- tor-project - lists.torproject.org

Anti-censorship team monthly report: October 2020
by Cecylia Bocovich 02 Nov '20

02 Nov '20

Hi everyone, Here is a report of what we've been up to in October 2020: == Snowflake == * Made it possible for the bridge to count user bandwidth more accurately. The bridge bandwidth graphs are now closer to reality. Released in version 0.4.2 of the Snowflake WebExtension. https://bugs.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowfl… * Made Snowflake proxies self-test their NAT characteristics more robustly, by making a test connection. Released in version 0.5.0 of the Snowflake WebExtension. https://bugs.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowfl… * Increased the frequency of Snowflake proxy polling, to keep pace with the increasing number of clients. https://bugs.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowfl… * Updated bug-reporting instructions at snowflake.torproject.org. https://bugs.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowfl… * Fixed a crash in the Snowflake client caused by a race condition. https://bugs.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowfl… == Rdsys == * We keep refactoring the code base to avoid technical debt. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/20 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/19 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/18 * We made progress on the Salmon distributor. We're now working on an experimental improvement that makes Salmon store client state in Tor Browser instead of on the server. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/21 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/15 * Experimented with metrics collection for rdsys and bridgestrap. The combination of StatsD and Graphite is promising -- at least for internal metrics. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/14 == Bridgestrap == * Re-implemented the way bridgestrap tests bridges. Instead of spawning a Tor process each time bridgestrap tests a bridge, it now re-uses its Tor process and relies on the SETCONF controller command to fetch a bridge's descriptor. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/3 == Miscellaneous == * Studied the potential Tor interference that took place during the election in Tanzania. An unusually high number of connections to directory authorities and default bridges timed out but users were generally still able to use the Tor network: we saw a sharp increase in both directly connecting and bridge users: https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?start=2020-08-0… https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-country.html?start=2020-08-… * Added "First Contribution" label to several issues. If you're interested in contributing, take a look at the following issues: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/issues?scope=all…

1 0

User experience team monthly meeting on November 10th
by Antonela D 02 Nov '20

02 Nov '20

Hi! The November's User Experience team meeting will be on November 10th in #tor-meeting*. During this meeting, we will discuss the 2021 Roadmap for the user experience team and its impact across different teams. We will also review the 2020 State of the Onion presentation. Also, we will have some space for an open floor so feel free to list yourself in the pad. https://pad.riseup.net/p/1D8sK8Zy74b_0qclC97I-ux-team-monthly-2020-keep Remember, the User Experience team meetings are willing to cultivate an open space for discussions around ethical user research, user interface design, and user experience, meanwhile building privacy-enhancing products. I hope to see you around! Peace and love, A [*] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/team/-/wikis/home -- Antonela Debiasi UX Team Lead torproject.org @antonela E2330A6D1EB5A0C8

1 0

Anti-censorship meeting notes 2020 Oct 29
by Cecylia Bocovich 30 Oct '20

30 Oct '20

Hey everyone! Here are the meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-10-29-15.58.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday October 29th 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 == Please add your October highlights to our monthly report pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/-mFSnGRKoOGCIq0pByRz Found a student who's interested in working on: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/emma/-/issues/4 == Discussion == == Actions == == Interesting links == "Towards a Scalable Censorship-Resistant Overlay Network based on WebRTC Covert Channels" https://www.gsd.inesc-id.pt/~nsantos/papers/barradas_dicg20.pdf == 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. phw: This week (2020-10-29): Reviewed Snowflake patches, rdsys patch, grant budget, and S30 report. Lots of rdsys and Salmon refactoring. Made good progress on cohosh's idea of making Salmon more privacy preserving by not storing a social graph on the server side. Experimented with statsd/graphite for metrics. Seems very promising. Took a look at the recent censorship in Tanzania. Next week: Finish refactoring Salmon and start working on cohosh's "social graph reduction" idea. Help with: cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-10-29 Last week: - talked to guardian project about their efforts to integrate snowflake - sponsor 28 evaluations (x_x) - more revisions to and deployed snowflake#40013 - published snowflake-webext!7 on addon stores and website - helped out with snowflake mobile bug (snowflake#40018) - implemented cached broker stats (snowflake#40012) - modified a script to plot default bridge connections from Tanzania (https://gitlab.torproject.org/-/snippets/67) This week: - follow up on progress towards a telegram bot for gettor - pick up snowflake multiplexing work again (snowflake#25723) - roll out and monitor snowflake web deployment - sponsor 28 PI meeting - clean up and write tests for snowflake#40012 Needs help with: - firewall feedback for snowflake#40013 (dcf) juggy : This week: - Got very basic "suggested readings" list up and running here : https://jugheadjones10.github.io/anti-censorship-reading/ Next week: - Keep studying BridgeDB to write architectural overview Help with: - Open issues here (https://github.com/jugheadjones10/anti-censorship-reading ) for papers/resources/readings that you think might be useful for newcomers arlolra: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Next week: - getting back up to speed - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2020-10-29 Last week: - Azure CDN bookkeeping - made a patch to remove an unnecessary error log from Snowflake proxy https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Next week: - review broker firewall changes https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: - Wrapping Babatunde's research on the use of circumvention tools during internet censorship in Africa. Wrapping Personas for s30 with it. For september: - We are planning interviews with users in China to run our bridges discovery issues script in real time. We discussed to include TBA + snowflake as a task for users to run over a week or two and report back. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/4 - I still have bridges.tpo to lektor issue open - More work on UX/UI for TB 10.0/10.5 - Review Salmon related tickets (im late with it!) agix:2020-10-29 Last week: -Implemented feedback on #5 (rdsys) -Got more familiar with rdsys Next week: -Get feedback from my univesity professor regarding tackeling Pluggable Transports/HTTPT/Issues/#4 in my master thesis -More familiarization with rdsys Help with: - hanneloresx: 2020-10-22 Last week: - Took break to focus on work Next week: - #32117: Look at CAPTCHA success rate for users from the US across different types of bridges Help with: - thymbahutymba: 2020-04-02 Last week: - CI/CD pipeline for multiarch docker images, which has a problem with the apt tor version even though the apt repository have been changed into the Dockerfile. Next week: Help with: HashikD: 2020-10-16 This week: - Finished work on #19 Next week: - Network checks Help with: -

1 0

Decommissioning sbws.lavafeld.org
by Vasilis 27 Oct '20

27 Oct '20

Hi, About 2 years ago I setup a server to run sbws. It seems the sbws instance instance running in sbws.lavafeld.org is not being actively used. In case you would like to continue seeing this service up and running, please do let me know. Cheers, ~Vasilis

1 0

Damian's Status Report - October 2020
by Damian Johnson 23 Oct '20

23 Oct '20

Hi all, hope everyone's getting through this pandemic reasonably well. Just my usual not-so-monthly status report. https://blog.atagar.com/october2020/ Cheers! -Damian

1 0

Ministry of finance advises against blocking of Tor
by Jens Kubieziel 22 Oct '20

22 Oct '20

Hi, tl,dr: The ministry of finance of the German state of Thuringia advises against the blocking of the Tor network. Longer version: In march I tried to reach <URL:https://tmasgff.de/>, the website of the ministry of social affairs of Thuringia. However their provider, Alfahosting, was blocking Tor traffic. So I reached out to the ministry and asked why this is so. They answered that there is a huge amount of hacking traffic coming from the Tor network. That's Why all traffic coming from Tor is blocked. So I made an FOIA-like request (Thuringia has a transparency law) and asked how many attacks they saw from the Tor network and from the non-Tor network: <URL:http://fdstaat23zv6kdmntgkvdzkr7hipl5oqswwi3xawzkj2w2gwsbxmrwyd.onion/a/181821> After some back and forth they told me, that their provider won't answer the request for "security reasons". The ministry requested a statement from the CI(S)O of the state which resides inside the ministry of finance. He answered that providing information to users from the Tor network is no special risk and the ministry won't recommend blocking the Tor network. Since the the site <URL:https://tmasgff.de/> is available. Best, -- Jens Kubieziel https://kubieziel.de/blog/ https://datenkanal.org/ https://insecurity.radio.fm/

1 0

Anti-censorship meeting notes, 22 Oct 2020
by Philipp Winter 22 Oct '20

22 Oct '20

Hi all, Here are our meeting minutes: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-10-22-15.58.html And here is our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday October 22nd 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 == * == Discussion == * Where to put the snowflake probetest? Broker machine? Bridge? == Actions == * == Interesting links == * == 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. phw: This week (2020-10-22): * Reviewed tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake!13 * Reviewed tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake!14 * Reviewed rdsys pull request. * Roadmap meeting for Sponsor 28 and 30. * Ticket maintenance; added new issues for rdsys and Salmon. * Worked on Sponsor 30 report. * Finally reviewed Tor Research Safety Board submission. * Call with I2P folks regarding how we can help each other wrt Snowflake. * Moved forward with Salmon. * Implemented "secret IDs" for users. * Started refactoring user <-> proxy mapping. Next week: * Finish refactoring Salmon and start working on cohosh's "social graph reduction" idea. Help with: * cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-10-22 Last week: - fixed a race condition bug that causes snowflake to crash (snowflake#40017) - sponsor 28 evaluations - made revisions to snowflake#40013 This week: - follow up on progress towards a telegram bot for gettor - work with Guardian project on Snowflake integration - more work on snowflake NAT matching - pick up snowflake multiplexing work again (snowflake#25723) Needs help with: - review of snowflake-webext!7 juggy : This week: - Got very basic "suggested readings" list up and running here : https://jugheadjones10.github.io/anti-censorship-reading/ Next week: - Keep studying BridgeDB to write architectural overview Help with: - Open issues here (https://github.com/jugheadjones10/anti-censorship-reading ) for papers/resources/readings that you think might be useful for newcomers arlolra: 2020-06-11 Last week: - Next week: - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2020-10-22 Last week: Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: - Wrapping Babatunde's research on the use of circumvention tools during internet censorship in Africa. Wrapping Personas for s30 with it. For september: - We are planning interviews with users in China to run our bridges discovery issues script in real time. We discussed to include TBA + snowflake as a task for users to run over a week or two and report back. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/4 - I still have bridges.tpo to lektor issue open - More work on UX/UI for TB 10.0/10.5 - Review Salmon related tickets (im late with it!) agix:2020-10-22 Last week: -Finished first draft for #5 (rdsys) Next week: -Dig deeper into Pluggable Transports/HTTPT/Issues/#4 -Tackle a new ticket Help with: -Review of #5 (rdsys) hanneloresx: 2020-10-22 Last week: - Took break to focus on work Next week: - #32117: Look at CAPTCHA success rate for users from the US across different types of bridges Help with: - thymbahutymba: 2020-04-02 Last week: - CI/CD pipeline for multiarch docker images, which has a problem with the apt tor version even though the apt repository have been changed into the Dockerfile. Next week: Help with: HashikD: 2020-10-16 This week: - Finished work on #19 Next week: - Network checks Help with: -

1 0

Anti-censorship meeting notes, 15 October 2020
by Cecylia Bocovich 15 Oct '20

15 Oct '20

Here is our meeting log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-10-15-15.58.html and our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday October 15th 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 == == Discussion == 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' == Actions == == Interesting links == == 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. phw: This week (2020-10-08): Prepared for and presented at the PTIM. Lots of bridgestrap refactoring; made it test bridges by configuring a bridge over the control port and then waiting until it received the bridge descriptor. Next week: Hopefully wrap up bridgestrap. Help with: cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-10-15 Last week: - implemented proof of concept for snowflake NAT matching snowflake#40013 - read kyle's report on snowflake detection and made some tickets - talked to phw about rdsys reimplementation - wrote up some results from snowflake measurements in China (snowflake#32657) This week: - review of rdsys - follow up on snowflake NAT matching solution (snowflake#40013) - follow up on progress towards a telegram bot for gettor - work with Guardian project on Snowflake integration - sponsor 28 evaluations (might miss part of next meeting) Needs help with: - review of snowflake#40013 - thoughts on snowflake#32657 juggy : This week: - Got very basic "suggested readings" list up and running here : https://jugheadjones10.github.io/anti-censorship-reading/ Next week: - Keep studying BridgeDB to write architectural overview Help with: - Open issues here (https://github.com/jugheadjones10/anti-censorship-reading ) for papers/resources/readings that you think might be useful for newcomers arlolra: 2020-06-11 Last week: - Next week: - follow ups to #33365 - start on #31201 Help with: - dcf: 2020-10-15 Last week: - put updated snowflake.torproject.org messages where they can be picked up by translators https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - filed a ticket about a phantom ".tx" language option at snowflake.torproject.org https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - spent some time deciding that an Azure root TLS certificate change does not affect us (because obfs4proxy pins the public keys of intermediates, not roots) https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals/tls-certificat… Next week: Help with: Antonela: 2020-08-27 This week: - Wrapping Babatunde's research on the use of circumvention tools during internet censorship in Africa. Wrapping Personas for s30 with it. For september: - We are planning interviews with users in China to run our bridges discovery issues script in real time. We discussed to include TBA + snowflake as a task for users to run over a week or two and report back. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/4 - I still have bridges.tpo to lektor issue open - More work on UX/UI for TB 10.0/10.5 - Review Salmon related tickets (im late with it!) agix:2020-10-08 Last week: -Finished patch for #34218 -Started with #5 (rdsys) but didn't quite finish it yet Next week: -Definetly finnish rdysy #5 -Dig deeper into Pluggable Transports/HTTPT/Issues/#4 Help with: -Review of #34218 hanneloresx: 2020-10-15 Last week: - Investigate #33727 Next week: - #32117: Look at CAPTCHA success rate for users from the US across different types of bridges Help with: - thymbahutymba: 2020-04-02 Last week: - CI/CD pipeline for multiarch docker images, which has a problem with the apt tor version even though the apt repository have been changed into the Dockerfile. Next week: Help with: HashikD: 2020-10-06 This week: - Next week: - Will be back shortly Help with: -

1 0

User Experience team monthly meeting notes, October 13th
by Antonela D 13 Oct '20

13 Oct '20

Hi! Today's meeting includes an update from thurayya on her research in Amazonia, a sharing for discussion about the future of Tor Launcher, and an update on S30 Personas by dunqan. Open IRC meetings happen monthly every first Tuesday of the month 1400 UTC in #tor-meeting on OFTC. Next meeting is on November, Tuesday 3rd 1400 UTC in #tor-meeting on OFTC. Here are the minutes for the meeting of October 13th: Log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-10-13-13.59.log… Here are the minutes for the meeting of September 1st: Log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-09-01-13.59.log… Here are the minutes for the meeting of August 4th: Log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-08-04-13.58.log… Here are the minutes for the meeting of July 2nd: Log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-07-07-13.59.log… *--------------------------* *Tuesday October 13th 14:00 UTC* *--------------------------* == What projects are we working on? == S9 - Usability and Community Intervention on Support for Democracy and Human Rights https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… []=Sponsor%209&label_name[]=UX S30 - Empowering Communities in the Global South to Bypass Censorship https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… []=Sponsor%2030&label_name[]=UX S58 - Tor Browser Security, Performance, & Usability Improvements https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… []=Sponsor%2058&label_name[]=UX S84 - Onion Guides https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&… []=Sponsor%2084 == Announcements == * Tor Browser 10.0 Release https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-100 https://torproject.org/download/ == Agenda == - Updates on Bertha Foundation Fellowship (thurayya) - Tor Launcher and bootstrapping UX improvements in Tor Browser (antonela) https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-spec/-/issues/40… - Quick persona update (duncan) - Open floor == Open Calls == For Design & User Research == Usage of Tor Bridges We'll be interviewing users to collect feedback about Tor Bridges Usage. If you are interested in participating with your community as an interviewee or researcher, please ping me directly: antonela[]torproject.org. My keys https://www.torproject.org/static/keys/antonela.txt Thanks, A -- Antonela Debiasi UX Team Lead torproject.org @antonela E2330A6D1EB5A0C8

1 0

Anti-censorship team monthly report: September 2020
by Philipp Winter 12 Oct '20

12 Oct '20

Hi all, Here's what the anti-censorship team accomplished in September 2020: Snowflake --------- * Merged a contribution from Peter Gerber to consider more IP address ranges local, for the purpose of stripping from SDP offers sent to the broker. Rdsys ----- * Built an HTTP streaming API between rdsys's backend and its distributors that allows distributors to receive resource updates (e.g. a bridge changing its IP address) in real-time. * Implemented a registration API that allows standalone-proxies (i.e. without a corresponding Tor bridge) to register themselves: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/4 * Added lots of unit tests. Rdsys's domain logic is 72.1% tested. * Experimented with reCAPTCHA support in rdsys. We could port BridgeDB's HTTPS distributor to rdsys and replace our Gimp-generated CAPTCHAs with Google's reCAPTCHA. To prevent exposing our users to Google, we would have to set up a reverse proxy, so Google only gets to see our machine's IP address. This is possible but messy to build. * Started brainstorming Salmon's user interface; in particular how we can best integrate it in Tor Browser: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/7 * Started writing up rdsys's design and architecture. The goal is to eventually publish a technical blog post that discusses how we built rdsys. Bridgestrap ----------- * Wrapped up a "minimum viable product" of bridgestrap: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/trac/-/issues/31874 * Filed issues to improve how bridgestrap spawns a Tor instance to test bridges: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/1 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/2 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/3 Miscellaneous ------------- * Our infrastructure monitoring daemon's emails started getting rejected by Gandi's spam filter. We reported the issue and Gandi fixed it shortly after. * Read the HTTPT paper as part of our reading group and filed several issues that summarise what's necessary to deploy HTTPT as our next pluggable transport: https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/50 https://censorbib.nymity.ch/#Frolov2020b https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/http… * Filed an issue to improve our terminology around bridges: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/8 * Brainstormed how Tor Browser could detect censorship: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-spec/-/issues/40… Outreach -------- * Philipp will present rdsys in a lightning talk at the Pluggable Transport Implementer's Meeting on Oct 13: https://www.pluggabletransports.info/ptim2020/ * Published a blog post about Hashik's experience as one of Tor's GSoC'20 students: https://blog.torproject.org/gsoc-2020-snowflake-proxy-mobile * Recorded a brief video that summarises Tor's anti-censorship work for a class at the University of Michigan.

1 0