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Tomorrow Friday 18th, Localization hangout!
by emma peel 17 Nov '22

17 Nov '22

Apologies for crossposting Fellow translators: Tomorrow we hangout! ---------------------------------------- Every 3rd Friday of the month the Tor L10n Team meets on the Localization Hangout, from Noon UTC, on the #tor-l10n channel in OFTC and matrix At 13 UTC we make a call on Big Blue Button. Tomorrow we will be testing the new multilocale Tor Browser. That's right: The same app for all locales! The first multi-locale release of Tor Browser Alpha for desktop is out. All supported languages are now included in a single bundle, and can be changed without requiring additional downloads via the Language menu in General settings. Download: https://www.torproject.org/download/alpha/ What to test: * Tor Browser Alpha should default to your system language on first launch if it matches a language we support (list of languages supported: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/tbb-37/ ). * Changing language within about:preferences#general * Any new bugs with localization in general. For more information about the hangout, please see: https://community.torproject.org/localization/hangouts/ Note: Tor Browser Alpha is an unstable version of Tor Browser and should not be used for activities that could put you at risk. Instead, please limit your use of alpha to preview new features, test their performance and provide feedback before their release.

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Open Positions -- Software Developer (C Language) & Director of Strategic Communications
by Erin Wyatt 16 Nov '22

16 Nov '22

Hi everyone! We have two open positions right now, a new Software Developer (C Language) to help the Network Team with Onion Services, and a second call on the Director of Strategic Communications. Job descriptions and instructions on how to apply are available on our website: Software Developer (C Language) <https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/software-engineer-c-developer/> Director of Strategic Communications <https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/director-strategic-comm/> Please share these with your networks and help us spread the word. Thank you! :) Best, Erin Wyatt Director of People Operations (she/her) ewyatt(a)torproject.org PGP: 35E7 2A9F 6655 45F9 2CB6 6624 BA0C 9400 F80F 91CE https://www.torproject.org <https://www.torproject.org/> http://2gzyxa5ihm7nsggfxnu52rck2vv4rvmdlkiu3zzui5du4xyclen53wid.onion/

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Tails report for September and October 2022
by intrigeri 14 Nov '22

14 Nov '22

Tails report for September and October 2022 <https://tails.boum.org/news/report_2022_10/> Highlights Here's a glimpse at what happened in Tails in September and October. Analyzing results of usability tests We analyzed the results of the usability tests we did in São Paulo: * first-time use <https-everywhere://lists.autistici.org/message/20221012.181235.a673efeb.en.html> * Tor Connection <https://lists.autistici.org/message/20221012.140611.7e58f067.en.html> Then we prioritized the issues identified there and planned to fix a bunch of them in the next few months. New features Our developers brought 3 major new features to beta quality: * New Persistent Storage, completely redesigned and vastly more usable * Wayland and better Unsafe Browser, for better security in depth and usability * QR code scanning for Tor bridges We will only release these features officially in Tails 5.8 (December 2022), but you cantry them already in Tails 5.8~beta1 <https://tails.boum.org/news/test_5.8-beta1/>! Donation campaign We launched our end-of-year donation campaign. Donations from passionate people like you are our most valuable source of funding because they guarantee our independence. We are a very small nonprofit and our yearly budget is ridiculously small compared to the value of Tails. Donate now <https://tails.boum.org/donate/index.en.html>to fight surveillance and censorship! Releases Tails 5.5 was released on October 17 <https://tails.boum.org/news/version_5.5/index.en.html>, including: * Update/Thunderbird/to102.3.0 <https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/102.3.0/releasenotes/>. /Thunderbird/102 is a major update withmany changes to the navigation, folder icons, and address book <https://blog.thunderbird.net/2022/06/thunderbird-102-released-a-serious-upg…>. /Thunderbird/102 also includes important usability improvements to the OpenPGP feature. When composing an email, you can now see whether it will be encrypted or not. If encryption is impossible, a key assistant helps you solve key issues. Thunderbird composer window with encryption turned on and notification about a missing key and how to resolve the issue. * Always ask to configure a screen locking password when pressing Ctrl+L and no administration pasword was set. (#19090 <https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/19090>) Tails 5.6 was released on October 25 <https://tails.boum.org/news/version_5.6/index.en.html>. Metrics Tails has been started more than 698 160 times in September, and 736 378 times in October. This makes 23 517 boots a day on average.

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Anti-censorship team meeting notes, 2022-11-10
by meskio 10 Nov '22

10 Nov '22

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2022/tor-meeting.2022-11-10-15.58.html And our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday Nov 17 16:00 UTC Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 16:00 UTC, in #tor-meeting at OFTC (channel is logged while meetings are in progress) == 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 28 * must-do tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/10 * possible tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… * Sponsor 96 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/24 == Announcements == * == Discussion == * spike of obfs4 usage in china * https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-combined.html?start=2022-10… * can the change to use obfs4 by default in CN be part of that spike? https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/99 == Actions == == Interesting links == * Connection throttling in Uzbekistan since 2022-11-04? * https://ntc.party/t/twitter-tik-tok-skype/1122/35 * "we see some kind of bandwith limitations with transfering of big files in MS365 services (for example - letters in outlook without attachments receiving without problems, but if there’s some file attached - time to loading this letter increasing dramatically; same situation with Sharepoint’s instances - data in web-version of Office365 loads correctly and fast, but if we start to use desktop apps (word, excel, PBI, etc.), which retrieving information from MS servers, time to loading increasing dramatically, no matter of file size)." == Reading group == * We will discuss "Measuring DoT/DoH Blocking Using OONI Probe: a Preliminary Study" on Dec 1 * https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/auto-draft-123/ * https://www.ndss-symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/dnspriv21-02-paper.pdf * 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): last updated 2022-11-10 Last week: - reviewed and merged snowflake-webext!56 - reviewed and merged snowflake-webext!59 - continued work to fix translations - reached out to conjure researchers about scaling issues - started reading up on reputation-based bridge distribution again This week: - website/extension release (blocked on !62) - continue work on conjure client - more work on reputation-based bridge dist Needs help with: dcf: 2022-11-10 Last week: - investigated the cause of last week's ~doubling of snowflake-01 bandwidth; seems to have been the gradual release of a version of Orbot with uTLS support for snowflake https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/metrics/timeline/-/commit/… - helped review styling changes in snowflake webextension https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - posted guides on how to test the snowflake-02 bridge https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - more review of the presentation of right-to-left languages in the snowflake webextension https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - opened an issue for snowflake proxy failing to scrub IPv6 addresses from log when URL-encoded https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: - disable non-WireGuard SSH access to snowflake-02 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - migrate goptlib to gitlab https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/86#note_282… - try Conjure PT development version https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-dev-introducing-a-conjure-pt-for-tor/4429 - break up snowflake-server performance improvements into separate merge requests https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - document recent performance optimizations in Snowflake bridge installation guide Help with: meskio: 2022-11-10 Last week: - obfs4proxy 0.0.14 in Tor Browser - prepare SOTO 2022 presentation - update the list of blocked bridges in RU - change gettor silence alert to 6h - brainstorm on bandwith testing for bridges (onbasca#130) - fix sqlinjections on onionsproutsbot (OnionSproutsBot!22) Next week: - check if we are distributing blocked bridges in moat (rdsys#80) Shelikhoo: 2022-11-10 Last Week: - [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64) - [Discussion & Deployment] Rollout of Distributed Snowflake Support - [Coding & Deployment] Proposal: Centralized Probe Result Collector (anti-censorship/team#54) - [Research] HTTPT Planning https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/http… - [Research] Censorship analysis for UDP traffic between Iran and rest of Internet: 2022 Q4: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/iss… (Continue) - [Merge Request] Add Version Output Support to Snowflake(This also shows utls client hello names) https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - Reviewed a lots of merge request Next Week: - [Research] WebTunnel planning (Continue) - [Research] Fix vantage point summary upload in China - Release new version of Snowflake WebExt - [Research] Censorship analysis for UDP traffic between Iran and rest of Internet: 2022 Q4: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/iss… (Continue) - Finish all the reviews Itchy Onion: 2022-11-10 Last week: - Fixed the Rib issue. Now snowflake passes CI tests 100%. - attending (parts of) RACE PI meeting remotely. This week: - some logging improvements https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - debug RACE tests errors from stress tests -- meskio | https://meskio.net/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- My contact info: https://meskio.net/crypto.txt -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Nos vamos a Croatan.

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State of the Onion 2022
by Gaba 09 Nov '22

09 Nov '22

Hi! We're happy to announce that the State of the Onion, a livestream event highlighting updates from onion-world over the last year, is returning this month! This year, we'll State of the Onion will be a two-part event: - Wednesday, Nov 9, State of the Onion: the Tor Project @ 17:00-18:30 UTC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSyBZ7GIzJY - Wednesday, Nov 16, State of the Onion: the Tor community @ 17:00-18:30 UTC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-7k0PjnBbk Everyone is invited to hear news, accomplishments, challenges, and next steps of all the Tor Project's teams + Tor community projects during these live events. More information about the Tor Project's event in https://blog.torproject.org/state-of-the-onion-2022/ cheers, gaba -- pronouns she/her/they GPG Fingerprint EE3F DF5C AD91 643C 21BE 8370 180D B06C 59CA BD19

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Network Team - Upcoming tor.git 0.4.7.11 release - November 2022
by David Goulet 09 Nov '22

09 Nov '22

Greetings, Network team will be releasing either Wednesday or Thursday (November 9th or 10th 2022) a new stable release from the 0.4.7.x series. We've been working a lot on this stable version to add fixes to help against the network denial of service. This is an important release that we hope will help us fight this DoS better. Upcoming versions: - 0.4.7.11 @network-team: It is _now_ a good time to start reviewing changes/ files: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/tree/main/changes Last, we've asked the dirauth to recommend this version few minutes ago. Keep an eye out for the release announcement and a blog post about this new stable version. Cheers! David -- 30ew87vL0lcJ+uAxFHzrN2RFVk7G7DOEMiNOsmescfw=

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minutes from the sysadmin meeting
by Antoine Beaupré 08 Nov '22

08 Nov '22

Here's your monthly dose of sysadmin news! # Roll call: who's there and emergencies anarcat, gaba, kez, lavamind # Dashboard review We did our normal per-user check-in: * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/boards?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/boards?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/boards?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… ... and briefly reviewed the general dashboards: * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards/117 * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/web/-/boards * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/tpa/-/boards We need to rethink the web board triage, as mentioned in the last point of this meeting. # TPA-RFC-42: 2023 roadmap Gaba brought up a few items we need to plan for, and schedule: * donate page rewrite (kez) * sponsor9: * self-host discourse (Q1-Q2 < june 2023) * RT and cdr.link evaluation (Q1-Q2, gus): "improve our frontdesk tool by exploring the possibility of migrating to a better tool that can manage messaging apps with our users" * download page changes (kez? currently blocked on nico) * weblate transition (CI changes pending, lavamind following up) * developer portal (dev.torproject.org) in Hugo, from ura.design ([tpo/web/dev#6][]) Those are tasks that either TPA will need to do themselves or assist other people in. Gaba also went through the work planned for 2023 in general to see what would affect TPA. We then discussed anarcat's roadmap proposal ([TPA-RFC-42][]): * do the bookworm upgrades, this includes: * puppet server 7 * puppet agent 7 * plan would be: * Q1-Q2: deploy new machines with bookworm * Q1-Q4: upgrade existing machines to bookworm * email services migration (e.g. execute TPA-RFC-31, still need to decide the scope, proposal coming up) * possibly retire schleuder (e.g. execute TPA-RFC-41, currently waiting for feedback from the community council) * complete the cymru migration (e.g. execute TPA-RFC-40) * retire gitolite/gitweb (e.g. execute TPA-RFC-36) * retire SVN (e.g. execute TPA-RFC-11) * monitoring system overhaul (TPA-RFC-33) * deploy a Puppet CI * e.g. make the Puppet repo public, possibly by removing private content and just creating a "graft" to have a new repository without old history (as opposed to rewriting the entire history, because then we don't know if we have confidential stuff in the old history) * there are disagreements on whether or not we should make the repository public in the first place, as it's not exactly "state of the art" puppet code, which could be embarrassing * there's also a concern that we don't need CI as long as we don't have actual tests to run (but it's also kind of pointless to have CI without tests to run...), but for now we already have the objective of running linting checks on push ([tpo/tpa/team#31226][]) * plan for summer vacations [tpo/web/dev#6]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/dev/-/issues/6 [TPA-RFC-42]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40924 [tpo/tpa/team#31226]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/31226 # Web team organisation Postponed to next meeting. anarcat will join Gaba's next triage session with gus to see how that goes. # Metrics of the month * hosts in Puppet: 95, LDAP: 95, Prometheus exporters: 163 * number of Apache servers monitored: 29, hits per second: 715 * number of self-hosted nameservers: 6, mail servers: 10 * pending upgrades: 0, reboots: 4 * average load: 0.64, memory available: 4.61 TiB/5.74 TiB, running processes: 736 * disk free/total: 32.50 TiB/92.28 TiB * bytes sent: 363.66 MB/s, received: 215.11 MB/s * planned bullseye upgrades completion date: 2022-11-01 * [GitLab tickets][]: 175 tickets including... * open: 0 * icebox: 144 * backlog: 17 * next: 4 * doing: 7 * needs review: 1 * needs information: 2 * (closed: 2934) [Gitlab tickets]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards Upgrade prediction graph lives at: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/howto/upgrades/bullseye/ Now also available as the main Grafana dashboard. Head to <https://grafana.torproject.org/>, change the time period to 30 days, and wait a while for results to render. # Number of the month: 12 Progress on bullseye upgrades mostly flat-lined at 12 machines since August. We actually have three *less* bullseye servers now, down to 83 from 86. -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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Joydeep's Monthly Status Report for October 2022
by Joydeep Sen Gupta 06 Nov '22

06 Nov '22

Hello everyone! These are my updates from October. Much of my work was concentrated around helping users in Iran circumvent censorship[1] and learning (and investigating) what usability and connectivity issues they were facing amidst the heavy censorship. This usually involved helping users with using pluggable transports with apps in the Tor ecosystem and investigating Tor logs to figure out if and how Tor was failing to connect. I have been able to respond to more than 500 support tickets from Iran in the last month but this is very much work in progress as internet is heavily censored in Iran right now. With the launch of the Year End Campaign, as always, we have generated a good deal of interest on our user support and discussion platforms and I have been responding to these queries. A lot of general Tor questions, questions about using Tor Browser, etc. We had 4 Tor Browser releases in the past month and I have been involved with some testing and also wrote some documentation for the Tor Browser Manual adding instructions for using the GetBridges Telegram bot[2] and a dedicated help section[3]. A quick overview of our user support channels: Timeline: 01 - 31 October 2022 # Frontdesk Tickets: open: 50 resolved: 766 Breakdown of most frequent tickets by numbers: 1. 99 RT Tickets - Circumventing Censorship with Tor in Iran. 2. 22 RT Tickets - Private Bridge requests from China[4] 3. 43 RT Tickets - How to use a Tor Bridge in Russia[5] # Telegram and Signal Support channel (cdr.link) Tickets resolved: 1475 The other most frequent ticket we received have been about: 1. 1140 tickets: Circumventing censorship in Iran. 2. 169 tickets: Circumventing censorship in Russia 3. 16 tickets - Using unlisted obfs4 bridges in China 4. 12 tickets - Questions about using Snowflake and setting up Snowflake proxies # Tor Forum Most popular topics in the Support category (in terms of no. of views): 1. "Standalone proxy - traffic relayed almost zero with restricted NAT type"[6] 2. "How can I use Snowflake with tor (service)?"[7] 3. "Why has Tor slowed down so much recently?"[8] 4. "Bookmarks in my Tor Browser"[9] 5. "Bridge or Snowflake? low RAM VPS"[10] Thanks, -- Joydeep [1]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/iran-circumventing-censorship-with-tor/4590 [2]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/bridges/ [3]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/manual/-/issues/131 [4]: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/ [5]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-blocked-in-russia-how-to-circumvent-cens… [6]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/standalone-proxy-traffic-relayed-almost-zero… [7]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/how-can-i-use-snowflake-with-tor-service/504… [8]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/why-has-tor-slowed-down-so-much-recently/502… [9]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/bookmarks-in-my-tor-browser/5310/7 [10]: https://forum.torproject.net/t/bridge-or-snowflake-low-ram-vps/5019/6

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Cecylia's monthly status report, October 2022
by Cecylia Bocovich 06 Nov '22

06 Nov '22

Hi everyone, This is my status report for contract work done in October 2022. 1. Conjure development * Completed tor-browser-build changes needed for tor browser integration of conjure on desktop and mobile (not merged yet due to usability concerns) * wrote a guide for integrating PTs with Tor Browser builds [0] * Small client-side fixes for storing the assets directory 2. Snowflake web extension * Worked on fixes for website and extension translations * Updated polling frequency to help with proxy pool shortages * Made progress on Firefox MV3 updates * Reviewed and merged open MRs 3. Bridge reputation system * Wrote a plan for client-side development options [0] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Tor-Browser-…

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Rhatto's Monthly Status Report, October 2022
by rhatto 04 Nov '22

04 Nov '22

Hi all :) This is my monthly status report for October 2022. Main activities during the period: 0. Documentation: * Improved documentation about Onion Services UX enhancements. Now these docs are more organized to help research and discussion: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-support/-/wikis/Docu… https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-support/-/issues/64 * Created a small timeline to track the major changes/developments in the Onion Services technology: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-support/-/wikis/Docu… I'd like to have some suggestions on what to include, with references if possible :) 1. [Onion Plan][]: * Drafted a roadmap proposal for making Onion Services easier to deploy, maintain, and advertise. * It's a follow up from the Onion Plan session from September: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/team/-/wikis/202209MeetingOnionPlan * The idea is to release this plan when it's ready to gather general feedback. 2. [Onion Launchpad][], an Onion Service landing page template: * Created an automation script for deploying instances on GitLab: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-launchpad/-/merge_re… 3. Usual Sponsor 123 deployments and maintenance. [Onion Plan]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-support/-/wikis/Docu… [Onion Launchpad]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-launchpad -- Silvio Rhatto pronouns he/him

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