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OONI Monthly Report: January 2021
by Maria Xynou 19 Mar '21

19 Mar '21

Hello, Apologies for sharing this late. Throughout January 2021, the OONI team worked on the following sprints: * Sprint 30 - Rough Shark (4 - 17 January, 2021) * Sprint 31 - Rhincodon (18 - 31 January, 2021) Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. ## Report on internet blocks and outages in Uganda amid 2021 general election In collaboration with DefendDefenders, Defenders Protection Initiative, and CAIDA, we published a new research report documenting the internet disruptions in Uganda amid its 2021 general election. Our report is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2021-uganda-general-election-blocks-and-outage/ We based our investigation on: * OONI measurements collected from Uganda: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2021-01-23&since=2020-12-23&probe_cc… * OONI experiments using the `miniooni` research client (which we plan to eventually integrate into the OONI Probe apps) * Public data sources monitoring internet outages (IODA data, Google traffic data, Oracle Internet Intelligence data, and CloudFlare Radar data) In the days leading up to Uganda’s 2021 general election, ISPs blocked access to the Google Play Store (hampering people’s ability to download apps), as well as to a number of social media apps (including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram) and websites (such as facebook.com) – regardless of OTT tax payment. Access to certain circumvention tool websites (such as protonvpn.com) was blocked as well, though both Tor and Psiphon worked throughout the election period. Starting from the eve of Uganda’s 2021 general election (in the evening of 13th January 2021), Uganda was disconnected from the internet entirely. The country experienced a 4-day internet outage (which included election day), as shown through several public data sources: Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA), Oracle’s Internet Intelligence Map, Cloudflare Radar, and Google traffic data. In our report, we also share network-level analysis of the internet outage based on IODA data. The internet outage is further corroborated by the absence of OONI measurements from Uganda during this time period (since OONI Probe requires internet connectivity to perform tests), as well as by the drastic drop in Tor users and Psiphon users during this period. Even though internet connectivity in Uganda was restored on 18th January 2021, access to social media and circumvention platforms remained blocked. Notably, Ugandan ISPs only appear to have started blocking access to YouTube on 18th January 2021, even though the platform is not included on the OTT list of taxed platforms. Further details are available through our report. ## Blocking of Signal in Iran On 25th January 2021, Iran started blocking access to the Signal messaging app. Thanks to OONI Probe users in Iran (who contributed relevant measurements), we were able to detect the blocking of signal.org within a few hours since the blocking started. We reported this through OONI’s Twitter account (sharing relevant OONI measurements): https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1353637360727109633 OONI measurements on the blocking of signal.org were also shared by Zoomit, an Iranian technology media outlet: https://twitter.com/TheZoomit/status/1353636089647558656 Recent OONI measurements show that signal.org remains blocked on several networks in Iran: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2021-03-20&since=2021-02-18&domain=s… ## OONI Probe Mobile In January 2021, we released OONI Probe mobile 2.9.0 and 2.9.1 on: * Android: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.9.0 & https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.9.1 * iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.9.0 & https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.9.1 With these new releases, we shipped a new OONI Probe test for RiseupVPN (which was developed by the LEAP collective). We also: * Completed UI tests: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1272 * Made various code quality improvements: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/pull/402 * Completed the implementation of the check-in API in the OONI Probe engine and wrote wrappers and integration tests for this implementation: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1158 * Wrote a script to facilitate mobile app releases: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1287 * Worked on adding support for dark mode on iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/925 * Improved the crash reporting system: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1332 ## OONI Run We added localization support to OONI Run (https://run.ooni.io/) to accommodate translations: https://github.com/ooni/run/pull/50 We prioritized adding localization support to OONI Run in response to community requests to translate the platform to Chinese (Taiwan). ## OONI Probe Desktop Throughout January 2021, we worked towards the OONI Probe Desktop 3.2.2 release. This involved development work towards ensuring feature parity with the OONI Probe mobile app: creating a new Dashboard (with the same UI as the OONI Probe mobile app), adding support for running all tests with a single button, and adding the “Choose websites” button for custom URL testing (similarly to the OONI Probe mobile app). We also: Added support for setting the maximum execution time of the Web Connectivity test: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1280 Added support for storing measurements in the OONI backend (and not on disk): https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1313 Worked towards integrating the new RiseupVPN test into the OONI Probe desktop app ### Updated OONI Probe macOS homebrew package We upgraded the OONI Probe homebrew package to run the new ooniprobe 3.x command line interface. In order to do this, we implemented native system scheduling features inside of the command line tool (see: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/pull/192) This allows users to enable automatic testing by running the command: `ooniprobe autorun start` More details about this can be found in the following issue: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1289 The maintenance of the package has since been taken up by the homebrew community, which is doing an excellent job at keeping it up to date: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pulls?q=is%3Apr+ooniprobe+is%3Acl… We updated the installation instructions for the OONI Probe Command Line Interface (CLI) on our website to enable users to get the latest version of the OONI Probe command line tool: https://ooni.org/install/cli/macos ## Released Debian package for OONI Probe We released a Debian package for OONI Probe with support for automatic testing. As part of the installation process, this package displays the informed consent procedure through the use of native Debian packaging features. Packages are automatically built as part of the continuous integration workflow. See: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1061 We updated the OONI Probe installation page for Linux to feature the new Debian package: https://ooni.org/install/cli/ubuntu-debian ## OONI Probe engine We released v.0.22.0 of the OONI Probe measurement engine: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/releases/tag/v0.22.0 Highlights from this release include: * Significantly improved QUIC implementation * Significantly improved DNSCheck implementation * New `run` experiment that takes in input a list of experiments to run along with their options as a JSONL This release includes a series of API changes, improvements, updates, and bug fixes, as documented here: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/releases/tag/v0.22.0 ## Expanding OONI Probe measurement methodologies We improved upon our QUIC experiment, as documented through the following pull requests: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1196 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1126 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1197 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1176 We also improved upon our DNSCheck (https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1166) and urlgetter (https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/pull/1182) experiments. We collaborated with community members who volunteered to work with us on these experiments. ### New OONI Probe RiseupVPN test In January 2021, we shipped a brand new OONI Probe test for RiseupVPN! You can now check whether RiseupVPN works on your network. Learn all about this test here: https://ooni.org/nettest/riseupvpn/ The RiseupVPN test (developed by the LEAP collective) was first made available through the 2.9.1 release of the OONI Probe mobile app (https://ooni.org/install/mobile) The test is now also available in the OONI Probe desktop app. All RiseupVPN test results from around the world are openly published in near real-time on OONI Explorer: https://explorer.ooni.org/search?since=2020-12-30&test_name=riseupvpn ## OONI Explorer We released OONI Explorer 2.4.0 (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/releases/tag/v2.4.0) which includes improvements to the metadata of the measurement pages for the purpose of search engine optimization. We also integrated percy.io for the visual testing of OONI Explorer (https://percy.io/407b7763/ooni-explorer/) and fixed some issues in measurements (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/543) ## OONI backend Throughout January 2021, we worked on the following backend activities: * Deployed an event detector on test and updated it for the new ams-pg codebase * Monitored the dashboard for the reactive test-list * Investigated the counters bug and created a new counters_hourly_software table * Investigated the cause of the measurement drops * Handled measurement keys in the fastpath pipeline * Fixed the counters table update bug * Fixed the pagination in the API * Changed the DB query timeout in the API to fix test-url timeout bugs in probes * Fixed the API enumeration/paging bug * Worked on implementing the probe check-in API * Generated report IDs * Fixed the category code filtering ## New partnership We formed a new partnership with civil society members in Sudan. We previously had the opportunity to collaborate with this partner as part of Internews’ 6-week internet shutdown measurement training program for human rights defenders, which we helped lead. This training program (which also included OONI modules) helped lay the ground for this partnership. ## Test list updates In January 2021, we made a few minor updates to the Citizen Lab test lists, as documented through the following pull requests: * Hong Kong test list: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/711 * Global test list: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/713 ## Community activities ### OTF Virtual Summit 2021 Between 11th-15th January 2021, we attended the OTF Virtual Summit 2021. On 13th January 2021, we participated as a panelist in the online session “Collaboration between organizations in the internet freedom field”, during which we shared some of the challenges, opportunities, and best practices we have identified in forming partnerships and working with digital rights organizations around the world. ## Userbase In January 2021, 7,188,644 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 5,270 networks in 203 countries around the world. This information can also be found through our measurement stats on OONI Explorer (see chart on “monthly coverage worldwide”): https://explorer.ooni.org/ ~ OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 2021 March 18
by Cecylia Bocovich 19 Mar '21

19 Mar '21

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-03-18-15.57.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday March 18th 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 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: 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 30 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/4 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/7 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/5 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/6 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&… Public bug-reporting pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep <-- we have anonymous tickets handling now. Let's see which anti-censorship repos to include. == Announcements == Cure53 is currently doing a security audit of the Turbo Tunnel parts of Snowflake. == Discussion == AlwaysLivid has some updates on Tor Browser distribution work gtsatsis has started developing a Signal bot for distributing binaries of the Tor Browser https://gitlab.com/gtsatsis/signal-gettor (Idea from a friend of AlwaysLivid, which they have also thought of beforehand: Distributing binaries of gettor via decentralized VPN-based networks, such as Lokinet, Zeronet, or dn42.) downloads.json shenanigans? (Some tickets have already been opened, - AlwaysLivid) https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/4… https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/4… https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40380 Using the Matrix platform and bridges as a unified, perhaps temporary means of distributing links with minimal maintenance? Bonus: No Twitter bot rewrites, and writing different bots for platforms where uploading binaries isn't possible. == Actions == == Interesting links == https://www.cnet.com/news/china-appears-to-be-blocking-signal-messaging-app… == Reading group == We will discuss "" on Questions to ask and goals to have: What aspects of the paper are questionable? Are there immediate actions we can take based on this work? Are there long-term actions we can take based on this work? Is there future work that we want to call out, in hopes that others will pick it up? == Updates == Name: This week: - What you worked on this week. Next week: - What you are planning to work on next week. Help with: - Something you need help with. cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-03-18 Last week: - mostly just sponsor28 prep of snowflake - talked with nickm and started thinking about what PTv2/3 spec support in Snowflake would look like (snowflake#40036) - lots of meetings - discussed finding volunteers to run private bridges (bridgedb#40010) This week: - connect bridgedb to rdsys (rdsys#12) - follow up on bridge bridge situation - congestion logging patches for snowflake#40026 - install our snowflake app on android and try it out for a few days - prepare snowflake for sponsor 28 evaluations - follow up on pending reviews Needs help with: arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2021-03-18 Last week: - upgraded tor on the Snowflake bridge for a security vulnerability https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - reviewed merge request to reduce spurious error logging in snowflake server https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - commented on snowflake server stale OR connections https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: agix:2021-03-18 Last week: -Been busy with university stuff for the last few weeks Next week: -Work on bridgebox for rdsys -More research on httpt #4 Help with: - hanneloresx: 2021-3-4 Last week: - Submitted MR for bridgestrap issue #14 Next week: - Finish bridgestrap #14 - Find new issue to work on Help with: - HashikD: 2021-01-22 This week: - Next week: - Help with: -

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minutes from the sysadmin meeting
by Antoine Beaupré 17 Mar '21

17 Mar '21

Hello! Here's a (late, again) report from our monthly sysadmin meeting. # Roll call: who's there and emergencies * anarcat * hiro * gaba No emergencies. # Roadmap review Review and prioritize [the board][]. [the board]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards * CiviCRM setup discussion. gaba will look at plan * anarcat sent a formal proposal to the tor-internal mailing list with [jenkins retirement plan][] ([issue 40167][]), will be proposed to tor-internal soon * SMTP out only server is resuming in ~Next * Discourse situation: wait for a few months until hiro can take it back ([issue 40183][]) [issue 40183]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40183 [issue 40167]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40167 [jenkins retirement plan]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy/tpa-rfc-10-jenkin… # Documentation and communication Are the current processes to document our work okay? Do we have communication problems? Let's clarify expectations on how to manage work and tickets. ## What is working * anarcat's docs work great, but could use a TL;DR (:+1:) * monthly meetings in voice calls * jump on a call when there is an issue or misunderstanding (:+1:) ## What can be improved * irc can be frustrating when communicating, jump on a voice call when necessary! * wiki is good for documentation, but not great to get feedback, because we don't want to delete other people's stuff and things get lost. better to use issues with comments for proposals. * hard time understanding what is going on some tickets, because of the lack of updates. We can write more comments in the tickets. * when triaging: if you assign to someone, then that person needs to know. when assigning an active queue (~Next or ~Doing), make sure the ticket is assigned. # Triage Is our current triage system working? How can others (AKA gaba) prioritize our work? Note that ahf is also working on triage, automation, more specifically, through the [triage ops][] project. [triage ops]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/ahf/triage-ops/ We might want to include the [broader TPA dashboard][] eventually, but this requires serious triage work first. [broader TPA dashboard]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/tpa/-/boards Discussion postponed. # On call Which services/issues we can call TPA about when nobody is working? Review and discuss the [current support policy][], which is basically "none, things may be down until we return"... Discussion postponed. [current support policy]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy/tpa-rfc-2-support… # Other discussions ## Anonymous ticket system Postponed. # Next meeting April 6th, 15:00UTC, equivalent to: 08:00 US/Pacific, 12:00 America/Montevideo, 11:00 US/Eastern, 17:00 Europe/Paris. # Metrics of the month * hosts in Puppet: 85, LDAP: 88, Prometheus exporters: 139 * number of Apache servers monitored: 28, hits per second: 50 * number of Nginx servers: 2, hits per second: 2, hit ratio: 0.87 * number of self-hosted nameservers: 6, mail servers: 7 * pending upgrades: 4, reboots: 0 * average load: 0.93, memory available: 1.98 TiB/2.73 TiB, running processes: 627 * bytes sent: 267.74 MB/s, received: 160.59 MB/s * [GitLab tickets][]: ? tickets including... * open: 0 * icebox: 107 * backlog: 15 * next: 9 * doing: 7 * (closed: 2213) [Gitlab tickets]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards # Grafana dashboards of the month The [Postfix dashboard][] was entirely rebuilt and now has accurate "acceptance ratios" per host. It was used to manage the latest newsletter mailings. We still don't have great ratios, but at least now we know. [Postfix dashboard]: https://grafana.torproject.org/d/Ds5BxBYGk/postfix-mtail The [GitLab dashboard][] now has a "CI jobs" panel which shows the number of queued and running jobs, which should help you figure out when your precious CI job will get through! [GitLab dashboard]: https://grafana.torproject.org/d/QrDJktiMz/gitlab-omnibus?orgId=1 -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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No network team meeting on Monday 15 March
by Nick Mathewson 14 Mar '21

14 Mar '21

Hi! Two of our members are off on monday, so we'll be skipping this week's regular network team meeting. But feel free to drop by #tor-dev anyway if you've got anything to chat about! best wishes, -- Nick

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 2021 March 11
by Cecylia Bocovich 11 Mar '21

11 Mar '21

Hey everyone, Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-03-11-15.58.html and the meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday March 11th 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 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: 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 30 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/4 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/7 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/5 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/6 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&… Public bug-reporting pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep <-- we have anonymous tickets handling now. Let's see which anti-censorship repos to include. == Announcements == Over 1,000 responses to Snowflake user survey https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… == Discussion == == Actions == == Interesting links == https://ntc.party/t/twitter/907 == Reading group == We will discuss "" on Questions to ask and goals to have: What aspects of the paper are questionable? Are there immediate actions we can take based on this work? Are there long-term actions we can take based on this work? Is there future work that we want to call out, in hopes that others will pick it up? == Updates == Name: This week: - What you worked on this week. Next week: - What you are planning to work on next week. Help with: - Something you need help with. cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-03-11 Last week: - deeper dive into belarus blocking (censorship-analysis#40002) - looked into snowflake censorship in china (snowflake#32657) - responded to snowflake bridge outage (snowflake#40033) - opened a ticket about snowflake's OR conns (snowflake#40035) - wrote a patch to clean up snowflake logging a bit (snowflake!30) - more hiring things - followed up on bridgestrap!6 review - planning how to recover from most of our private bridges going away - patched GetTor in response to outage (gettor#77) This week: - connect bridgedb to rdsys (rdsys#12) - pull more bridges from our unallocated pool for private distribution (bridgedb#40010) - congestion logging patches for snowflake#40026 - more hiring things - install our snowflake app on android and try it out for a few days - prepare snowflake for sponsor 28 evaluations Needs help with: - review of snowflake!30 arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2021-03-11 Last week: - updated Go version requirement in Snowflake README https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - opened an issue to upgrade tor on the Snowflake bridge for a security vulnerability https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: agix:2021-03-11 Last week: -Been busy with university stuff for the last few weeks Next week: -Work on bridgebox for rdsys -More research on httpt #4 Help with: - hanneloresx: 2021-3-4 Last week: - Submitted MR for bridgestrap issue #14 Next week: - Finish bridgestrap #14 - Find new issue to work on Help with: - HashikD: 2021-01-22 This week: - Next week: - Help with: -

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Invitation to Tor's Hackweek from March 29th to April 2nd
by Gaba 11 Mar '21

11 Mar '21

Hi Tor people! During the last week of March, the Tor Project is running a hackweek. The idea is to promote small projects that can be wrapped up in 5 days. We have a list of projects proposed by people from the Tor community and are open to any other project people may want to propose. You can find the list of projects (as well as other info) in https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/hackweek For each project, you will find information on who is coordinating/leading it, what is the project about and a pad where you can add yourself to if you are interested in it. Write your name under the section "Team". Each team will meet in IRC or BBB and coordinate work through the week. On Friday each team will demo the work they did during the week. On Monday March 29th, we are going to hold an open session to present the projects people are going to work on. cheers, gaba -- pronouns she/her/they GPG Fingerprint EE3F DF5C AD91 643C 21BE 8370 180D B06C 59CA BD19

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 4 March 2021
by Cecylia Bocovich 04 Mar '21

04 Mar '21

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-03-04-15.58.html and our meeting pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-keep

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User Feedback Report - February 2021
by Joydeep Sen Gupta 03 Mar '21

03 Mar '21

Hello everyone! This is a report of some of the work done by the Community Team in the past month and general user feedback that we've received across our official support channels. --- Request Tracker --- This includes tickets created between 11th to 28th February, 2021. Tickets created: 112 Tickets resolved: 156 (we resolved a lot of tickets that we were backlogged on) # New RT templates We aggregated statistics of what issues Tor users are frequently running into and made their solutions into articles/templates on the RT. This will help folks working on the RT to better support users. We created/updated the following articles: 1. Can't upload files on Tor Browser for Android 2. Tor Browser displaying webpages in foreign language 3. Unlisted obfs4 bridges 4. My Bank's website is blocking Tor 5. How to download 32-bit version of Tor Browser Here is a list of issues which got the most attention (at least 2 tickets on RT): # Tor Browser Breakdown of number of RT tickets received with respect to operating system: Windows (10,8,7 ...all the way upto Vista) - 30 MacOS - 7 GNU/Linux - 4 Android- 8 (Note: This includes tickets where the user mentioned the operating system or it was evident from the issue they were running into or enclosed screenshots.) 1. 11 RT tickets - Failure to launch Tor Browser. We point users to the "Six-point basic troubleshooting" article (template) on the RT to help users. 2. 3 RT tickets - Tor Browser doesn't run on Arch/openSUSE Tumbleweed/Fedora Rawhide. [1] 3. 3 RT tickets - DuckDuckGo doesn't redirect to it's html page on "Safest" Security Setting. The issue has been covered by the following ticket.[2] 4. 2 RT tickets - Cannot upload files on Tor Browser for Android. Regarding this we have a ticket open on our GitLab [3]. Last month, we also added this issue to the 'Known Issues' section in the Tor Browser User Manual.[4] 5. 2 RT tickets - Questions on how to import/export bookmarks in Tor Browser. We direct users to the article in the Tor Browser Manual.[5] 6. 2 RT tickets - Webpages show up in foreign languages. We have made the response to this into a template on RT taking help from the article in our Support portal.[6] # General Issues 1. 3 RT tickets - Enquiries on relay setup. We direct users to the relay guide we have on the Community Portal.[7] 2. 2 RT tickets - Users unable to subscribe to the Newsletter since some major email services are bouncing our emails. We are running into this issue again this month. There's some discussion on this ticket.[8] # UI/UX and documentation 1. 2 RT tickets - Users unable to donate via our donation page. We are still investigating the issue with the concerned users. 2. We have now updated all of our documentation (including screenshots and screencaps) in accordance with Tor Browser 10's interface.[9] 3. Since Tor Browser Developers Key is now available on keys.openpgp.org, we have accordingly updated our documentation around this.[10] We have been unable to officially provide support in the following channels but here's what the discussion was about in the past month: 4. Google Play Store - In terms of user experience, reviews mostly revolve around- 'Can't keep Tor Browser for Android running in the background', 'cannot launch urls in Tor Browser without having it running and connected first', 'can't upload files with the browser' and 'Tor Browser is slow'. Although in terms of ratings we have quite a good amount of 4-star reviews. 5. Tor Stack Exchange - Statistics of what the discussion has been about (5 most active tags): tor-browser-bundle- 23 questions configuration (questions about configuring Tor software)- 11 questions hidden-services- 12 questions anonymity- 8 questions 6. Reddit- Discussion has mostly been around DNS leaks while using Tor in Brave Browser and issues related to censorship. General discussion on using Tor and also a peak in interest regarding Snowflake. # Anti-censorship and metrics 1. Including RT and #tor, we got a total of 6 requests for private bridges which have been from China (two requests), Middle East (two requests), Belarus (one request) and Thailand (one request). 2. Ongoing issue of users unable to connect to some of the bridges and/or relay statistics not showing up on metrics. We have the following GitLab tickets to cover this issue.[11][12] If you have any suggestions, questions or want to discuss anything in detail please feel free to reach out to me and/or anyone from the Community Team! Thanks, Joydeep Links: [1]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40328 [2]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/torbutton/-/issues/40030 [3]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40283 [4]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/mobile-tor/#known-issues [5]: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/export-and-import-bookmarks/ [6]: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/tbb-43/ [7]: https://community.torproject.org/relay/ [8]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40164 [9]: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/ [10]: https://support.torproject.org/tbb/how-to-verify-signature/ [11]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/outreach/-/issues/40001 [12]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/support/-/issues/40005 -- Joydeep Sen Gupta irc: championquizzer gpg: C8C8 6A4B E247 2D2D C345 9046 5B57 1AA7 D685 E67D

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 25 February 2021
by Cecylia Bocovich 25 Feb '21

25 Feb '21

Hi everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-02-25-15.58.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday February 25th 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 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: 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 30 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/4 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/7 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/5 https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/6 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&… Anti-censorship related tickets that we want other teams to fix: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-tickets-keep <-- it will be moved into gitlab with TPO labels <-- do we still need this? The label is 'for anticensorship team' Public bug-reporting pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep == Announcements == Snowflake user survey posted https://blog.torproject.org/learning-more-about-tor-users https://survey.torproject.org/index.php/491436 == Discussion == Snowflake bridge users suspiciously plateau at ~180 last week https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/5481936581E23D2D178105D44DB6… Possible blocking in Belarus https://ntc.party/t/shift-in-tor-obfs4-and-meek-users-on-2021-02-13/890 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/iss… == Actions == == Interesting links == https://www.protocol.com/china/i-built-bytedance-censorship-machine == Reading group == We will discuss "Investigating Large Scale HTTPS Interception in Kazakhstan" on 2020-03-04 https://censoredplanet.org/assets/Kazakhstan.pdf https://censoredplanet.org/kazakhstan 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 2020-02-25 Last week: - patched stem on polyanthum to fix bridgedb#40006 issue - wrote bridgedb!13 to continue parsing remaining extrainfo descriptors if one was malformed - lots of interviews! - s28 meetings - started setting up network emulations for snowflake#40026 - worked on some logging patches to measure congestion for snowflake - helped a user debug possible blocking Belarus and found some interesting metrics: https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/46#issuecomment-782897099 This week: - connect bridgedb to rdsys (rdsys#12) - a few more sponsor 28 meetings - hiring interviews - congestion logging patches for snowflake#40026 - more work on snowflake throughput and overhead (snowflake#40026) - revise gettor.torproject.org instructions (gettor-web#1) Needs help with: arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2021-02-25 Last week: Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: agix:2021-02-25 Last week: -More research on httpt #4 -Inspired by cohosh's bridgebox I worked on a local test environment for rdsys, still facing issues with running bridgestrap locally Next week: -Fix issues regarding bridgestrap Help with: - hanneloresx: 2021-2-11 Last week: - Finished emma #6 Next week: - Work on bridgestrap #14 Help with: - HashikD: 2021-01-22 This week: - Next week: - Help with: -

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February 2021 Tor DEMO Day - (Open) Call for proposals
by gus 23 Feb '21

23 Feb '21

Hi Tor, Tor DEMO days are back! And this is happening at the end of the month, February 24 @ 1600 UTC. Feel free to list yourself in the pad. http://kfahv6wfkbezjyg4r6mlhpmieydbebr5vkok5r34ya464gqz6c44bnyd.onion/p/tor… https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-demo-day-february-2021-keep cheers, Gus Tor DEMO DAY ============ Why? ---- - We want to spice up our remote working routine and also break the silos between teams. - Tor Demo Days are a success and we want to share this experience with the broad Tor community! How? ---- - We will call for presenters. - The agenda will be set before the meeting and will be shared with tor-project. - We want 5 to 8 minutes length presentations. We will handle questions at the end of all presentations. - Slides are allowed, but not mandatory. You may share your screen or a pre-recorded video if that makes you less anxious. - We like the adrenaline of the live presentations, but if they wish, presenters can share pre-recorded videos with us. They should be sent a few hours in advance and will be lined up and shared with assistants during the session. - This is a place where people should feel safe to engage, share their point of view, and participate. Read our Code of Conduct: https://gitweb.torproject.org/community/policies.git/tree/code_of_conduct.t… Who? ---- - Anyone who wants to share what they have been hacking on. It doesn't need to be a finished feature but a work in progress. It can be small like a Tor Browser feature or something you have been hacking around Tor not officially. - Presenters have 5 to 8 minutes. People can ask questions via text in the pad for 3 minutes. - Gus will moderate at this time. We can rotate this role. Where? ------ At our BBB instance. A public link will be shared soon. When? ----- Wednesday, FEBRUARY 24 at 1600 UTC Questions will be written in text on the pad in any time during the presentation. Presenters will answer them in audio. Agenda ------ Presentations: ADD HERE THE PROPOSAL YOU HAVE FOR A SHORT PRESENTATION. https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-demo-day-february-2021-keep -- The Tor Project Community Team Lead http://expyuzz4wqqyqhjn.onion/

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