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Notes from May 25 2017 Vegas team meeting
by Karsten Loesing 29 May '17

29 May '17

Notes for May 25 2017 meeting: Nick: * Question about network team hiring progress? * Synchronizing wrt tor-launcher features, security plans, on drl-new (sponsor8) contract * Request: let's consider a parallel on-pad update methodology for these meetings? * 0.3.1.1-alpha out, 0.3.1.2-alpha coming soon. Shari: * getting ready to host a bunch of people in Seattle next week * update on communications director hiring * update on unixstickers * focusing on various funding proposals, getting Tommy up to speed * going through old press tickets and updating our press list Mike * Worked with Isa on the tor-launcher automation doc * Talked with Matt about the blog. * Continued working on Guard meeting plans and padding Georg: * moving forward with Tor Browser 7.0 work * Do we need someone taking care of press related things after 7.0 gets released? <- we don't have someone particular for that Isabela: * shared notes about the Tor Launcher automation feature - now is time to collect problems with the V1 implementation, so we can think on how to fix those / change the implementation and get to a final plan so a roadmap can be build (by when we need each team task etc). Next meeting is on Wed at 1800utc * Met with Tommy - went over metrics proposal, also other proposals and what teams are working on etc Would be nice to talk about new proposals besides the current ones under review that we should be writing while we are in Seattle. Alison: * nonstop work on IMLS proposal * submitted Lush Digital Fund proposal * just finished a month of intense travel for LFP trainings. Will be doing many fewer trainings this summer! * work on the support portal continues, and Phoul is still covering all the questions that come into the RT desk * Samdney is working on support for the mirror operators * membership guidelines are just about ready to go into the proposal phase, but I've been asked not to have that overlap with the network team meeting mid-June, so I will probably send it around to a few people for final edits and then start the discussion right when the network team meeting ends * Global South outreach is going well. * in Seattle next week, and my big priority there is to work on the Community Team roadmap and dependencies

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GSoC Student Introduction 2017
by iry 27 May '17

27 May '17

Hello everyone! My name is iry. I am a GSoC student who will be mentored by both Sukhbir (sukhe) and Patrick Schleizer! Although I have heard this good news for a while, I still feel great excitement and happiness every time I think about it. This is because contributing to the Tor/Whonix is my dream that has been encouraging me to move on. Therefore, you can imagine how appreciated I am to the Tor community for offering me such a great opportunity to let me get more involved with Tor! The following is a Q&A about myself and the project I will be working on this summer. I hope it will help you have a better idea about me and the project I will be working on! Also, if there is any question, feedback or anything else you would like to discuss with me, please do not hesitate to let me know! I will be more than happy to discuss them with you! #####What project would you like to work on? I would like to work on the anon-connection-wizard. It is a Python-clone of the Tor Launcher which aims at providing Tor users with a graphical instruction on configuring the Tor. This [application](https://github.com/Whonix/anon-connection-wizard) has been developed as a part of the Whonix Project. Some of the screenshots of its old version can be found [here](https://www.whonix.org/blog/connection-bridge-wizard). This application is especially helpful for users who live in Tor-censored area. This is because those users can only connect to the Tor network with the help of other censorship circumvention tools which include but are not limited to Tor bridges, pluggable transports and other third party Internet censorship circumvention tools like Lantern and VPN. Currently, the Tor Launcher is shipped with the Tor Browser Bundle and heavily relies on the Tor Browser for its implementation. Although thanks to the great efforts([[1]](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/tree/config/chroot_local-hooks/06-adduser_tor-launcher?h=devel), [[2]](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/tree/config/chroot_local-hooks/10-tbb?h=devel), [[3]](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/tree/config/chroot_local-includes/usr/local/sbin/tails-tor-launcher?h=devel), [[4]](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/tree/config/chroot_local-includes/usr/local/bin/tor-launcher?h=devel)) of Tails, the Tor Launcher can be run as a stand-alone XUL application currently, since the XUL will not be supported by mozilla in Firefox ESR branch anymore [some time next year](https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2016/11/23/add-ons-in-2017/), that implementation may not work for a long time. Beiseds, I agree with the Whonix core developer Patrick Schleizer that "the Tor Browser Bundle has its kind of users. system Tor (refers to Tor from packages.debian.org or deb.torproject.org) users, where Tor runs as daemon, is used in different ways for different purposes". Therefore, although anon-connection-wizard is a Python-clone of the Tor luancher, since all its dependencies are already in Debian and already packaged, it can still serve as a really useful tool for the system Tor users or a loose coupling substituition to the Tor Launcher. In addition, the current instructions provided by the anon-connection-wizard and Tor launcher is not clear enough for users to configure Tor correctly. Therefore I would like to implement and redesign the anon-connection-wizard. I hope that my work will help more people to connect to the Tor network efficiently and successfully. #####Your proposal should also try to break down the project into tasks of a fairly fine granularity, and convince us you have a plan for finishing it. As mentioned above, my project goals include two main parts: ######The clone implementation of Tor Launcher: Currently, I have helped to implement the basic functions of anon-connection-wizard. However, there are still several bugs need fixing and a large number of exciting features need implementing, which include: 1. The current implementation of configuring torrc file is very rudimentary. The anon-connection-wizard should read the previous bridge/proxy configuration from the file and adjust the default UI accordingly. Just like what Tor Launcher has been doing. The ["edit marker approach"](https://forums.whonix.org/t/graphical-gui-whonix-setup-wizard-anon-connection-wizard-technical-discussion/650/226) is preferred way to implement this; 2. The password for proxy setting should be covered by character *. ######The redesign of the anon-connection-wizard: I have made a specific [proposal](https://forums.whonix.org/t/a-proposal-for-redesigning-anon-conne… for this topic. And the redesign should at least includes: 1. Rearranging the instruction page orders for better usability; 2. Rewriting the literal instruction so that it fits the actual situation of people in censored areas; 3. Adding more features to the custom Tor bridges configuration input box for more clear instruction. For example, syntax highlight, tool-tips, etc; 4. Doing user behavior experiment to find out what can be helpful for better usability; 5. Modifying the anon-connection-wizard based on the result of the experiment. #####A timeline for what you will be doing throughout the summer is highly recommended. Since the specific dates may be changed with the undecided working schedule. I arrange my timeline in a week unit. Please notice that I have communicated with my potential mentor that we can work on some tasks in advance if the project plan for a specific week is finished earlier than expected. | TIME | TODO | |------|------| |Week 1 | The password for proxy setting should be covered by character *.| |Week 3 | Rewrite the literal instruction so that it fits the actual situation of people in censored areas.| |Week 4 | Generate ideas on redesigning the anon-continence-wizard users interface, basing on the recommendations from outside sources,problems discussed above and suggestions from other people. Present the planning redesign to public to receive feedback.| |Week 5 | Rearrange the instruction page orders for better usability; Rewriting the literal instruction so that it fits the actual situation of people in censored areas.| |Week 6 | Add more features to the custom Tor bridges configuration input box for more clear instruction. For example, syntax highlight, tool-tips, etc.| |Week 7 | Prepare for the user behavior experiment, including recruitment and setting up environment.| |Week 8 | Conduct the experiment.| |Week 9 | Process and analysis the experiment data.| |Week 10| Write the research report.| |Week 11| Modify the anon-connection-wizard based on the result of the experiment.| |Week 12| Modify the anon-connection-wizard based on the result of the experiment.| #####Point us to a code sample: something good and clean to demonstrate that you know what you're doing, ideally from an existing project. The followings are a part of my pull requests to the anon-connection-wizard project on GitHub: 1. [Basic features implementation](https://github.com/Whonix/anon-connection-wizard/pull/1); 2. [Pluggable transport renew](https://github.com/Whonix/anon-connection-wizard/pull/2); 3. [Port from Python2 to Python3.4 & from PyQt4 to PyQt5](https://github.com/Whonix/anon-connection-wizard/pull/4). The following is my proposal for the redesign of anon-connection-wizard in Whonix Forum: 1. [A proposal for redesigning anon-connection-wizard for better usability](https://forums.whonix.org/t/a-proposal-for-redesigning-anon-conn… #####Why do you want to work with The Tor Project in particular? As one who was living in oppressive area, I deeply understand the importance of Internet freedom to a society. At first, I merely considered Internet freedom as fighting against Internet censorship. However, after a large amount of observation, reading and reflection, I realized that the self-censorship conducted by every scared citizens was much more powerful and terrible than the censorship conducted by the outside world. It was at that moment I realized the online anonymity was a vital component to Internet freedom because it frees people from fear. I value Tor/Whonix. Without it, I couldn't have been freed from the fear and explored the world freely and finally became who I am today. Therefore, contributing to Tor/Whonix as a career is not only a dream that I have been fighting for, but also an essential approach to my self-actualization. #####Tell us about your experiences in free software development environments. We especially want to hear examples of how you have collaborated with others rather than just working on a project by yourself. I agree that “[o]pen and clear communication is of utmost importance”. This is because of two main reasons from my point of view. First, a successful free and open source software development heavily relies on the collaboration between different people. A good communication skill will create a positive and supportive atmosphere which not only make everyone works for it more efficient but also attracts more people to join the development. Second, feedback from others, especially mentor, can be extremely beneficial to a student’s progress. Without the feedback, it may take a student years until one day after a frustrating debugging process to realize a mistake he/she made; while he/she may realize several mistakes he/she made almost immediately from his/her mentor’s feedback. I have already been working on the project with my potential mentor Patrick Schleizer. A small part of our open communication can be found [here](https://forums.whonix.org/t/graphical-gui-whonix-setup-wizard-ano n-connection-wizard-technical-discussion/650/222), which may be helpful to prove we have been having an open and clear communication. I also take Jean-Philippe Ouellet's words said on the Qubes-devel mailing list as an encouragement to me: > This kind of detailed and engaged communication is a model to all GSoC applicants #####Will your project need more work and/or maintenance after the summer ends? Yes! Tails developer anonym pointed out a promising future for the anon-connection-wizard on the tor-dev mailing list: >"I also see potential for future collaboration between Whonix and Tails for extending the usefulness of anon-connection-wizard beyond what Tor Launcher (and its replacement) offers [2]; anon-connection-wizard targets the OS, not just a single application, so it could integrate the choices of network configuration (wired? which wireless network? MAC spoofing?) and Tor configuration (proxy? pluggable transport?) in a single place which probably makes more sense for users and also allows us to more easily (optionally) save these settings so they are restored the next time you visit the same network. This could potentially even be used to help giving users control over entry node selection to avoid persistent Entry Guards from leaking information about you geographical movement. [3]" #####What are the chances you will stick around and help out with that and other related projects? Since I would like to take contributing to Tor/Whonix as a career, I will definitely stick around the Tor/Whonix community and help out with the future development of my project and other related ones. I never consider my project as a one-time project. Instead, I consider it as an important step to help myself get more invovled in the Tor/Whonix community. #####What is your ideal approach to keeping everybody informed of your progress, problems, and questions over the course of the project? Said another way, how much of a "manager" will you need your mentor to be? My plan is to take the [Whonix Forum](https://forums.whonix.org/) as the daily communication platform with my potential mentor Patrick. And just like what I have been doing, I will also post a detailed progress report for each working period which is no more than a week. Since the anon-connection-wizard is hosted on Github right now, people can also take it as a way to see my commits and progress. I can also send the posts to the tor-dev mailing list if it is considered as a good idea. #####How can we contact you? Currently, people can contact me through the following ways: 1. Email: iry at riseup dot net [GPG](https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0xA14B4DBC6DCDD53C) 2. Github: @irykoon 3. Whonix Forum: @iry I will inform the public if there is any change to my contact information. #####In addition, what's your IRC nickname? Interacting with us on IRC will help us get to know you, and help you get to know our community. I am going to join the IRC and inform the public my IRC nickname before the end of the next week.

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We killed the User Experience component - how to use #ux-team tag
by Linda Naeun Lee 26 May '17

26 May '17

Hello all, The purpose of the UX team is to work with all teams at Tor to help them build great user experience for their projects. The previous work that the UX team has done also reflects this--evaluating the Tor launcher interface, redoing the metrics website, creating web and mobile interfaces for OONI, testing the mobile security slider. Since our work is always in collaboration with another team, we decided to instead of having a component for UX team (vertical way of organizing our tasks) we are adopting a keyword (tag) for our team #ux-team (horizontal way to organize our tasks) that can be used across components on Trac. *What will you do with the #ux-team tag? * We will be labeling ongoing projects that we work on with this tag. But we are also building a process for you to 'tag' a ticket with #ux-team if you think we should look at it. We will triage tickets with the #ux-team tag every Tuesday at 1500 UTC time on #tor-project. There, we will evaluate if those issues are indeed something we can help with and give you an answer of what's next. *When do I use the #ux-team tag? * "If something is broken and the user can't use it is not necessary ux related - more chances are that is ux related if *its working* and the user still can't use it."Common tasks that the ux team does includes creating or editing user interfaces, creating images/videos/other media, testing your product on users, and helping communicate with users. *What about #usability and #tbb-usabilty tags?* People can use them to track things they want, but we won't specifically look at tickets marked with those tags until there is the #ux-team tag. We have already looked at tickets with those other tags, and tagged relevant tickets for the UX team with the #ux-team tag--if we missed one, please tag it with the #ux-team tag! *Ok, what will happen with website and blog components under the "User Experience" component?* We have reorganized the "User Experience" component into a "Webpages" component! The tickets under the "User Experience" component currently were previously all torproject.org and blog.torporject.org related, so this seemed like a good transition. It also made sense to have a component for webpages, so that we can track work for other webages in the future: media.tpo, extra.tpo, and various new portals (dev, support, and community). Sites that won't be subcomponet of this components, are sites that we consider they are a product of a team, like OONI page, or the metrics page. This information exists on our wiki page as well: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/UxTeam#Tickets We think that this is a much more intuitive way to organize the work! Thanks for your cooperation. Thanks, UX team

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Re: [tor-project] [ux] We killed the User Experience component - how to use #ux-team tag
by Linda Naeun Lee 26 May '17

26 May '17

Thanks for the clarification, Text. Yes. We will be using the keyword "ux-team." On May 25, 2017 6:51 PM, "teor" <teor2345(a)gmail.com> wrote: > (Also sent to tor-project, resending this because my first ux message > bounced.) > > > On 26 May 2017, at 08:00, Linda Naeun Lee <linda(a)torproject.org> wrote: > > > > Hello all, > > > > The purpose of the UX team is to work with all teams at Tor to help them > build great user experience for their projects. The previous work that the > UX team has done also reflects this--evaluating the Tor launcher interface, > redoing the metrics website, creating web and mobile interfaces for OONI, > testing the mobile security slider. > > > > Since our work is always in collaboration with another team, we decided > to instead of having a component for UX team (vertical way of organizing > our tasks) we are adopting a keyword (tag) for our team #ux-team > (horizontal way to organize our tasks) that can be used across components > on Trac. > > Hi Linda, > > Sounds like a great idea! > > For people who haven't used trac before: > > Trac doesn't use '#' in its tags, and it calls them 'keywords'. > > So to tag a ticket, do: > > Keywords: ux-team > > You can have as many keywords as you like, separated by spaces. > (And commas, if you like commas.) > > T > -- > Tim Wilson-Brown (teor) > > teor2345 at gmail dot com > PGP C855 6CED 5D90 A0C5 29F6 4D43 450C BA7F 968F 094B > ricochet:ekmygaiu4rzgsk6n > xmpp: teor at torproject dot org > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > _______________________________________________ > UX mailing list > UX(a)lists.torproject.org > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ux > >

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State of the blog
by Silvia [Hiro] 23 May '17

23 May '17

Hi everyone, The blog migration is almost completed and we now need your input for some QA. The new blog is live at: https://live-tor-blog-8.pantheonsite.io/ You can start using it and see if is there something amiss. You should be able to login with your old blog credentials. If this doesn't work you should be able to request a password reset. Please consider that sending email directly from the blog platform can be slow and unreliable, so if after a few minutes you haven't got your reset email, send me a message and I'll do that for you. If you find an issue you can check the master ticket: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22013 and add your issue to it. Talk soon, -hiro/silvia

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Re: [tor-project] VKontakte recommending Tor for circumvention, links sketchy app for iOS
by Nathan Freitas 22 May '17

22 May '17

I have fwd to Mike Tigas who can hopefully coordinate some appropriate outreach and awareness. On Sat, May 20, 2017, at 06:33 PM, David Fifield wrote: > I was reading about Ukraine's May 16 blocking of Russian web sites and > the resulting increase in Tor users: > https://www.rt.com/business/388502-ukraine-bans-vk-yandex/ > https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?start=2017-05-0… > https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-country.html?start=2017-05-… > > One of the blocked sites is VKontakte, a service like Facebook. I found > that they have a page on circumvention that recommends e.g. Opera VPN, > Tunnelbear, and Tor Browser. > https://vk.com/page-22884714_52979730 (https://web.archive.org/web/20170520222918/https://vk.com/page-22884714_529…) > > Their links for Windows, macOS, and Android look good, but for iOS they > are linking to some weird third-party app "VPN Browser - TOR-powered > unlimited VPN": > https://itunes.apple.com/ru/app/vpn-browser-tor-powered-unlimited-vpn/id961… > Perhaps someone could get them to link something more reasonable? > _______________________________________________ > tor-project mailing list > tor-project(a)lists.torproject.org > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-project

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Weekly network-team meeting: notes and logs from 5/22
by Nick Mathewson 22 May '17

22 May '17

Hi, all! You can find the transcript of our regular network team meeting here: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-dev/2017/tor-dev.2017-05-22-17.00.html Below are the contents of our meeting pad. ========================= Network team status updates, 2017 May 22 Discussion topics: - What is blocking 0.3.1.1-alpha, if anything? - What do we want to know about onion services? (teor is writing code to collect onion service stats on relays) - How do we make sure that the bugs get fixed? (in 0.3.1.x) (and in 0.3.0.x) - We should do more to test out oniongit.eu. What? - Can we publicize our 'easy' tickets for new/volunteer devs, and put more tickets in that category? - And remove ones that aren't so "easy" ======== Updates ======== teor: Last Week - Feature freeze for PrivCount 1.0.0 (PrivCount collects tor stats and aggregates them securely.) Paper: http://www.robgjansen.com/talks/privcount-ccs-20161027.pdf Source: https://github.com/privcount - So much PrivCount testing, fixed several counting and reliability bugs - Found a PrivCount scaling issue that will probably need a protocol redesign to fix - Refresh the fallback directory mirror list: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2017-May/012285.html This Week - Update the PrivCount README (set up a live privcount network and make sure it works) - All going well, release PrivCount 1.0.0 - Start configuration and deployment for the next PrivCount collection run (maybe?) - Do some tor or chutney work: anyone have any suggestions? I might revise the chutney DNS thing - https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21903 - Work on the PrivCount Onion Service collection design: what do we want to know about onion services? Nick Last week: * released 0.3.0.7 * froze 0.3.0 * dubious merges wrt timing: #1922, rust. Should I not have? * prepared for 0.3.1.1-alpha (changelog, testing, cleanup, etc etc) * worked on bugfixes * tried to get proposal status right on more proposals * distracted by AC installation (heat pumps are nifty) This week: * release 0.3.1.1-alpha * try to get us focused on bugfix-mode for 0.3.1.x * start prep for 0.3.2.x * Try to get more progress w/ catalyst on the Tor side of UX improvements. Roger: This weekend: I started plowing through old trac tickets, to give opinions on many of them so people can move forward. This week: Continue doing more trac tickets, especially around the new guard-spec design, and related future guard designs. asn [Will not be around for the actual meeting :(. Have to attend a birthday dinner. Feel free to leave stuff for me on IRC and I will pick it up tomorrow] [*] Last week: - Lots of debugging/testing on #21969. Finally submitted a patch for the bridge case today. - Posted a list of open topics for HS guard discovery research: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2017-May/012260.html - Worked with Mike to make schedule for the guard parts of the June network team meetup. Need more feedback/brainstorming/thought. - More work on prop224 client-side descriptor fetching (#21403). - Updated guard-spec.txt based on feedback by Roger: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2017-May/012265.html [*] This week: - Finalize #21403, or bring it very close to the end - Hopefully debug/fix the non-bridge case of #21969 as well. - More preparation for the network team hackfest. catalyst: * Last week: - based on IRC discussion #7869 needs some more work, including spec changes for a new consensus method - reviewed #21872 fixup patch - helped toby_ with test stuff. discovered that test-stem doesn't really work; filed #22301 about that - found a shell arithmetic syntax error in chutney proposed a patch in #22302 - during some background research on bootstrapping found glossary needed some additional definitions; added in #22296 - looked at some torbrowser-launcher stuff (sig verification and maybe pushing fixes for that into Debian/Ubuntu) * This week: - review #21969 stuff some more - document bootstrap process - make more progress on bootstrap UX improvements - sort out some apparently conflicting mental models of bootstrap, e.g., #22266 - give feedback on #7869 ahf: Last week (unordered): Sponsor 4: - Got the consdiff and directory code to work together and landed it (#21667). - Fixed issue: #22305. - Did a lot of testing with Chutney locally with current Tor HEAD + older releases. - Started to look into merging prop #278 changes to dir-spec.txt - Reviewed some patches for prop#140. Misc: - Read up on prop #247 + its discussion as preparation for the upcoming meeting. - Got trip booked for the upcoming team meeting. This week (ordered): Sponsor 4: - Finish the merging of prop #278 to dir-spec.txt (#22275) - Fix issues with #22286 - Testing/bugfixing of 0.3.1-alpha release. Misc: - Need to spend some additional time wrapping my head around the guard proposal for the upcoming meeting. komlo: - Last week: - Created a separate branch for rust_smartlist for review/to build upon. - Worked with manishearth for a POC to handle strings between Rust/C. This uses malloc and free, which would keep the Rust/C boundary more decoupled. We can re-review as we get further into Rust implementation: github.com/Manishearth/freestring - This week: - Finish implementing protover_is_supported_here and protover_compute_for_old_tor (will be ready for review after these) isis: Last Week: - Emails about contracting/employment - Spec'd #18329 and tried to move it forward - Did other things in my time off This Week: - Doing other things, let me know if help is needed somewhere urgently haxxpop: Previously: I didn't do anything 'cause my paid job. This Week: I think I have more time now. I will find something to do. pastly: - boring new-hire NRL travel stuff. Hopefully will get done before Wilmington - running experiments to determine if high priority traffic is correctly being prioritized over low priority traffic. Inconclusive so far. Is it network variance? Shadow is so nice. So hard to be sure of things on a live relay. - for the above point, looking at EWMA cell_count values vs Tor application queuing delay. Also looking at TCP information. This week: - more of the same prioritization verification - time to make serious efforts at documentation/tests for kist code mike: Last week: - Worked on Guard meeting agenda with asn - Discussion of catalyst and nick's bootstrap doc - Planning travel - Padding branch work This week: - Moar travel logistics - Padding Sebastian: - reviewed a bunch of Rust code, preparing future branches for smartlists/consdiff - not that much time atm :/ isabela: - last week: was sick for most of it, but sent out sponsor4 report and worked on invoices for sponsor4 and R - this week: i worked last week on my notes about the tor launcher whiteboarding session i had with mike and isis, i hope to finish that this week and share with people (from the launcher automation email thread) and schedule a meeting to pick up on that, discuss my notes and hopeflly answer some open questions I have.

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Notes from May 18 2017 Vegas team meeting
by Karsten Loesing 22 May '17

22 May '17

Notes for May 18 2017 meeting: Nick: 1) UX discussions seem to be confusing on our end; requirements still unclear. Progress being made, though. 2) 0.3.0.7 released, 0.3.1.1-alpha coming soon. Freeze in effect. 3) My house now has enough AC for me to work. 4) Initial rust support branch is looking pretty nice 5) Going to work, per arma's suggestion, on cleaning up tor-core security issue policy. Anybody else interested in adopting it? Mike: 1) Working on Guard proposal and meeting agenda 2) Padding work 3) Conference with Mozilla about IoT 4) Figuring out several upcoming travel arrangement Alison: 1) Not able to make it; teaching a workshop. Arturo: 1) Quite some progress done on the orchestration system. Now the web admin panel has ability to login, add scheduled measurements, list clients and list scheduled jobs: https://github.com/TheTorProject/proteus/pull/2. 2) Updated the Iranian testing list: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/161 3) We released a new version of ooniprobe-mobile that is now out on the stores supporting Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Greek and supporting http-header-field-manipulation. Georg: 1) Tor Browser 7.0a4 got out; there are about 2-3 weeks left to get Tor Browser 7.0 into stable shape 2) Attended SIF17 Karsten: 1) Released metrics-lib 1.7.0, made plans for releasing 1.8.0, maybe 1.9.0, and 2.0.0 in the next six weeks. 2) Making plans for completing improvements to in-memory statistics without breaking them. Shari: 1) board meeting and followup 2) making appointments with foundation funders 3) interviewing and resume review for communications directors 4) getting ready for Tommy to start next week; lining up initial assignments 5) researching strategic planners

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VKontakte recommending Tor for circumvention, links sketchy app for iOS
by David Fifield 20 May '17

20 May '17

I was reading about Ukraine's May 16 blocking of Russian web sites and the resulting increase in Tor users: https://www.rt.com/business/388502-ukraine-bans-vk-yandex/ https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?start=2017-05-0… https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-country.html?start=2017-05-… One of the blocked sites is VKontakte, a service like Facebook. I found that they have a page on circumvention that recommends e.g. Opera VPN, Tunnelbear, and Tor Browser. https://vk.com/page-22884714_52979730 (https://web.archive.org/web/20170520222918/https://vk.com/page-22884714_529…) Their links for Windows, macOS, and Android look good, but for iOS they are linking to some weird third-party app "VPN Browser - TOR-powered unlimited VPN": https://itunes.apple.com/ru/app/vpn-browser-tor-powered-unlimited-vpn/id961… Perhaps someone could get them to link something more reasonable?

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Core Tor Team work for sponsor 4 in April
by isabela 16 May '17

16 May '17

Core Tor Team April 2017 Report: We finished the remaining tasks related to the implemention of Proposal 140 [1], "Provide diffs between consensuses". * #21646 - Prop140/compression: Refactor "directory request" code [2] * #21647 - Prop140: directory caches cache multiple past diffs or consensuses [3] * #21869 - Labeled storage backend for consensus docs and diffs [4] * #21648 - Prop140: Caches generate diffs as appropriate [5] * #22096 - Increase MALLOC_MP_LIM in sandbox.c [6] We continue to work on Proposal 278 [7], "Directory Compression Scheme Negotiation", finishing the following tasks: * #21664 - Prop278: Make the current 'torgzip' module a submodule of a new 'compression' module [8] * #21662 - Prop278: Add support for LZMA2 and/or Zstandard [9] * #22066 - Add memory measurement code in LZMA and Zstandard compression backends [10] * #21665 - Prop278: Establish an upper-bound for LZMA2 memory usage [11] * #22051 - Use streaming compression API in the non-streaming compression API [12] * #21663 - Prop278: Refactor the torgzip module to support additional compression schemes [13] * #22065 - Prop278: Parse the Accept-Encoding header and pass it to "get" handlers [14] * #21667 - Prop278: Handle new headers in directory.c [15] * #22085 - Refactor and simplify compression tests [16] We also hosted a follow-up meeting with Metrics Team regarding the impact of these efforts on the their work. Notes from this meeting can be found at: https://pad.riseup.net/p/chikeuBN1OUh [1] https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/proposals/140-consensus-diff… [2] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21646 [3] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21647 [4] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21869 [5] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21648 [6] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22096 [7] https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/proposals/278-directory-comp… [8] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21664 [9] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21662 [10] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22066 [11] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21665 [12] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22051 [13] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21663 [14] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22065 [15] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21667 [16] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22085

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