Hi everyone,
This is only a reminder that the weekly Tor Browser meeting is now held
at 18:00 UTC in #tor-meeting2 (on Mondays, as usual).
See some of you later today!
- Matt
Here is our meeting log:
http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-03-12-17.59.html
And here is our meeting pad:
Anti-censorship work meeting pad
--------------------------------
Next meeting: Thursday March 19th 18:00 UTC
Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 18:00 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: https://gitlab.torproject.org/torproject/anti-censorship/roadmap/boards
* Our roadmap consists of a subset of trac tickets. For 2020 Q1, the trac keyword is anti-censorship-roadmap-2020Q1
* Next planning session: last week of April
* The anti-censorship team's wiki page: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/AntiCensorshipTeam
* Past meetings' notes can be found at: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/
* GetTor's roadmap: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/torproject/anti-censorship/gettor-proj…
* Tickets that need reviews: from sponsors we are working on:
* https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/sponsors/Sponsor30
* https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/sponsors/Sponsor28
-------------------------
--- March 12th 2020 --
-------------------------
== Announcements ==
* Tor participating in Google Summer of Code, ideas page: https://community.torproject.org/gsoc/
== Discussion ==
* obfs4proxy currently cannot build because of deleted dependency. how should we fix this short-term and long-term? #33464
== Actions ==
* Please help phw compile our monthly report by adding your highlights to this pad:
* https://pad.riseup.net/p/vGR0zvyXCuV3HG09VX-j
== Interesting links ==
* https://gfw.report/blog/gfw_looking_glass/en/
* Heartbleed-like memory disclosure (out-of-bounds read) in GFW's DNS parser. Worked circa 2010, doesn't work now.
* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167404820300626
* "Protocol Proxy: An FTE-based covert channel"
* We present a proof-of-concept format transforming encryption (FTE)-based covert channel for tunneling TCP traffic through protected static protocols. Protected static protocols are UDP-based protocols with variable fields that cannot be blocked without collateral damage, such as power grid failures. We (1) convert TCP traffic to UDP traffic, (2) introduce observation-based FTE, and (3) model interpacket timing with a deterministic Hidden Markov Model (HMM).
* Open access copy: https://sci-hub.se/http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016740…
== Updates ==
Name:
This week:
- What you worked on this week.
Next week:
- What you are planning to work on next week (related to anti-censorship work).
Help with:
- Something you may need help with.
Hiro: (last updated before 2020-01-09)
Started restoring Twitter Responder.
When retrieving tweets I need to check for new tweets only otherwise Gettor will end up responding to old back log and already answered messages. <-- is this #27330 ?
Next Week:
- Work on gettor specs <-- Is this #3781?
- More with review of strings and website content and translation
phw:
This week (2020-03-12):
* Back from vacation and still catching up. Please let me know if you need me to prioritise something.
* Finished peer feedback.
* Created new info page on BridgeDB explaining our distribution mechanisms (#33008).
* Another round of analysis for the success rate of our new captchas (#24607).
* There's much more to study here but not enough time :/
Next week:
* Write a summary of our current BridgeDB distribution mechanisms and brainstorm new ones
* Pay attention to volunteer work (help agix with BridgeDB reviews; thymbahutymba with docker; Sergey with https proxy)
* Make BridgeDB report internal metrics (#31422)
* Catch up on RACE; in particular wrt obfs4 improvements
Help with:
*
Gaba: ()
Last week (2020-03-12):
* sponsor 30 coordination
* talking with catalyst to start work on the network team roadmap related to s28 and s30. They are the person to go to with anything needed from core Tor.
This week (planned):
* not much related to anti-censorship
cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-03-12
Last week:
- worked with GSoC students on proposals
- debugged and pushed a fix for GetTor to always send a response email (#33543)
- drafted a revision for GetTor message body (#23226)
- made a tbb patch for #33330 (#33578)
- made a patch to upgrade the version of pion-webrtc in tor browser (#33576)
- merged gitlab provider fix for gettor (#33034)
- added an update on obfs4 reachability tests (#31701)
- merged and deployed fix for ignoring quoted messages in gettor (#23225)
- started looking at update notification for proxy-go instances (#32677), i think #19409 is the way to go though
This week:
- maybe continue work on throughput check (#32938)
- make a Snowflake package for debian (#19409)
- Aggregate and write up a report of snowflake throughput changes (#32545)
- Revise GetTor help message (#23226)
- look at options for getting STUN information to snowflake clients (#25591)
- see if there's anything else we need to do for nsf ttp grant
Needs help with:
- review of tor browser patches #33578 and #33576 (tb-team)
- should we continue obfs4 reachability tests (this might be taken over by sponsor 30 work)
- any thoughts on snowflake versioning (#33593)? (required for debian packaging)
arlolra: 2020-03-12
Last week:
-
Next week:
- maybe the proxy parts of #19026
- pick another task? (#31201, #33112, #33365, ?)
Help with:
-
dcf: 2020-03-12
Last week:
- reviewed go.mod for snowflake (#33330)
- started reviewing snowflake throughput tests (#32928)
Next week:
- finish reviewing snowflake throughput tests (#32938)
- work on a fix for multiple SOCKS connections (#33519)
- maybe make new packages with 9.5a7
Help with:
cjb: 2019-03-12
Last week:
- split out #31011 into just the client-side change
Next week:
- hoping to find time to poke at golang snowflake proxy Android app
Help with:
agix:2020-03-12
Last week:
- Still on #31426
- Submitted patch for #31528
- Got familiar with HYPHAE and Salmon
Next week:
- Continue on #31426
- Work on the GSoC proposal for Salmon
Help with:
-
catalyst: 2020-03-12 (offline for this meeting)
next week:
- look at s28/s30 tickets i can help with (coordinating with ahf)
thymbahutymba: 2020-03-12
Last week:
- docker-compose for obfs4-bridge (#31834)
- multiarch docker obfs4 images #33461 (even though is more then a week ago)
- reported issue concerning #31834 (comment 25)
Next week:
Help with:
https://tails.boum.org/news/report_2020_02/
Releases
========
* Tails 4.3 was released on February 11. (bugfix release)
* Tails 4.4 is scheduled for March 12.
The following changes were introduced in Tails 4.3:
- We included the `trezor` package, which provides a command line tool
to use a Trezor hardware wallet for cryptocurrencies.
- Fix the progress bar and prevent closing the window while an upgrade
is being applied. (#16603)
Code
====
- We made great progress on Secure boot support (#6560)
and are now quite confident we can ship this in Tails 4.5 (April 7).
Thanks to everyone who answered our call for testing!
- In order to make the development process a bit smoother, we improved
the performance of our builds (#17439, #17386).
- We kept working on replacing Sikuli in our test suite (#15460), which
will allow running it on recent Debian systems. We're almost there! :)
Hot topics on our help desk
===========================
1. Users are still complaining about Seahorse failing to import public
keys. (#17183)
1. Several users reported that Stefano Zacchiroli's public key being
expired since 2020-02-07 broke our documentation about using the
command line and GnuPG to install Tails. (#17475)
https://tails.boum.org/install/expert/usb/
1. And people are still reporting GDM errors with Intel HD 630 (while
their issue is usually with their NVidia Maxwell discreet GPU)
(#16875)
Infrastructure
==============
- We've been working towards making our CI feedback loop shorter
(#16960, #17439).
- We organized the sysadmin work we will need to do as part
of migrating to GitLab.
Funding
=======
- We worked on the full proposal for the joint grant proposal with
Tor and the Guardian Project to the DRL Internet Freedom program.
- We started working on a grant proposal to the Prototype Fund.
Jobs
====
- Privacy loving Linux generalist:
https://tails.boum.org/jobs/Linux_generalist/
On-going discussions
====================
- Reconsider the terminology around "persistence":
https://lists.autistici.org/message/20200227.123500.9aee624d.en.html
Press and testimonials
======================
- 2020-02-26: Tails : le logiciel qui a permis à Snowden d’échapper aux
services secrets by Tibor Van Cutsem in Solidaire:
https://www.solidaire.org/articles/tails-le-logiciel-qui-permis-snowden-d-e…
Translations
============
## All the website
- de: 34% (2176) strings translated, 10% strings fuzzy
- es: 53% (3373) strings translated, 2% strings fuzzy
- fa: 27% (1714) strings translated, 10% strings fuzzy
- fr: 90% (5671) strings translated, 0% strings fuzzy
- it: 30% (1948) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy
- pt: 22% (1432) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy
## Core pages of the website
- de: 65% (1168) strings translated, 15% strings fuzzy
- es: 94% (1691) strings translated, 1% strings fuzzy
- fa: 34% (615) strings translated, 14% strings fuzzy
- fr: 98% (1755) strings translated, 0% strings fuzzy
- it: 64% (1147) strings translated, 15% strings fuzzy
- pt: 45% (820) strings translated, 14% strings fuzzy
Metrics
=======
* Tails has been started more than 808 936 times this month. This makes
27 894 boots a day on average.
[[How do we know this?|support/faq#boot_statistics]]
Hello Tor,
We started February in the rainy Berlin. We met Firefox's folks at their
bi-annual All Hands gathering and we discussed regular topics around our
collaboration. After that, many of us met at FOSDEM. We specially
enjoyed the talk diogosergio gave at the Open Design Track. You may want
to watch it!
https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/git_workflow_for_design_in_os_projec…
S27 Onion services
==================
We spent February on implementing an approach to move forward with the
onion names' problem. We found that organically, developers have been
approaching this problem in different ways, mostly with solutions
tailored for the pleasure of their own service. Given that there is not
a complete solution that works perfectly for all our user groups, we
also approached this problem with a broad angle. From headers to
centralized lists we are trying to allow end-users to have an experience
close to the defaults without losing security: type a memorable domain
at the URL bar and reach an onionsite, anonymously.
As we update the URL bar to show the alias, the circuit display will
allow users to check the origin onion address for integrity. Impressive
work, acat!
You can read more about this process here
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/28005
OTF Usability Lab: Tor Metrics
==============================
Last year we applied with Simply Secure for an OTF Usability Labs grant
for working on the next iteration of the metrics portal. The proposal
went through,and Nina Vizz will lead this project. Gaba and I as well
Metrics Team folks, we will be the stakeholders of this project.
User Research
=============
Nah and Piliattended the Open Design meetup, theusability testing
workshop before FOSDEM. They built together a "Download Page" research
that S9 partners will be running in March along with trainings.
We made progress on setting a workflow in git for our upcoming user
research.
https://dip.torproject.org/torproject/ux/research/issues/1
We worked on the Onion Services Research, we expect to run it virtually
and in person.
https://dip.torproject.org/torproject/ux/research/issues/3
Since we may need to localize some of this materials, emmapeel suggested
to have it in .md format. We will be working on it during March.
https://dip.torproject.org/torproject/ux/research/issues/2
WWW
===
We finally iterated torproject.org/download. We included a label for
each operative system, we improved the discoverability of the signature
files and we also made it look better in small screens.
https://dip.torproject.org/torproject/web/tpo/issues/59https://dip.torproject.org/torproject/web/tpo/issues/6https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32460
S30
===
During February, ICFP fellowship Babatunde has been traveling through
Nigeria and Cameroon interviewing users who have been experiencing
information controls. He is now digesting all this material and we will
work together on expanding Tor personas in order to inform our work on s30.
L10n
====
We have updated more websites with new contentstill, no new languages
added but soon we will.
Also, we helped Snowflake and Tor Browser teams with the translations
and reviewsof the next features release.
We got some more reviewers but still, more is needed. If you are
interested in being a reviewer of a language just ping emmapeel on irc!
Fundraising
===========
Emmapeel and alsmith helped draft the MOSS proposal for the Linguine
project, to prepare an open platform for translation.
We submited a joint DRL proposal for continuing our work on user
research with communities with Guardian Project and Tails. Thanks Al and
Pili for working on this narrative and estimations!
Open Team
=========
If you missed those, February weekly meetings notes are here:
https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/ux/2020-February/000487.htmlhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/ux/2020-February/000488.htmlhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/ux/2020-February/000490.html
Peace and love,
A
--
Antonela Debiasi
UX Team Lead
@antonela
E2330A6D1EB5A0C8
https://torproject.org
Hello everyone! here's your monthly minutes digest. :)
# Roll call: who's there and emergencies
anarcat, gaba, hiro, and linus present.
# What has everyone been up to
## hiro
- migrate gitlab-01 to a new VM (gitlab-02) and use the omnibus package instead of ansible (#32949)
- automate upgrades (#31957 )
- anti-censorship monitoring (external prometheus setup assistance) (#31159)
- blog migration planning and setting up expectations
## anarcat
<https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?owner=anarcat&status=closed&…>
AKA:
Major work:
* retire textile [#31686][]
* new gnt-fsn node (fsn-node-04) [#33081][]
* fsn-node-03 disk problems [#33098][]
* fix up /etc/aliases with puppet [#32283][]
* decomission storm / bracteata on February 11, 2020 [#32390][]
* review the puppet bootstrapping process [#32914][]
* ferm: convert BASE_SSH_ALLOWED rules into puppet exported rules [#33143][]
* decomission savii [#33441][]
* decomission build-x86-07 [#33442][]
* adopt puppetlabs apt module [#33277][]
* provision a VM for the new exit scanner [#33362][]
* started work on unifolium decom [#33085][]
* improved installer process (reduced the number of steps by half)
* audited nagios puppet module to work towards puppetization ([#32901][])
[#32901]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32901
Routine tasks:
* Add aliases to apache config on check-01 [#33536][]
* New RT queue and alias iff@tpo [#33138][]
* migrate sysadmin roadmap in trac wiki [#33141][]
* Please update karsten's new PGP subkey [#33261][]
* Please no longer delegate onionperf-dev.torproject.net zone to AWS [#33308][]
* Please update GPG key for irl [#33492][]
* peer feedback work
* taxes form wrangling
* puppet patch reviews
* znc irc bouncer debugging [#33483][]
* CiviCRM mail rate expansion monitoring [#33189][]
* mail delivery problems [#33413][]
* [meta-policy process][] adopted
* package installs ([#33295][])
* RT root noises ([#33314][])
* debian packaging and bugtracking
* SVN discussion
* contacted various teams to followup on buster upgrades (translation
[#33110][] and metrics [#33111][]) - see also [progress followup][]
* nc.riseup.net retirement coordination #32391
[progress followup]: https://help.torproject.org/tsa/howto/upgrades/buster/#Per_host_progress
[meta-policy process]: https://help.torproject.org/tsa/policy/tpa-rfc-1-policy/
[#33111]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33111
[#33110]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33110
[#33314]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33314
[#33295]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33295
[#33413]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33413
[#33189]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33189
[#33483]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33483
[#33536]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33536
[#31686]: https://bugs.torproject.org/31686
[#33081]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33081
[#33098]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33098
[#33138]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33138
[#33141]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33141
[#32283]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32283
[#32390]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32390
[#32914]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32914
[#33143]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33143
[#33261]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33261
[#33308]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33308
[#33362]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33362
[#33441]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33441
[#33442]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33442
[#33492]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33492
[#33277]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33277
[#33085]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33085
## qbi
- created several new trac components (for new sponsors)
- disabled components (moved to archive)
- changed mailing list settings on request of moderators
# What we're up to next
I suggest we move this to the systematic roadmap / ticket review instead in the future, but that can be discussed in the roadmap review section below.
For now:
## anarcat
* unifolium retirement (cupani, polyanthum, omeiense still to migrate)
* chase cymru and replace moly?
* retire kvm3
* new ganeti node
## hiro
- retire gitlab-01
- TPA-RFC-2: define how users get support, what's an emergency and what is supported (#31243)
- Migrating the blog to a static website with lektor. Make a test with discourse as comment platform.
# Roadmap review
We keep on using this system for march:
<https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/SysadminTeam>
Many things have been rescheduled to march and april because we ran out of time to do what we wanted. In particular, the libvirt/kvm migrations are taking more time than expected.
# Policies review
TPA-RFC-1: policy; marked as adopted
TPA-RFC-2; support; hiro to write up a draft.
TPA-RFC-3: tools; to be brainstormed here
The goal of the new RFC is to define which *tools* we use in TPA. This
does not concern service admins, at least not in the short term, but
only sysadmin stuff. "Tools", in this context, are programs we use to
implement a "service". For example, the "mailing list" service is
being ran by the "mailman" tool (but could be implemented with
another). Similarly, the "web cache proxy" service is implemented by
varnish and haproxy, but is being phased out in favor of Varnish.
Another goal is to *limit* the number of tools team members should
know to be functional in the team, and formalize past decisions (like
"we use debian").
We particularly discussed the idea of introducing Fabric as an "ad-hoc
changes tool" to automate host installation, retirement, and
reboots. It's already in use to automate libvirt/ganeti migrations and
is serving us well there.
# Other discussions
A live demo of the Fabric code was performed some time after the
meeting and no one raised objections to the new project.
# Next meeting
No discussed, but should be on april 6th 2020.
# Metrics of the month
* hosts in Puppet: 77, LDAP: 81, Prometheus exporters: 124
* number of apache servers monitored: 31, hits per second: 148
* number of nginx servers: 2, hits per second: 2, hit ratio: 0.89
* number of self-hosted nameservers: 6, mail servers: 10
* pending upgrades: 174, reboots: 0
* average load: 0.63, memory available: 308.91 GiB/1017.79 GiB,
running processes: 411
* bytes sent: 169.04 MB/s, received: 101.53 MB/s
* planned buster upgrades completion date: 2020-06-24
--
Antoine Beaupré
torproject.org system administration
The main git server, cupani, is the machine you connect to when you push
or pull git repositories over ssh to git-rw.torproject.org. That
machines has been migrated to the new Ganeti cluster.
This required an IP address change from:
78.47.38.228 2a01:4f8:211:6e8:0:823:4:1
to:
116.202.120.182 2a01:4f8:fff0:4f:266:37ff:fe32:cfb2
DNS has been updated and preliminary tests show that everything is
mostly working. You *will* get a warning about the IP address change
when connecting over SSH, which will go away after the first
connection. That is normal. The SSH fingerprints of the host did *not*
change.
Please do report any other anomaly using the normal channels:
https://help.torproject.org/tsa/doc/how-to-get-help/
The service was unavailable for about an hour during the migration.
Thank you for your patience,
A.
PS: details of the work are available here:
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/33446
--
Antoine Beaupré
torproject.org system administration
Hi!
Yesterday we had another round of our weekly network health meeting in
#tor-meeting. The IRC log was captured, as usual, by meetbot and can be
found at:
http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-03-09-19.00.log…
(If you ever asked why there are sometimes pings like "Sebastian,
weasel, micah, arma1, stefani: dirauth update. Thanks!" in our
#tor-project channel seemingly out of the blue, be sure to read the
meeting log above as it contains an explanation of that is going on. :))
The details from our meeting pad are as follows:
Discussion:
- How to move forward with #32672 (bridges, timeframe, other nagging
efforts to upgrade)? [GeKo: phw whill contact bridge operators this week
and we'll make some recommendations for the network team as to when to
merge the patch in our meeting next Monday]
- How do we adjust meeting times due to DST? [GeKo: the plan is to
keep the UTC meeting time for now and move to 1800 UTC once the
Europeans have switched to DST as well]
Statuses:
GeKo:
Last week:
- more sbws work (help with reviewing #30726, started to look into
#33009 thinking about how to best test a fix within the integration
tests framework)
- looking at the bridges situation for #32672
- resume work on #32864
- feedback reviews
- look at ggus' Tor legal questions pad
(https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-legal-questions-keep); email draft: ()
- tracked down a bug in stem
(https://github.com/torproject/stem/commit/7a0a8dd8d4218d5dabec3c2e47bebc4d1…)
that our doctor checks hit
- the usual bad relay activity
- sent out monthly team report for February
(https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2020-March/002745.html)
- input for DRL proposal
This week:
- more sbws work
- #32864
- getting back to EFF for the legal questions update
juga:
Last week:
- Worked on #33570 Correct the relays to keep after retrieving new
consensuses
- Worked/revised on #30726 Missing relay keys in bandwidth file spec
Next week:
- Continue with #30726 Missing relay keys in bandwidth file spec
- Continue with #30719 Work out why 90% of sbws measurements fail
Gaba:
Not much related to network health.
Georg