - Assistance with funding proposals - Tor Performance Pipeline R&D migration to gitlab - Lots of conversations about everyone's most important things - Lots of time spent taking out the trash February drops: - More metrics + graph analysis for Rob's experiment ^ (thank you for your work here, Dennis!) - Iterate on sbws eval metrics + graphs w/ Karsten and Dennis - Fixing circpad bugs that impact external padding research - Various mails about circuit padding docs + research options March plans: - Re-review of my review tickets stuck in needs_revision - Help finish off funding proposals - Get more input on Tor's most important janitorial role items - Write Tor employee peer reviews - USENIX paper review - Explain this mail and why I'm ignoring ppl who didn't read it - Vanguards integration tests w/ onionbalance v3 (if ready) - More metrics + graph analysis for Rob's experiment - Iterate on sbws eval metrics + graphs w/ Karsten and Dennis - Fixing circpad bugs that impact external padding research - Various mails about circuit padding docs + research options - Maybe also work on other channelpadding and circpad bugs Potential March Drops: - Vanguards integration tests w/ onionbalance v3 (if not ready) - Various mails about other things that might actually be important - Any requests for my time that don't use the pad or vegas meetings - Random subset of February's drops? - Work on other channelpadding and circpad bugs 1. https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2020-February/002707.html -- Mike Perry

1 0

Notes from Vegas Meeting FEBRUARY 27 2020
by Erin Wyatt 28 Feb '20

28 Feb '20

Vegas Team Meeting Notes FEBRUARY 27 2020: + NEW BUSINESS - Do we have plans/timeline for migrating from trac to gitlab.torproject.org? Plans, yes; timeline, not really. We need to consult teams to decide what can move and when. You should only work in trac for now until we finally migrate --gaba + GENERAL NOTES Antonela: 1. Reviewing DRL proposal 2. Wrapping S27 3. Writing peers feedback 4. Following up Tunde's travels. Put in contact with Gaba to facilitate a NC account for his research data. 5. Following up with Nah about user research, reviewing user research templates for communities 6. IFF Tor village: Sent some invites to fav community members to encourage them to submit a proposal 7. S30 OONI design tasks 8. Do we have plans/timeline for gitlab.torproject.org? ^see above 9. Reviewing the new Onion Browser for iOS Anarcat: 1. hiro put the new gitlab instance online, and it works! almost ready for migration from dip.torproject.org 2. more automation work: started testing Fabric, and automating host retirement and reboot procedures 3. finalized new ganeti node (fsn-node-04, #33081) and started migrating hosts from old unifolium (kvm2 out of 5, #33085) 4. retired savii.torproject.org (#33441) and build-x86-07.torproject.org (#33442) 5. meta-policy process adopted inside team: https://help.torproject.org/tsa/policy/tpa-rfc-1-policy/ 6. setup new VM for check.tpo replacement (!) #33362 7. normal routine (email creation, server reboots, ircbouncer support, patch reviews) Georg: 1. Network health work is moving forward 2. First batch for feedback is ready, more to come for next week Pili: 1. Working on all of the documents required for the DRL proposal 2. Reviewing S27 status, deliverables and releases as we enter the final month of the project - starting to think about how we can share and present this work with the wider community. 3. S27 February report 4. GSoC wrangling 5. Outreachy wrangling 6. Some Season of Docs follow up as our technical writer finishes her long running project 7. Need to pick up IFF wrangling again 8. Blog migration meeting Gus: 1. Network health: contacted relay operators from latin america. 2. Submitted Outreachy project: "Help Tor support our users". Please update: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/Outreachy 3. Training program: contacted new partners in India, Colombia and Uganda. 4. Reviewing Cleo's work, also it's her last week, internship ends now, March 3. isabela: 0. Focus on invites to our fundraising happy hour event on March 26 at EFF - if you can help w/ invites ping us! 1. Selection of candidates for first round of internview (to the ed assistant position) / Working on job post for office admin position 2. Following up on personnel stuff 3. Following up w/ proposals (OTF, DRL, Dial, etc) 4. Trying to finish draft of Membership Program proposal sarah 1. Invites and logistics for San Francisco 2. Invites and logistics for NYC lunch April 13 3. Assisting with DRL and OTF proposals 4. Working on peer feedback 5. Met with Joe Hall last week 6. Meeting with Nikita from Omidyar next week 7. Making minor edits to donate language on website to increase organic (non-monthly) donations 8. Zcash funding for walking onions is in hand Steph 1. Updated fundraising deck for SF meetings. Will be making 2 sets of slides for bitcoin2020 and eff event 2. Working with OTF Learning Lab on a page to debunk the dark web 3. Working with annalee_ on a vpn post -- final outreachy week upon us! 4. Next newsletter finished -- going out tomorrow. 5. Did a livestream / community call with Zeal about Tor and walking onions Gaba 1. DRL proposal 2. SF meeting 3. Finally got up to speed on trac 4. Roadmaps 5. Gitlab new server is done by hiro. Testing new installation. The plan is to move it from dip into gitlab.torproject.org next week. 6. IFF follow up 7. Sound Track this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtCk4sNgj48 Matt: 1. Picked up Tor Browser Mac OS X signing problem 2. Tor Browser 9.5a6 release (soon) 3. Started conversation with DuckDuckGo 4. Began having conversations about websites blocking Tor Browser users 5. Another OTF round of feed 6. Tor Browser migration is progressing (slowly, but steadily) 7. S27 work is progressing nicely (new features in every alpha release) Alex: 1. Team seems to be doing fine. 2. GSoD is over. Swati did very well IMO. 3. Been doing peer reviews, but still missing 1/3 of them. 4. Hiro got new Gitlab server up and running. Will be working on migrating Trac tickets to the new instance now. Nick: 1. trying to roadmap my next 3-6 months. 2. starting on walking onions spec next week 3. going to do a panel with wendy next wednesday about decisionmaking in dentralized organizations Mike: 1. Worked on scalabilithy proposal 2. Conversations about role priorities 3. Starting to plan March travel Erin: 1. Working on contract updates, tax forms, and alllll the other things 2. Moving forward with Exec Admin screening 3. Personnel stuff

1 0

Anti-censorship team meeting notes 27 February 2020
by Cecylia Bocovich 27 Feb '20

27 Feb '20

Here is our meeting log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-02-27-17.59.html And our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday February 27th 18:00 UTC Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 18:00 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: https://dip.torproject.org/torproject/anti-censorship/roadmap/boards Our roadmap consists of a subset of trac tickets. For 2020 Q1, the trac keyword is anti-censorship-roadmap-2020Q1 The anti-censorship team's wiki page: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/AntiCensorshipTeam Past meeting's notes can be found at: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/ GetTor's roadmap: https://dip.torproject.org/groups/torproject/anti-censorship/gettor-project… Tickets that need reviews: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=needs_review&componen… Projects from sponsors we are working on: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/sponsors/Sponsor30 https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/sponsors/Sponsor28 ------------------------- --- February 27th 2020 -- ------------------------- == Announcements == == Discussion == - We want to run a session during IFF to get people to circumvent censorship. We were thinking of getting people to connect to a censored network, e.g by providing a router that censors in different way; and try to access the internet or some sites or something. We would need some advice/help to set something like this up -- Pili & Gus - Source code from 2017 experiment (few hundred users, Windows only, simulated censorship with a local firewall, used an instrumented Tor Browser to record mouse clicks): - https://github.com/lindanlee/PETS2017-paper - see experiment/firewall.bat and experiment/gen-firewall - see the screenrecording directory - see the session/pre/videos directory for videos and detailed notes of a pre-study - see the setup directory for other setup notes (don't remember what exactly) - paper: https://censorbib.nymity.ch/#Lee2017a - Source code from 2015 experiment (5 users, one on one, no censorship, just browser usability): - git clone https://www.bamsoftware.com/repo.eecs.berkeley.edu/tor-ux.git/ (see README and tasks.html) - videos: https://people.torproject.org/~dcf/uxsprint2015/ - blog post: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/ux-sprint-2015-wrapup == Actions == == Interesting links == NDSS 2020 PDFs are online https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-program/2020-program/ "Detecting Probe-resistant Proxies" https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/detecting-probe-resistant-proxies/ https://sfrolov.io/papers/ndss20-frolov.pdf "Decentralized Control: A Case Study of Russia" https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/decentralized-control-a-case-stud… https://censoredplanet.org/russia https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/20 "Measuring the Deployment of Network Censorship Filters at Global Scale" https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/measuring-the-deployment-of-netwo… "SymTCP: Eluding Stateful Deep Packet Inspection with Automated Discrepancy Discovery" https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/symtcp-eluding-stateful-deep-pack… "MassBrowser: Unblocking the Censored Web for the Masses, by the Masses" https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/massbrowser-unblocking-the-censor… == Updates == Name: This week: - What you worked on this week. Next week: - What you are planning to work on next week (related to anti-censorship work). Help with: - Something you may need help with. Hiro: (last updated before 2020-01-09) Started restoring Twitter Responder. When retrieving tweets I need to check for new tweets only otherwise Gettor will end up responding to old back log and already answered messages. <-- is this #27330 ? Next Week: - Work on gettor specs <-- Is this #3781? - More with review of strings and website content and translation phw: This week (2020-02-20): Will be gone until our Mar 12 meeting. Merged and deployed BridgeDB's Python 3 port (#30946). Retired scramblesuit, obfs3, and fte from BridgeDB. Refactored email distributor check tool for #12802. Wrote OONI patches for new default bridge. Reviewed #23225. Next week: Write a summary of our current BridgeDB distribution mechanisms and brainstorm new ones Help with: Gaba: () Last week (): This week (planned): cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-02-27 Last week: - sent grant to some external reviewers - even more grant revisions - worked on debugging proxy-go CPU issues (#33211) - refactored and debugged snowflake throughput check (#32938) - snowflake + turbotunnel dogfood - merged and deployed gettor refactor (#33191) This week: - finish up snowflake throughput check (#32938) - take care of go module for snowflake (#33330) - Aggregate and write up a report of snowflake throughput changes - write up snowflake scaling thoughts for mailing list - work on gitlab issues with gettor (#33034) Needs help with: - are we good with #33211? dcf: yes arlolra: 2020-02-13 Last week: - merged the client part of #19026 Next week: - maybe the proxy parts of #19026 - pick another task? Help with: - dcf: 2020-02-27 Last week: - used snowflake-turbotunnel bundles and fixed problems (#33336, #33401) - wrote invitations to test the revised snowflake-turbotunnel bundles - https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2020-February/045499.html - https://ntc.party/t/invitation-to-test-turbo-tunnel-snowflake-packages/378 - merged the fix to ignore 0.0.0.0 client addresses (#33385) - filed a pull request to deprecate the go-webrtc repo https://github.com/keroserene/go-webrtc/pull/110 - investigated a required upgrade of the App Engine reflector (#33429) - helped debug high CPU usage in proxy-go (#33211) - helped debug a reported failure to connect in China (#33219) Next week: - DNS-over-HTTPS prototyping Help with: cjb: 2019-02-27 Last week: - got feedback on #31011! Next week: - #31011 grew into "get tor to parse extra-info docs and their transport lines", am learning how to do that with help from teor - poke at golang snowflake proxy Android app Help with: - perhaps it makes sense to split out the bridge-side change in #31011 from the bridgeauth-side change, since the bridgeauth-side change will take longer, and the bridge-side one will take time to ship and get people updated to..? agix:2020-02-20 Last week: - Submitted fix for #31967 - Worked on #31876 Next week: - Submit first draft of #31876 Help with: -

1 0

Metrics Team Meeting Notes, February 27th 2020
by Gaba 27 Feb '20

27 Feb '20

Hi! We had our weekly metrics team meeting today and it was very short. The next one is going to be on March 5th at 1500 UTC. The pad for the meeting in 2020 is at https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-metricsteam-2020.1-keep The log is http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-02-27-15.01.log… The agenda and notes for today are: ------------------------------------- Agenda Thursday, February 27th, 15 UTC ------------------------------------- * Changes to DNSBL service: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2020-February/018189.html * What is the status on exit scanner? * we have deployed a new machine, check-01.torproject.org and this is currently running the new exit scanner software cheers, gaba -- Project Manager: Network, Anti-Censorship and Metrics teams gaba at torproject.org she/her are my pronouns GPG Fingerprint EE3F DF5C AD91 643C 21BE 8370 180D B06C 59CA BD19

1 0

S27 (Onion Services) Meeting today: Tuesday 25th February @ 15UTC
by Pili Guerra 25 Feb '20

25 Feb '20

Hi everyone, Here’s your usual reminder about this meeting. Looking forward to discussing progress! Thanks, Pili — Project Manager: Tor Browser, UX and Community teams pili at torproject dot org gpg 3E7F A89E 2459 B6CC A62F 56B8 C6CB 772E F096 9C45

1 0

Network health meeting notes, 24 Feb 2020
by Georg Koppen 25 Feb '20

25 Feb '20

Hi! Yesterday, we held another weekly meeting to discuss network health issues and keep us in sync. The IRC log can be found at: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-02-24-19.00.txt Additionally, here come the status updates and discussion items showing what we were up in the previous week and what is planned for the coming one: Discussion: * Guidelines on ethical operating a relay with operators [deferred to next week, GeKo] * https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2020-February/018154.html * https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2020-January/018040.html * How do we proceed with the bridges part of #32672? [after dealing with the relay part, let's look at the data and then based on that move forward, probably with contacting operators, too, GeKo] GeKo: Last week: - finished a good deal of the simplification of the bad relay rejecting process (#33182) - looked over the DRL and sbws proposal - worked on #32672 (rejecting 0.2.9.x and 0.4.0.x) - looked over ggus's questionaire for relay operators - small review for #33361 - sbws prep This week: - getting up-to-speed for sbws review/work - making scripts for better bad relay rejecting available to others - more work on #32672 - feedback reviews Gaba Last week: - DRL propoposal on scalability (we got the SOI accepted and working on proposal) - tor-relays mailing list moderation dgoulet Last week: - Confirmed things on #32672 - Opened and patch for #33361 Georg

1 0