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Community Team report - April 2017
by Alison 04 May '17

04 May '17

Hi all, Here are the meetbot logs for the last two community team meetings, which covered our work in April: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-project/2017/tor-project.2017-04-19-18.01.log… http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-project/2017/tor-project.2017-05-03-18.02.log… Here is what we've been working on in April: - Members of the Community Team conducted trainings or gave Tor presentations for Political Research Associates (US), University of Michigan (US), Tennessee Library Association (US), Open Data Camp (India) - Derecho Digitales submitted a proposal to OTF for their Tor relay/public awareness/workshops/training campaign in Latin America. They are in discussions with NoiseTor to help with this campaign as well. - Support portal meetings now happen every Monday with members of the UX and Community Teams. The Community Team's current priority for the portal is creating all the q&a content. View our progress or help us out here: https://gitweb.torproject.org/support-portal.git/tree/plain. - We are in the early ideas phase of planning for the Outreach Portal, which will be another component of the website redesign. This page will include things like training materials, and outreach calendar, and information for relay operators. - We are making a list of Transifex contributors to send them tshirts! - We officially ratified the Social Contract: https://gitweb.torproject.org/community/policies.git/tree/social_contract.t…. - We collected and reviewed feedback from the Tor Meeting in Amsterdam. - We worked on preliminary planning for a future Tor Meeting to take place in the Global South. So far, most of the ideas for locations are in Latin/South America. - There are now two public channels for discussion of Tor outreach in the Global South: tor-south(a)lists.torproject.org and #tor-south on IRC in OFTC. - We are writing two grants: one for Global South outreach, and one for Library Freedom Project. -- Alison Macrina Community Team Lead The Tor Project

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SponsorR Status Report April 2017
by George Kadianakis 04 May '17

04 May '17

Hello, here is the April 2017 report for SponsorR: - During April, we moved forward and resolved tons of tickets on prop224 groundwork implementation that we hope to merge in tor-0.3.1: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21871 https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21889 https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21891 https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21919 https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21978 https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21980 https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22052 - Continued work on the service-side part of prop224: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/20657 We are currently testing the hidden service code using chutney, and splitting it into smaller branches to ease review. - Lots of design discussion on protecting onion addresses against phishing attacks: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2017-April/012123.html Also research on validating ed25519 public keys to avoid equivalent onion addresses: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2017-April/012225.html We posted our ed25519 pubkey validation code: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22006 - Published technical report about relays we found camping the HSDir hash ring to monitor directory activity of hidden services: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2017-April/012161.html - More discussion on the name system proposal (prop279): https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2017-April/012126.html

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PETS 2017 registration is open
by Roger Dingledine 04 May '17

04 May '17

For those wanting to go to PETS this year, registration is open: https://petsymposium.org/2017/registration.php (If you go, be sure to arrange to stay for the Saturday hike as well.) --Roger

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Job Opening - Communications Director
by Erin Wyatt 02 May '17

02 May '17

Hey Everyone! We are announcing the Communications Director vacancy today. The job description is pasted below, is attached in PDF format, and can be found on our website at https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs-comm-director.html.en. Please help us spread the word by posting, forwarding, tweeting, etc. Thank you! :) Cheers, Erin Wyatt HR Manager ewyatt(a)torproject.org GPG Fingerprint: 35E7 2A9F 6655 45F9 2CB6 6624 BA0C 9400 F80F 91CE p.s. We also have a new writer/editor person! Email introduction later today. (OMG, the suspense!) :D Internet Freedom Nonprofit Seeks Experienced Communications Director The Tor Project, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides technical infrastructure for privacy protection over the Internet, is seeking a Communications Director to help us tell the world about our important work. The ideal candidate will have at least five years of experience talking with the press and leading social media campaigns. The ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences is essential. This senior level position will report directly to the Executive Director and will be part of the organization's leadership team. The Communications Director will set and guide the strategy for all communications and public relations messages to consistently articulate the Tor Project's mission. Tor software is built by a mix of paid staff and volunteers. This job includes working closely with this diverse, international community of people who make Tor and related software products. This is a hands-on position for a highly skilled communications professional with a fierce passion for technology and social media. Responsibilities: Represent the Tor Project to the press. Write press releases, handle press calls, and distribute media calls to appropriate members of the Tor Project community. Train staff and community members on media and coach/prep/debrief them for specific media calls. Manage the Tor Project's social media presence. Develop the Tor Project's social media strategy and oversee staff and volunteers who contribute to our social media efforts. Publish the Tor Project's weekly newsletter, Tor Weekly News (TWN). Translate technical software releases posted to our blog so the general public can better understand the Tor Project’s work. Maintain the press section of the torproject.org <http://torproject.org/> website. Collect, organize and post the Tor Project's press clippings to the website. Develop and distribute an organizational press kit. Manage the Tor Project's media contacts. Help to write and edit content for the Tor Project's upcoming website reorganization. Be a key member of the reorganization team. Write and update the Tor Project's one-pagers and other information pieces distributed at conferences and talks. Coordinate speaking opportunities and conferences for Tor Project staff and community members. Maintain the Tor Project's website calendar of speaking engagements. General writing and editing responsibilities as required. Qualifications: Excellent verbal, written, and editing skills in English; fluency in other languages is a plus. Commitment to helping Tor Project developers be regarded as respected global resources for information about open source anonymity and privacy technologies. Demonstrated skill and comfort in proactively building relationships with top tier reporters and editors, and in positioning subject matter with the media to achieve high-impact placements. Demonstrated experience with complex and high profile social media engagement. Comfortable with highly technical topics and ability to explain them clearly and accurately to non-technical audiences. Knowledge of and appreciation for the free and open source software movement. Demonstrated experience with issues management, including media crisis management, and driving more advantageous coverage of the organization, its projects, and its people. Strong generalist understanding of the basic mechanics of how the Internet works, as well as issues related to privacy, security, censorship, and surveillance. Experience with, or willingness to learn how to use, communications and collaboration technologies such as PGP, IRC, Jitsi, WordPress, and etherpads. Hard working and highly organized with superior attention to detail. Highly collaborative with experience working with and as part of remote teams. Self-starter who thrives on working independently with a dispersed workforce. Experience working or living outside the United States is a plus. Fundraising and fundraising communications experience is a plus. Willingness to travel to international meetings twice a year. Excellent social skills and a sense of humor. The successful candidate will probably hold a Bachelor's degree in journalism, communications, marketing, public relations or a closely related field. The ideal candidate will be energetic, unflappable and flexible, and will thrive in a highly-technical collaborative environment. The Tor Project's workforce is smart and committed. Experience working with open source communities and/or a dedication to Internet civil liberties are added pluses. The Tor Project currently has a paid and contract staff of around 25 developers and operational support staff, plus many thousands of volunteers who contribute to our work. The Tor Project is funded in part by government research and development grants, and in part by individual, foundation and corporate donations. Flexible salary, depending on experience. The Tor Project has a competitive benefits package, including a generous PTO policy; 13 paid holidays per year (including the week between Christmas and New Year's, when the office is closed); health, vision, dental, disability, and life insurance paid in full for employee; flexible work schedule; and occasional travel opportunities. This is a full-time position. The Tor Project’s main office is in Seattle, and we’d be delighted to supply a desk for the Communications Director there, however, this job can be done remotely. Knowledge of media and press contacts within the United States is essential. To apply, send a cover letter and your resume to hr(a)torproject.org <mailto:hr@torproject.org> with the subject "Communications Director." Tell us why you think you're the right person for this job, and please include links to writing samples. No phone calls please! The Tor Project, Inc., is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.

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April 2017 Report for the Tor Browser Team
by Georg Koppen 02 May '17

02 May '17

Hi all! In April we made two releases, Tor Browser 6.5.2[1], and Tor Browser 7.0a3[2]. Tor Browser 6.5.2 picked up Firefox security bug fixes and provided fixes for a broken Twitter experience and a crash bug affecting users on Windows. Additionally, we updated the bridges we ship in Tor Browser. The alpha release was the first one based on Firefox ESR 52. There were a lot of changes related to switching to this new major Firefox version.[3] We got great bug reports from our alpha testers and either already resolved those issues or are still working on doing so for the next alpha release which is planned for mid-May. There was no new release in the hardened series and there won't be one in the future either. Rather, users on this series got updated to the latest alpha version. We discontinued the hardened series as we heard numerous reports from users being confused about it being called "hardened" while including debugging tools as well.[4] We recommend using the Sandboxed Tor Browser from now on instead.[5] Apart from doing release work we focused on getting Tor Browser 7.0 more stable and on making our build system faster and more scalable.[6] We are about to switch our official nightly builds to using rbm, our new reproducible builds manager. The full list of tickets closed by the Tor Browser team in April is accessible using the TorBrowserTeam201704 tag in our bug tracker[7]. For May we plan to do another Tor Browser alpha release picking up the latest changes and testing them. If all goes well we should be ready to release Tor Browser 7.0 by end of May/begin of June. The tickets we want to have solved by then are currently tagged with the `tbb-7.0-must-alpha` and `tbb-7.0-must` keywords.[8] Besides working on getting Tor Browser 7 into stable shape we plan to continue our build system improvements and spend further time on integrating our Panopticlick instance into our Q&A environment[9]. All tickets on our radar for this month can be seen with the TorBrowserTeam201705 tag in our bug tracker.[10] Georg [1] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-browser-652-released [2] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-browser-70a3-released [3] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-qa/2017-April/000892.html [4] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/discontinuing-hardened-tor-browser-series [5] https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en#downloads-sandbox [6] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17379 [7] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=closed&keywords=~TorB… [8] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=accepted&status=assig… [9] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/6119 [10] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?keywords=~TorBrowserTeam2017…

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April 2017 report for the metrics team
by Karsten Loesing 02 May '17

02 May '17

Hello Tor, hello world! Below you'll find the highlights of Tor metrics team work done in April 2017. On behalf of the Tor metrics team, Karsten Added French, Romanian, and Swedish translations to the ExoneraTor website [1], in addition to existing languages English and German, and made all languages available via links in the footer rather than relying on the user to configure their browser for any given language. All new languages have been translated by the Transifex community [2] and reviewed by Tor people. [1] https://exonerator.torproject.org/ [2] https://www.transifex.com/otf/torproject/ Replaced Tor performance measurements gathered by Torperf (torperf, moria, siv) with measurements performed by OnionPerf (op-hk, op-nl, op-us) on CollecTor [3] and Metrics [4]. [3] https://collector.torproject.org/recent/torperf/ [4] https://metrics.torproject.org/torperf.html Published Tor Technical Report 2017-04-001 [5] titled "Privacy analysis of Tor's in-memory statistics" that "analyzes which possibly sensitive, potentially personally identifying data is stored in memory of Tor relays and bridges or reported to the directory authorities and makes suggestions to reduce the collection and temporary storage of such data." [5] https://research.torproject.org/techreports/privacy-in-memory-2017-04-28.pdf Made a couple more usability and robustness enhancements to Atlas [6], including adding a red/green indicator to easily distinguish currently running relays [7], adjusting the size of a kilobyte to tor's [8], reducing redundant custom CSS and external resources [9, 10], and removing confusingly empty fields when no data is available [11]. [6] https://atlas.torproject.org/ [7] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/6355 [8] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21822 [9] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22056 [10] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21699 [11] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22039 Lost CollecTor and Onionoo mirrors run on a community-contributed host, and set up a new CollecTor mirror on a Tor host kindly provided by SUNET [12]. [12] https://www.sunet.se/about-sunet/

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UX team April 2017 summary
by Linda Naeun Lee 01 May '17

01 May '17

Hello! In April, the UX team did three major things: 1) research and design work for torproject.org 2) started building content for support.torproject.org 2) coordinating with mobile developers on features 3) better team organization and project management 1) Got the necessary research done for redesigning torproject.org (#21222). Since we now have a handle on how the website is structured, how we want the new website structured, and what content we want where, we can start moving forward with wireframing. The research tasks are all grouped in #22120 as its sub-tickets for your viewing pleasure. 2) We wrote over 100 questions and answers for the upcoming support portal ( https://gitweb.torproject.org/support-portal.git/tree/plain) These questions cover frequently asked questions during the download and install process, troubleshoot the most common errors with Tor Browser, and address a wide array of other questions. 3) Isabela and Linda joined the weekly #tor-mobile scrums, where we got to listen to what's going on with tor-mobile (we are glad that there is better communication here now!) and give feedback on the their features. They're working on better user-facing error messages when a connection fails, and how they can make use of the waiting time when connecting to educate users about Tor and its features. 4) We now have a regular UX team meeting (Mondays 1500 UTC @ https://meet.jit.si/TorUX) with an agenda (https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-ux agenda), a team roadmap to keep track of tasks to do this month and the following months (https://storm.torproject.org/grain/XaENCFTXJzFYWgxSnK4mgJ/) and create/triage tickets to keep track of work. Major thanks to Antonela, Alison, and Colin for doing such great work this month! ヽ(•◡•)ﾉ, Linda

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Network team meeting notes and status updates, 5/1
by Nick Mathewson 01 May '17

01 May '17

Below are the status updates from our weekly meeting. The notes and logs are at http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-dev/2017/tor-dev.2017-05-01-16.59.html ================================ Updates for network team meeting, 1 May 2016 Happy international workers day Happy may day Um and also........... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_Day (No, people don't actually observe that, afaik.) ============= Discussion: * feature freeze may 15 (?) * 032 priorities * dgoulet's tickets questions * Mike wants to discuss is_client wrt #16861, #21406, and #21585 * rust proposal ============= To do after meeting * Everyone update milestone progress on isabela's roadmap storm pad. * Plan 032 planning ============= ahf: I'll be missing from the meeting today to celebrate May 1st, feel free to ask questions on IRC and I'll respond when I'm online again. Last week: Sponsor4: - Landed patches for new compression backend: #21662, #21663, #21664, #22066, and #22085. - Reviewed #22061, #22051, #21648, #22065, and #21646. - Fixed #21665, but the code have not landed yet. Misc: - Fixed minor build-system issue on OS X (bug #13802). This week: Sponsor4 (ordered): - Working on the last prop278 (for now?) bug: #21667 - Figure out what's next for Sponsor4 or help out with 0.3.1 bugs or XXX (depending on what is most urgent). Misc: - Coverity duty. Nick: (I have a dentist appointment this morning; I think I'll be back to the meeting on time.) - Last week * Nearly done with prop140 stuff: diffs are generated and compressed and I have the code to serve them. * Also refactored some sucky APIs. directory_initiate_request_routerstatus_rend(), anyone? I think we should declare open season on any function taking more than 6 or 7 arguments. * Moved a bunch of stuff out of 0.3.1 based on triage * Released 0.3.0.6 (stable!) - This week * Catch up on hard design-y emails * Finish prop140 implementation (!!!1!) * Help ahf as needed with prop278 stuff. * Try the gitlab instace * Create a review-group * Review lots of stuff * UX-TorLauncher meeting later today asn: Last week: - Worked on #21859. Unittests mainly - Opened #22052 based on lessons from #21859. - Implemented the ed25519 torsion validation at #22006. Branch is pushed and looks good, but it needs a bit more work needed before needs_review: Ian suggested we do this check for all network-received ed25519 keys, so I need to make sure I actually validate all of them. - Opened #21969 but haven't had time to think about it. - Started looking at guard discovery stuff again. This week: - Finalize #21859. Put it in needs_review. - Finalize #22006. Put it in needs_review. - More work on guard discovery. Mike: Last week: - Did triage. Wasn't a whole lot to triage that week. - Updated #16861 some more for dgoulet; I have a question about a couple other bugs - Did a little more work on Sponsor2 stuff - Some coordination with Mozilla; some rusting This week: - Tor Launcher meeting and discussion - Sponsor2 work continues dgoulet: Last week: - Worked on #20657 unit testing. Also, rebased that branch onto master resolving conflicts from the refactor of directory.c. - Final review and test of #16861 (mikeperry netflow). - Worked on #22060 which turns out to be a bit more tricky than expected. - Addressed asn's review for #21978. - Worked on random 031 tickets: #22042, #22034, #21715, #21293, - We got #13802 merged finally! Thanks to pastly and nickm's feedback! - We had some bad-relays business to take care of and help out a bit with asn on some next steps for Guard discovery stuff for HS. This week: - Finishing test coverage of #20657 and prepare it for early 032 merge. - Integrate asn's work on circuit e2e #21859 with #20657. - Depending on the state of things for the prop224 service implementation, I might start the client implementation big branch! catalyst: Last week: * started sketching out new baseXX APIs that will be more robust and less error-prone (#19531). e.g., given our calling patterns it actually makes sense for encoding functions to return void, unless they're allocating memory or lengths are variable. almost all of our base32 and base16 uses involve fixed-size arrays, so having assertions for length checks might actually be the right thing. * did more analysis about PT arguments (#12930). filed #22088 with proposed minor PT spec changes to mitigate this issue. * looked at Tor Launcher usability stuff This week: * 15-minute fixes * Tor Launcher usability meeting * more digging into control port stuff and bootstrap progress reporting to improve Tor Launcher usability isis: last week: - took the week off - worked with dcf to finish getting the meek-bridgedb channel set up this week: - sort out new contract - several meetings regarding roadmapping and the new distributor komlo: - have more time this month so can be on irc more during the day! - Reviewed Sebastian's intial Rust integration patch - Fixed up my partial implementation of protover in Rust from Sebastian's review - This week: - Work with Sebastian on writing a "Rust in Tor" document - we have a rough working draft. - Continue with finishing a full protover implementation in Rust Sebastian: Opened https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22106 for initial Rust integration work Isabela: Last week: - had a call with drl on our proposal - got good clarification - bugged folks on roadmap :) - organized meeting for tor launcher automation feature definition. This week: - working on April report to OTF - replying to DRL follow up questions on our proposal / also emailing a summary of the proposal deliverables to folks involved on it. - doing another check on roadmaps. and emailing tor project all teams roadmaps

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Notes from April 27 2017 Vegas team meeting
by Karsten Loesing 01 May '17

01 May '17

Notes for April 27 2017 meeting: Alison: 1) did a training in Atlantic City NJ this week; next week I've got a few events in Boston and Rhode Island. 2) starting to work on the Community Team roadmap and organizing our tasks into trac tickets 3) lots more content completed for the support portal 4) working on the membership guidelines again and will propose them after the CC vote is completed. 5) working on Global South meeting info gathering 6) doing preliminary stuff for Montreal meeting Shari: 1) I'm in New York this week, meeting with funders and others. 2) Offered job to a new writer, and he seemed to have accepted. We'll announce after we receive it in writing! 96 people applied for that job! 3) Still waiting for decision from our favored communications director candidate. If he doesn't commit by next week, we'll open it up and start circulating the job description. 4) Reviewing OTF metrics proposal and writing up the budget. Arturo: 1) Probe orchestration prototype almost complete: https://github.com/thetorproject/proteus 2) Held a community meeting on Tuesday 3) Coordinated with translators for the Arabic, Farsi, and Russian translations of ooniprobe (which are expected to be included in the next ooniprobe release) 4) Meeting with the Localization Lab about next steps in terms of localizing our tools, methodologies, and documentation 5) This week OONI partners are hosting OONI workshops at the Internet Freedom Festival in Lagos, Nigeria 6) There will be a OONI workshop at CryptoRave (https://cryptorave.org) in Brazil Georg: 1) Ongoing work on getting Tor Browser 7.0 into stable shape (release planning/bug triage etc.) 2) Roadmapping taking dependencies to other teams/Mozilla into account Nick: 1) Work goes on. New Tor release out yesterday. TB users should have it in a month or so. Sponsor4 deliverables on-track for 0.3.1. 2) 0.3.1 feature freeze may 15; tell your friends 3) meeting with folks Monday to coordinate tor launcher stuff; potential opportunities / problems to consider as we move ahead. 4) speaking at MIT class on 10 May ; Bostonians should feel free to crash 5) using new format at our team meetings: pad -based status updates, plus additional discussion on IRC Mike: 1) Got a mail from Mitchell introducing me to Jofish, the Mozilla IoT person. 2) Also meeting about the Tor Launcher bridge automation 3) Trying to get Ben Rosenfeld involved in Trademark notices. Not hearing from Wendy? 4) Continue working on Tor padding and playing with Rust (and triaging Tor tickets). Karsten: 1) Continued writing funding proposal that is due April 30. 2) Made plans to add a second CollecTor instance and a full Onionoo mirror on tpo hosts. 3) Added translations and language selection to https://exonerator.torproject.org/. 4) Finished technical report on privacy of Tor's in-memory statistics that will be published by end of this week. Isabela: 1) Working on OTF proposal with Metrics team 2) Following up on answers for DRL 3) Dependencies Dependencies Dependencies - working on organizing them with teams. Automation feature for Tor Launcher is the main one that cross many teams, hopefully on Monday we will meet and get everyone on the same page there. 4) Linda is working on site-mapping the current site and the new ones in order to organize the content for each new portal and make sure we are not missing anything. 5) Hiro got a gitlab instance working for Network team to test and this will be the beginning of 'moving away from trac' mission. She is also working on migrating the blog -> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22013 6) OMG need to finish my report on user growth strategy :(

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Damian's Status Report - April 2017
by Damian Johnson 29 Apr '17

29 Apr '17

Hi all! Here's my status report for this month... http://blog.atagar.com/april2017/ Cheers! -Damian

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