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OONI Monthly Report: October 2020
by Maria Xynou 04 Dec '20

04 Dec '20

Hello, Throughout October 2020, the OONI team worked on the following sprints: * Sprint 23 - Ægir (Sep 28 - Oct 11, 2020) * Sprint 24 - Kelpie (Oct 12 - Oct 25, 2020) * Sprint 25 - Näkki (Oct 26 - Nov 8, 2020) Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. ## Completed migration of OONI infrastructure to Amsterdam In October 2020, we completed the process of migrating critical OONI infrastructure (hosting the OONI data processing pipeline) to servers in Amsterdam. This process involved: * Building a new OONI PostgreSQL metaDB (powered by the latest version of PostgreSQL 11) which uses a different set of tables based on our improved, fasthpath pipeline (https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/322) * Refactoring the OONI API codebase to use the fastpath pipeline (https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/437) * Implementing a fastpath pipeline-based API to support OONI Explorer (https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/442) * Replacing the batch OONI data processing pipeline entirely with our new OONI fastpath pipeline; * Discontinuing all of our hosts on the Hong Kong data centre (https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/390) * Consolidating our infrastructure on a single host on DigitalOcean (https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/400) * Improving our infrastructure to include better monitoring and alerting (https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/439, https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/398) * Extensive testing to ensure that nothing breaks during (and after) the migration (https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/372) We successfully replaced the batch OONI data processing pipeline with our new fastpath pipeline, and now all OONI measurements collected from around the world are processed and openly published in near real-time. Overall, the migration to new servers in Amsterdam was successful, as nothing broke and our services have significantly improved performance. ## Improved OONI Explorer performance As a result of the migration, OONI Explorer (https://explorer.ooni.org/) now has significantly improved performance! OONI Explorer fetches OONI measurements from the OONI API, which previously depended on both our batch data processing pipeline and our fastpath pipeline. In previous months, several OONI Explorer queries didn’t work and OONI Explorer itself faced several performance issues as a result of relying on both the new database tables and the legacy table for running queries. By consolidating our infrastructure and API, we have managed to significantly boost the performance of OONI Explorer. Now that the batch OONI data processing pipeline has been deprecated and replaced entirely by our new fastpath pipeline, all OONI measurements collected from around the world are processed and openly published in near real-time, and OONI Explorer queries work fast and reliably. This is further supported by our work involving the refactoring of the OONI API, switching to a new database schema, as well as upgrading to PostgreSQL 11. ## Discontinued PostgreSQL metaDB While we are excited to have migrated over to a new and improved pipeline (particularly since this significantly enhanced the performance of OONI Explorer!), this unfortunately affected the OONI PostgreSQL MetaDB, which was powered by an older version of PostgreSQL and which depended on the batch OONI data processing pipeline. As a result, the OONI PostgreSQL metaDB (which was powered by an older version of PostgreSQL) was inevitably discontinued in late October 2020. This means that users of the old OONI PostgreSQL metaDB would still have access to all previous OONI measurements, but they would not receive any updates once the migration (to servers in Amsterdam) was completed. We therefore reached out to OONI community members (particularly those who we knew relied on the OONI PostgreSQL metaDB for their projects) to share these updates, encourage them to share details about their use case, and we offered relevant help. ## Published report on censorship events amid Tanzania’s 2020 general election Starting from the eve of Tanzania’s 2020 general election, we started to observe the blocking of social media apps and websites. We published a report which shares OONI measurements and details on the blocking of social media in Tanzania on their election day. This report is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-tanzania-blocks-social-media-tor-election-day/ ## Worked on research report on LGBTIQ website blocking In collaboration with OutRight Action International and the Citizen Lab, we have been working on a joint research report which examines the blocking of LGBTIQ websites in 6 countries based on OONI data. Throughout October 2020, we made significant progress on the writing of this report (which we expect to co-publish in early 2021). ## Internet Shutdown Measurement Training for Advocates On 12th October 2020, we started a 6-week training program on internet shutdown measurement training for human rights defenders in Sub-Saharan Africa. This training program was organized by Internews, and OONI served as the lead partner on the program. Information about this program is available here: https://internews.org/call-applications-internet-shutdown-measurements-advo… As part of this training program, we led and facilitated the following 2 modules: * Introduction to Network Measurement * Detecting Blocking of Websites & Applications with OONI Probe For each of these two modules, we provided participants with a pre-recorded webinar for asynchronous learning. During the week of 12th October 2020, we provided several hours of synchronous training and mentorship for the module on “Introduction to Network Measurement”. During the week of 26th October 2020, we provided several hours of synchronous training and mentorship for the module on “Detecting Blocking of Websites & Applications with OONI Probe”. We also provided a live demo on how to use OONI Explorer in order to find OONI measurements on the blocking of social media in Tanzania amid its 2020 general election (which took place that week). Meanwhile, during the week of 19th October 2020, we helped facilitate the synchronous training provided by IODA for the module on “Detecting Internet Blackouts”. Throughout the training program, we also reviewed the homework assignments of the training participants, shared feedback and relevant resources. ## New OONI experiment for measuring encrypted DNS blocking India's Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) implemented a new OONI experiment (called `dnscheck`) for measuring the blocking of encrypted DNS transports. This experiment is currently available via the `miniooni` research client (https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/tree/v0.19.0#building-miniooni) and we plan to integrate it as part of the Websites card in the OONI Probe apps. CIS India published a research report ("Investigating Encrypted DNS Blocking in India") based on this test, which is available here: https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/investigating-encrypted-dns-… We also published a short blog post about this new experiment and CIS India’s report, which is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-encrypted-dns-blocking-india/ ## Code review of new nettests written by community members We are thrilled that community members are writing new experiments for OONI Probe! In October 2020, we reviewed the code of the following new nettests (written by community members): * RiseupVPN experiment; * HTTP host experiment; * DoH/DoT blocking experiment; * HTTP3 experiment. We hope to eventually ship such tests as part of the OONI Probe apps. ## Published OONI Probe ASN Incident Report In October 2020, we discovered an ASN-related bug in OONI Probe. In response, we published an Incident Report which shares details about the bug, what we did to fix it, and we document our next steps (as well as measures for limiting the possibility of similar bugs recurring in the future). Our Incident Report is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-ooni-probe-asn-incident-report/ ## OONI Probe Mobile ### Released OONI Probe Mobile 2.7.0 We fixed the ASN-related bug in the OONI Probe Mobile 2.7.0 release for: * Android: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.7.0 * iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.7.0 More specifically, this release includes the following improvements: * Fixed a bug to ensure that the ASN is not leaked in the report ID of measurements when users have opted out of ASN collection; * Removed all dependencies from the C++ Measurement Kit engine; * Made the app rely entirely on the new Go probe engine; * General improvements and minor bug fixes We are excited that following the 2.7.0 release, the OONI Probe mobile app relies entirely on our go-based probe engine! ### Progress on adding support for automated regular testing We continued to make progress towards adding support in the OONI Probe mobile app for automated regular testing, as documented through this ticket: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/916 ## OONI Probe Desktop We fixed the ASN-related bug on OONI Probe desktop through the following release: https://github.com/ooni/probe-cli/releases/tag/v3.0.8 We released OONI Probe 3.0.4 for macOS and Windows, which includes several bug fixes, UI improvements, and other changes: https://github.com/ooni/probe-desktop/releases/tag/v3.0.4 We also added support to OONI Probe Desktop to enable users to customize their testing based on the Citizen Lab category codes: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1022 ## Removed AS0 measurements from the OONI API and from OONI Explorer As an extra measure in addressing the ASN-related bug, we also worked on removing all AS0 measurements from the OONI API. We also made adjustments to the fastpath pipeline so that it stops processing AS0 measurements (as well as measurements which don’t have a country code). This work is tracked through the following tickets: https://github.com/ooni/pipeline/pull/326 https://github.com/ooni/api/pull/194 https://github.com/ooni/api/pull/195 OONI Explorer measurements are fetched from the OONI API, so by removing the AS0 measurements from the OONI API, we limited the possibility of accessing affected measurements. We also made relevant adjustments to OONI Explorer by preventing users from searching measurements based on AS0. This is tracked through the following tickets: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/501 https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/502 ## OONI Explorer releases We made a series of improvements to OONI Explorer, we addressed the ASN-related bug (by hiding AS0 measurements), and we added support to OONI Explorer for using the new factored OONI API. These changes are documented through the following OONI Explorer releases: * 2.0.9: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/releases/tag/v2.0.9 * 2.0.10: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/releases/tag/v2.0.10 (which addressed the AS0 measurements) * 2.1.0: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/releases/tag/v2.1.0 (which uses the new refactored OONI API) We also added more end-to-end tests for OONI Explorer (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/pull/493) and we upgraded OONI Explorer to use the latest ooni-components (https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/509) ## OONI Probe engine We made a series of improvements to the OONI Probe engine (which powers the OONI Probe apps) through the following releases: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/releases/tag/v0.18.0 https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/releases/tag/v0.19.0 ## OONI team peer review To improve our practices and grow as a team, we designed a peer review feedback form for the OONI team. The goal of this feedback form was to offer all OONI team members an opportunity to share feedback (in a structured way) on their colleagues’ performance, as well as on their own. ## Ford Foundation Communications Training OONI’s Maria participated in the Ford Foundation’s Communications Training program during the last week of October 2020. We were offered this great opportunity because we are a grantee of the Ford Foundation, who support OONI’s community-related work. The knowledge and skills gained throughout this week-long communications training program will help support our work in the long-run. ## Community use of OONI data ### MIT Policy Hackathon 2020 The theme of the MIT Policy Hackathon 2020 (https://www.mitpolicyhackathon.org/) was based on OONI data! MIT students who participated in this hackathon explored OONI data to answer a variety of questions, which are detailed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DCK_7djZvJrd41ls-2ThN0cWPbszDQ5EAJZqcij… ### Access Now report on censorship events in Tanzania amid elections Access Now published a report on the blocking of social media in Tanzania amid its 2020 general election. Their report, which cites OONI data, is available here: https://www.accessnow.org/tanzania-votes-government-forces-telcos-escalate-… ## Community activities ### CensorWatch India’s Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) released a new research tool designed to perform censorship measurements, called CensorWatch: https://cis-india.github.io/censorwatch/ Over the past months we have collaborated with CIS India developers and CensorWatch builds upon OONI Probe methodologies. ### Created OONI Probe testing guides for October 2020 elections We created (and shared) 3 documents with relevant OONI Probe testing instructions for local communities in Tanzania, Guinea, and Cote d’Ivoire so that they can participate in OONI Probe censorship measurement leading up to, during, and after their respective October 2020 elections. ## Coordinated Telegram testing in Cuba and Thailand Starting from 15th October 2020, OONI measurements suggest the blocking of Telegram in Cuba, and we were told that 4 Telegram IPs were recently added to the Thai blocklist (though we have not seen Telegram blocked in Thailand yet). We therefore coordinated the testing of Telegram in Cuba and Thailand to collect more measurements throughout October 2020. In Cuba, community members reported that they were unable to use the OONI Probe mobile app (following the blocking of Telegram), but the OONI Probe desktop app continued to work (which is how many measurements continued to be collected). We spent resources in October 2020 investigating why the OONI Probe mobile app didn’t work in Cuba. ### SMEX resource including OONI Probe SMEX published a post titled “Website Blocking in the Arab Region: Monitoring and Counteraction Techniques” (a translation of the Arabic resource published previously), which is available here: https://smex.org/website-blocking-in-the-arab-region-monitoring-and-counter… Among other tools, OONI Probe is mentioned in this post as a tool for measuring internet censorship in the Arab region. ### OONI Community Meeting On 27th October 2020, we hosted the monthly OONI Community Meeting on our Slack channel (https://slack.ooni.org/) during which we discussed the following topics: 1. Updates from the OONI team 2. Integrating the DNScheck test into the OONI Probe mobile and desktop apps (https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/tree/master/experiment/dnscheck) 3. Analyzing OONI data. ## Userbase In October 2020, 5,324,739 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 5,333 networks in 204 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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minutes from the sysadmin meeting
by Antoine Beaupré 03 Dec '20

03 Dec '20

Hi! I forgot to add a fancy header like this like month, but I want to say "hi!" to everyone, and "welcome back to our monthly reports from the sysadmin team"! :) Hopefully everyone can manage to stay safe in this crazier-than-usual holiday season! **Agenda** - Roll call: who's there and emergencies - Roadmap review - Triage rotation - Holiday planning - TPA survey review - Other discussions - New intern - Next meeting - Metrics of the month # Roll call: who's there and emergencies anarcat, hiro, gaba, no emergencies The meeting took place on IRC because anarcat had too much noise. # Roadmap review Did a lot of cleanup in the dashboard: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards In general, the following items were priotirized: * [GitLab CI][] * finish setting up the Cymru network, especially the [VPN][] * [BTCpayserver][] * [tor browser build boxes][] * small tickets like the [git stuff][] and triage (see below) [git stuff]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards?&label_name[]=Git [tor browser build boxes]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/34122 [BTCpayserver]: https://bugs.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/33750 [VPN]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40097 [GitLab CI]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40095 The following items were punted to the future: * SVN retirement (to January) * password management (specs in January?) * Puppet role account and verifications We briefly discussed Grafana authentication, because of a request to [create a new account on grafana2][]. anarcat said the current model of managing the htpasswd file in Puppet doesn't scale so well because we need to go through this process every time we need to grant access (or do a password reset) and identified 3 alternative authentication mechanisms: [create a new account on grafana2]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40102 1. htpasswd managed in Puppet (status quo) 2. Grafana users (disabling the htpasswd, basically) 3. LDAP authentication The current authentication model was picked because we wanted to automate user creation in Puppet, and because it's hard to create users in Grafana from Puppet. When a new Grafana server is setup, there's a small window during which an attacker could create an admin account, which we were trying to counter. But maybe those concerns are moot now. We also discussed passord management but that will be worked on in January. We'll try to set a roadmap for 2021 in January, after the results of the survey have come in. # Triage rotation Hiro brought up the idea of rotating the triage work instead of having always the same person doing it. Right now, anarcat looks at the board at the beginning of every week and deals with tickets in the "Open" column. Often, he just takes the easy tickets, drops them in ~Next, and just does them, other times, they end up in ~Backlog or get closed or at least have some response of some sort. We agreed to switch that responsability every two weeks # Holiday planning anarcat off from 14th to the 26th, hiro from 30th to jan 14th # TPA survey review anarcat is [working on a survey][] to get information from our users to plan the 2021 roadmap. [working on a survey]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40061 People like the survey in general, but the "services" questions were just too long. It was suggested to remove services TPA has nothing to do with (like websites or metrics stuff like check.tpo). But anarcat pointed out that we need to know which of those services are important: for example right now we "just know" that check.tpo is important, but it would be nice to have hard data that confirms it. Anarcat agreed to separate the table into teams so that it doesn't look that long and will submit the survey back for review again by the end of the week. # Other discussions ## New intern [MariaV][] just started as an Outreachy intern to work on Anonymous Ticket System. She may be joining the `#tpo-admin` channel and may join the gitlab/tooling meetings. Welcome MariaV! [MariaV]: https://mviolante.com/ # Next meeting Quick check-in on December 29th, same time. # Metrics of the month * hosts in Puppet: 79, LDAP: 82, Prometheus exporters: 133 * number of apache servers monitored: 28, hits per second: 205 * number of nginx servers: 2, hits per second: 3, hit ratio: 0.86 * number of self-hosted nameservers: 6, mail servers: 12 * pending upgrades: 1, reboots: 0 * average load: 0.34, memory available: 1.80 TiB/2.39 TiB, running processes: 481 * bytes sent: 245.34 MB/s, received: 139.99 MB/s * [GitLab tickets][]: 129 issues including... * open: 0 * icebox: 92 * backlog: 20 * next: 9 * doing: 8 * (closed: 2130) [Gitlab tickets]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards The upgrade prediction graph has been retired since it keeps predicting the upgrades will be finished in the past, which no one seems to have noticed from the last report (including me). Metrics 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. -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 03 Dec, 2020
by Cecylia Bocovich 03 Dec '20

03 Dec '20

Hey everyone, Here is our meeting log: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-12-03-15.59.html And our meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday December 3rd 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 == https://bridges.torproject.org/status?id=FINGERPRINT now online Tor bridges will log this URL to help operators figure out if their bridge works. Currently only works for obfs2, obfs3, obfs4, and scramblesuit; not vanilla. == Discussion == == Actions == Take a look at our monthly report and add/modify content as you see fit: https://pad.riseup.net/p/U4o0LNYPgm7SCxuF-1Sm == Interesting links == == Reading group == We will discuss "Poking a Hole in the Wall: Efficient Censorship-Resistant Internet Communications by Parasitizing on WebRTC" on Dec 3 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3372297.3417874 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 (2020-12-03): Made it possible to look up resource status by hashed fingerprint. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/28 Brainstormed ways to stream bridge updates to polyanthum. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/9 Deployed Prometheus metrics for bridgestrap. They are publicly accessible: https://bridges.torproject.org/bridgestrap-metrics https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/4 Wrote a patch that makes Snowflake's broker order its snowflake-ips metrics by value. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… Made rdsys's supported resources configurable. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/29 Improved bridgestrap's metrics to make them more in line with what Prometheus recommends. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/10 Wrapped up bridgestrap deployment. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/5 Wrote November 2020 report. Started implementing metrics for rdsys. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/14 Next week: Reach out to a few folks to have emma run in different places. Deploy bridgestrap and rdsys, and expose bridge status page. Progress on Salmon. Help with: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/10 cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-12-03 Last week: - created tor-browser-build!129 - reviewed snowflake-mobile!16 - reviewed bridgestrap!3 - created snowflake#40023 and a fix snowflake!20 - created snowflake!21 for snowflake#40018 - did some work on multiplexing (snowflake#25723) - worked on avoiding double delays (snowflake#34080) - wrote probetest installation and survival guides: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Survival-Gui… https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Survival-Gui… - sponsor 28 meetings This week: - continue to monitor snowflake stats - Figure out why we still have unknown proxies - follow up on progress towards a telegram bot for gettor - have broker inform proxies when to poll (snowflake#25598) - Finish work on avoiding double delays (snowflake#34080) - Continue snowflake multiplexing work (snowflake#25723) - Review snowflake!22 Needs help with: - review of snowflake!21 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: 2020-12-03 Last week: - archived snowflake-webextension-0.5.2 - reviewed client NAT type reclassification https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - reviewed Snowflake client loop restructuring https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… 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:2020-12-03 Last week: -Gathered ideas for httpt issue #4 -Dug deeper into Go (found some nice resources) -Read this weeks paper Next week: -Find new rdsys ticket Help with: -Review of https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/5 -(Optional) Some feedback on https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/http… 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: 2020-11-19 This week: - Next week: - Research on how to implement a STUN check on Android. Help with: -

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OONI Monthly Report: September 2020
by Maria Xynou 27 Nov '20

27 Nov '20

Hello, Below we share OONI's September 2020 status report. Sincere apologies for the huge delay (our team has been quite swamped these past few months)! Our October 2020 report will follow soon too. # OONI Monthly Report: September 2020 Throughout September 2020, the OONI team worked on the following sprints: * Sprint 21 - Steve Z. (31st August 2020 - 13th September 2020) * Sprint 22 - Ποσειδάων (14th September 2020 - 27th September 2020) Our work can be tracked through the various OONI GitHub repositories: https://github.com/ooni Highlights are shared in this report below. ## Migrating OONI infrastructure to Amsterdam One of our top priorities in September 2020 was the migration of critical OONI infrastructure (hosting the OONI data processing pipeline) to servers in Amsterdam, and updating the OONI PostgreSQL metaDB to adapt it to the requirements of our new data processing pipeline. We worked towards replacing the batch OONI data processing pipeline with our new fastpath pipeline, which analyzes and publishes OONI measurements from around the world in real-time (the measurements are published as soon as the report is closed). To this end, we built a new PostgreSQL metaDB, which is powered by the latest version of PostgreSQL (11) available in debian stable, and which uses a different set of tables (based on our improved, fastpath pipeline). More specifically, our work related to migrating OONI infrastructure involved: * Implementing a fast-path based API to support OONI Explorer: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/442 * Refactoring the API codebase: https://github.com/ooni/api/pull/192 * Implementing some form of canning to use the current collector and/or the new API to receive measurements without relying on the batch pipeline: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/284 * Setting up a new database host in Amsterdam: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/400 * Implementing measurement_meta lookup: autoclaved, minican, fastpath host * Implementing measurement_uid * Implementing jsonl in the uploader * Updating the fastpath pipeline to support jsonl cans * Updating the fastpath pipeline to support API POST submissions * Implementing measurement upload into the API with new mini-canning * End-to-end testing of all probes * Investigating, implementing, testing Tor measurement submission * Adding software_name and software_version to the fastpath pipeline and rerunning it * Fixing the S3 bucket public permissions All of the above work is tracked through the following master ticket: https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/437 ## Improving the OONI Probe engine ### Improved our golang probe-engine to support calling geolocate and measurement resubmission APIs To improve the interaction between our probe-engine and the OONI Probe mobile app, we designed new Go based APIs. The core design choice was to expose Go objects directly to Java/ObjC code, rather than continuing to implement a set of JSON based wrappers. This work is tracked here: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/893 ### Improving the data quality of OONI measurements As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the data quality of OONI measurements, we worked on: * Understanding DNS based false positives: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/770 * Categorizing bugs that affect data quality: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/892 ### Working towards having our own ASN database for geolocating probes We made some progress towards building our own ASN database: https://github.com/ooni/probe-engine/issues/727 ## Released OONI Probe Mobile 2.6.0 In September 2020, we released OONI Probe Mobile 2.6.0 for: * Android: https://github.com/ooni/probe-android/releases/tag/v2.6.0 * iOS: https://github.com/ooni/probe-ios/releases/tag/v2.6.0 This release includes Countly (https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1241) and includes the following new features: * Notifications to run OONI Probe tests when censorship events emerge * Self-hosted platform for the collection of anonymized usage metrics (which can help us improve the OONI Probe apps) We also worked on the following: * Displaying the messages of push notifications within a modal in the OONI Probe Android app: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1242 * Finished designing the new API used by the probe-engine * Progress on re-adding daily automatic testing: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/916 * Investigated (and addressed) the issues in the Android app (flagged by the Play Store) * Reviewed how we request for countly permissions: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1244 * Edited the network count after the deletion of test data (bug fix): https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1240 * Added support for asking notification permission in the app: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1210 * Replaced the links that discuss false positives: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1095 * Discussed using multiple mobile deep link URL prefixes: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1246 ## Improving the OONI Probe desktop app As part of our ongoing efforts to improve upon the OONI Probe desktop app, we worked on the following activities: * Investigated performance issues related to the loading time * Fixed the onboarding button alignment: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1138 * Fixed app crash that occurred when viewing interrupted performance test results: https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/1245 * Worked towards the renewal of the Windows code signing certificate for OONI Probe Desktop ## Added support to use the new migrated API in OONI Explorer As we worked towards migrating our infrastructure to servers in Amsterdam (and building a new API to accommodate the migration), we also had to make OONI Explorer rely on our new API and debug OONI Explorer/API interactions. This work involved activities that include: * Ensuring that OONI Explorer uses the refactored API: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/489 * Removing tested_since from the OONI Explorer country page: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/482 * Ensuring that OONI Explorer pages render minimal content when `test_keys` are missing: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/416 ## Improvements to OONI Explorer As part of our ongoing improvements to OONI Explorer, we worked on restoring the anomaly flag indicators for the OONI Probe instant messaging tests in the search results: https://github.com/ooni/explorer/issues/425 This means that OONI Explorer users can now visually and easily find all anomalous measurements pertaining to the OONI Probe WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook Messenger tests via the OONI Explorer search page. ## URL prioritisation frontend We implemented a basic UI function (as an MVP) for the prioritized testing of URLs. This can be viewed here: https://github.com/ooni/ooni.org/issues/524#issuecomment-690707849 ## Published report on censorship events in Belarus amid protests We published a report documenting censorship events in Belarus amid anti-government protests. We prepared this report in collaboration with Human Constanta and the Digital Observers Community Belarus. Our report is available here: https://ooni.org/post/2020-belarus-internet-outages-website-censorship/ We detected the blocking of 86 websites in Belarus, which include news media, political opposition, pro-democracy, and election related websites, as well as communication and circumvention tool sites. We observed a variance in blocking both in terms of which websites were blocked across ISPs (i.e. different sites blocked on different networks), as well as in terms of censorship techniques. In some cases, when sites were hosted on HTTP, we saw that ISPs served a blockpage. But when sites were hosted on encrypted HTTPS, we observed interference during the TLS handshake (after the TCP connection and before the HTTP request), resulting in a connection reset error. As blocking appears to have been implemented during the TLS handshake, this suggests that Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology was likely used. It seems likely that the SNI was being used to decide whether to block or let connections go through. ## Press coverage CoinDesk wrote a story about OONI, which is available here: https://www.coindesk.com/hacker-decentralized-network-censorship This story features an interview with Arturo Filastò (OONI’s project lead), as well as interviews with OONI community members from Malaysia and Venezuela. The story also links to and discusses our Belarus report. Our report on Belarus also received press coverage from an Italian media outlet: https://ilmanifesto.it/la-bielorussia-ha-messo-il-bavaglio-al-web/ ## Preparation for Internet Shutdown Measurement Training for Advocates OONI is a lead partner on Internews’ OPTIMA Internet Shutdown Measurement Training for Advocates in Sub-Saharan Africa. Information about this training program (and its call for applications) is available here: https://internews.org/call-applications-internet-shutdown-measurements-advo… As part of our preparation for the Internet Shutdown Measurement Training for Advocates (a 6-week training program which started on 12th October 2020), we carried out the following activities: * Compiled relevant resources (reading materials and videos) for the training participants * Created homework assignments for the training participants * Reviewed applications for the training program * Reviewed the webinar videos of other mentors and shared feedback * Created a survey (in collaboration with Internews) to collect participant feedback prior to the start of the training program ### Recorded webinar on Introduction to Network Measurement OONI’s Maria recorded a 30-minute webinar which provides an introduction to network measurement for human rights defenders. An assignment was also prepared for this webinar. Internews will publish this webinar on their OPTIMA YouTube channel. ## Community use of OONI data ### Blocking of social media in Azerbaijan Azerbaijan Internet Watch published a report on the blocking of social media in Azerbaijan amid clashes with Armenia. Their report (which makes use of OONI data) is available here: https://www.az-netwatch.org/news/country-wide-internet-disruptions-reported… ### Reviewed OTF Fellow research report Over the past year we have collaborated with an OTF Information Controls Fellow who investigated internet censorship (through the use of OONI Probe and OONI data) in Myanmar. We offered OONI data analysis support (and relevant charts), and we reviewed their final report and shared feedback. ## Community activities ### Arusha Women School of Internet Governance (AruWSIG) 2020 On 10th September 2020, Maria presented OONI (“Measuring internet censorship with OONI Probe”) at the Arusha Women School of Internet Governance (AruWSIG) -- an annual event in Tanzania which partly took place online this year in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Information about the event is available here: https://www.ksgen.or.tz/aruwsig-2020/ ### Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa 2020 (FIFAfrica) We attended the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa 2020 (FIFAfrica) conference remotely, and viewed some sessions in order to learn more about Africa’s digital rights environment. Information about this event is available here: https://cipesa.org/fifafrica/ ### SMEX resource including OONI Probe SMEX published a post on “Website Blocking in the Arab Region: Techniques, Monitoring, and Response”, which is available here: https://smex.org/ar/%d8%ad%d8%ac%d8%a8-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%88%d9%8a%d8%a8-%d8%a… This resource mentions and promotes OONI Probe as a tool for measuring internet censorship in the Arab region. ## Userbase In September 2020, 6,479,995 OONI Probe measurements were collected from 5,532 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/ ~ The 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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November 2020 Tor DEMO Day
by Antonela D 25 Nov '20

25 Nov '20

............................................ ██████ .███████ ███ ...███ .██████ .███████ ██ ██ ██ ████ .████ ██ ██ ██ ██ ..██ █████ ..██ ████ ██ ██ ...██ ███████ ██ ..██ ██ ..██ ██ ██ ██ ...██ ██ ██████ ███████ ██ . .██ ██████ ███████ ............................................ Hello, We will have DEMO day this Wednesday November 25th! When? ----- During the All Hands Meeting on Wednesday September 25th at 16 UTC Where? ------ At https://tor.meet.coop/ant-xfe-d2b-lnt How ---- - We will have 3 to 5 minutes length presentations. Agenda ---- Lessons learned from accepting remote presentations under C19 - ahf Padding Machines for Tor - Tobias Pulls Globaleaks - Giovanni Pellerano Query and control a running Tor in your CLI with carml - meejah Open Privacy/Cwtch - Sarah Jamie Lewis Trezor Suite + Tor integration - Pavol Rusnak On Tor and iOS - Benjamin with the Guardian See you there! A -- Antonela Debiasi UX Team Lead torproject.org @antonela E2330A6D1EB5A0C8

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Tor's year-end campaign: live!
by Al Smith 23 Nov '20

23 Nov '20

Hello Tor world! Today we launched the annual year-end fundraising campaign on behalf of the Tor Project. This year, our theme is “Use a Mask, Use Tor: Resist the Surveillance Pandemic.” (You’ve probably seen the campaign graphics on about:tor already if you’ve upgraded to Tor Browser 10.0.1!) We chose this theme for our 2020 campaign because we wanted to use a positive message and speak to the power of community action & care. Use a mask, use Tor promotes the steps we can all take to combat the virus by using masks. Wearing a mask protects others. Wearing a mask is about caring about each other, our community. In the same way, when using Tor, you are not only protecting your identity and privacy online, but you are also helping to hide others who are using Tor. After all, anonymity loves company To put it simply, using a mask keeps yourself and your communities safe in person. Using Tor keeps yourself and your communities safe online. You can read the full justification behind the slogan, and what we plan to do in 2021 with your support, on our blog: https://blog.torproject.org/use-a-mask-use-tor Every donation made from now through the end of 2020 will count towards our year-end campaign. Be on the lookout for events, giveaways, and new merch available from now until December 31. Plus -- new swag! See https://donate.torproject.org for the new t-shirt and hoodie designs. If you’re not in the position to make a donation, you can help by sharing this message or amplifying what the Tor Project’s account does on Twitter / Mastadon / Instagram / LinkedIn / Facebook. Use a Mask, Use Tor! Thanks for your support. Al -- Al Smith (they/them) Fundraising • Communications The Tor Project

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Anti-censorship meeting notes, 19 Nov 2020
by Cecylia Bocovich 19 Nov '20

19 Nov '20

Hey everyone! Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-11-19-15.58.html and the meeting pad: Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Next meeting: Thursday November 19th 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 == == Actions == == Interesting links == "Detection of Tor traffic using deep learning" https://146.227.160.144/bitstream/handle/2086/20415/AICCSA_2020_Final_Versi… Appears to only deal with vanilla Tor traffic. == Reading group == We will discuss "Poking a Hole in the Wall: Efficient Censorship-Resistant Internet Communications by Parasitizing on WebRTC" on Dec 3 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3372297.3417874 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 (2020-11-19): Made rdsys pool bridgestrap requests to minimise overhead. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/24 Added field to bridgestrap's response, informing requester when a bridge was last tested. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/6 Finally merged bridgestrap improvement that uses SETCONF to test bridges. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/3 Made rdsys display a bridge status page. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/10 Filed various sysadmin tickets to get bridgestrap deployed. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/5 Started investigating why we see more timeouts when we test more bridges. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgestrap/-/issues/7 Agreed to serve in TPC of NDSS DNS Privacy Workshop Started working on rdsys's design and architecture documentation. https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/16 Merged an improvement to our Debian bridge setup guide. https://gitlab.torproject.org/arma/community-tpo/-/merge_requests/3 Next week: Reach out to a few folks to have emma run in different places. Deploy bridgestrap and rdsys, and expose bridge status page. Progress on Salmon. Help with: cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-11-19 Last week: - opened and created a MR for snowflake#40021 - more work on snowflake#40018 - merged and deployed snowflake-webext!9 - wrote up documentation of the NAT matching problem on the snowflake wiki: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snow… - wrote snowflake!19 to close snowflake#40022 - Tor state of the onion - reviewed bridgestrap!2 This week: - Tor Browser patch for snowflake!19 - continue to monitor snowflake stats - write a PR to merge additional features from snowflake#40018 - follow up on progress towards a telegram bot for gettor - have broker inform proxies when to poll (snowflake#25598) - pick up snowflake multiplexing work again (snowflake#25723) - write probetest survival guide Needs help with: - review of snowflake!18 - review of snowflake!19 (i would really like to get this merged in tor browser quickly) 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: 2020-11-19 Last week: - archived snowflake-webextension-0.5.2 Next week: - review NAT type reclassification 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:2020-11-19 Last week: -Reviewed rdsys documentation Next week: -(Definitely!) Finish work on rdsys ticket (tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys!4) -Gather ideas for Pluggable Transports/HTTPT/Issues/#4 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: 2020-11-19 This week: - Next week: - Research on how to implement a STUN check on Android. Help with: -

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minutes from the sysadmin meeting
by Antoine Beaupré 19 Nov '20

19 Nov '20

# Roll call: who's there and emergencies gaba, hiro and anarcat on mumble, weasel (briefly) checked in on IRC. No emergencies. # BTCPayServer hosting https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/33750 We weren't receiving donations so hiro setup this service on [Lunanode][] because we were in a rush. We're still not receiving donations, but that's because of troubles with the wallet that hiro will resolve out of band. [Lunanode]: https://www.lunanode.com/ So this issue is about where we host this service: at Lunanode, or within TPA? The Lunanode server is already a virtual machine running Docker (and not a "pure container" thing) so we need to perform upgrades, create users and so on in the virtual machine. Let's host it, because we kind of already do anyways: it's just that only hiro has access for now. Let's host this in a VM in the new Ganeti cluster at Cymru. If the performance is not good enough (because the spec mentions SSD, which we do not have at Cymru: we have SAS), make some room at Hetzner by migrating some other machines to Cymru and then create the VM at Hetzner. hiro is lead on the next steps. # Tor browser build VM - review requirements https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/34122 Brief discussion about the security implications of enabling user namespaces in a Debian server. By default this is disabled in Debian because of concerns that the possible elevated privileges ("root" inside a namespace) can be leveraged to get root *outside* of the namespace. In the [Debian bug report discussing this][], [anarcat asked][] why exactly this was still disabled and [Ben Hutchings][] responded by giving a few examples of security issues that were mitigated by this. [Ben Hutchings]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=898446#112 [anarcat asked]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=898446#107 [Debian bug report discussing this]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=898446 But because, in our use case, the alternative is to give root directly, it seems that enabling user namespaces is a good mitigation. Worst case our users get root access, but that's not worse than giving them root directly. So we are go on granting user namespace access. The virtual machine will be created in the new Cymru cluster, assuming disk performance is satisfactory. # TPA-RFC-7: root access policy https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/policy/tpa-rfc-7-root Anarcat presented the proposal draft as sent to the team on November 9th. A few questions remained in the draft: 1. what is the process to allow/revoke access to the TPA team? 2. is the new permissions (to grant limited `sudo` rights to some service admins) acceptable? In other services, we use a vetting process: a sponsor that already has access should file the ticket for the person, the person doesn't request access. That is basically how it works for TPA as well. The revocation procedure was not directly discussed and still needs to be drafted. It was noted that other teams have servers outside of TPA (karsten, phw and cohosh for example) because of the current limitations, so other people might use those accesses as well. It will be worth talking with other stakeholders about this proposal to make sure it is attuned to the other teams' requirements. Think about the issue with Prometheus right now which is a good counter-example of when service admins do *not* require root on the servers ([issue 40089][]). [issue 40089]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40089 Another example is the `onionperf` servers that were setup elsewhere because they needed custom `iptables` rules. this might not require root but just `iptables` access, or at least special `iptables` rules configured by TPA. In general, the spirit of the proposal is to bring more flexibility with what changes we allow on servers to the TPA team. We want to help teams host their servers with us but that also comes with the understanding that we need the capacity (in terms of staff and hardware resources) to do so as well. This was agreed upon by the people present in the mumble meeting, so anarcat will finish the draft and propose it formally to the team later. # Roadmap review Did not have time to review [the team board][]. [the team board]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards anarcat ranted about people not updating their ticket and was (rightly) corrected that people *are* updating their tickets. So keep up the good work! We noted that the [top-level TPA board][] is not used for triage because it picks up too many tickets, outside of the core TPA team, that we cannot do anything about (e.g. the outreachy stuff in the GitLab lobby). [top-level TPA board]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/tpa/-/boards # Other discussions ## Should we rotate triage responsibility bi-weekly or monthly? Will be discussed on IRC, email, or in a later meeting later, as we ran out of time. # Next meeting We should resume our normal schedule of doing a meeting the first Wednesday of the month, which brings us to December 2nd 2020, at 1500UTC, which is equivalent to: 07:00 US/Pacific, 10:00 US/Eastern, 16:00 Europe/Paris # Metrics of the month * hosts in Puppet: 78, LDAP: 81, Prometheus exporters: 132 * number of apache servers monitored: 28, hits per second: 199 * number of nginx servers: 2, hits per second: 2, hit ratio: 0.87 * number of self-hosted nameservers: 6, mail servers: 12 * pending upgrades: 36, reboots: 0 * average load: 0.64, memory available: 1.43 TiB/2.02 TiB, running processes: 480 * bytes sent: 243.83 MB/s, received: 138.97 MB/s * planned buster upgrades completion date: 2020-09-16 * [GitLab tickets][]: 126 issues including... * open: 1 * icebox: 84 * backlog: 32 * next: 5 * doing: 4 * (closed: 2119) Note that only two "stretch" machines remain and the "buster" upgrade is considered mostly complete: those two machines are the SVN and Trac servers which are both scheduled for retirement. [GitLab tickets]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/boards Upgrade prediction graph (which is becoming a "how many machines do we have graph") still lives at https://help.torproject.org/tsa/howto/upgrades/ 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. -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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November 2020 Tor DEMO Day
by Antonela D 17 Nov '20

17 Nov '20

Hi Tor o/ This is happening at the end of the month! You can present any side project, main project, work in progress ideas, concepts, and anything that makes other people excited about what you are building or you are willing to build around Tor. Feel free to list yourself in the pad. https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-monthly-hall-demos-october-november-2020-keep I hope to see you there! A ............................................ ██████ .███████ ███ ...███ .██████ .███████ ██ ██ ██ ████ .████ ██ ██ ██ ██ ..██ █████ ..██ ████ ██ ██ ...██ ███████ ██ ..██ ██ ..██ ██ ██ ██ ...██ ██ ██████ ███████ ██ . .██ ██████ ███████ ............................................ Why? ---- - We want to spice up our remote working routine and also break the silos between teams. 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. 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. - Antonela will moderate at this time. We can rotate this role. Where? ------ During the All Hands Meeting. The room will be shared a few days before the meeting. When? ----- During the All Hands Meeting on Wednesday NOVEMBER 25TH at 16 UTC Agenda ------------------------------ d[-_-]b dj resident @mikeperry ------------------------------ - 5 min for the presentation - 3 min for questions ------------------------------ Questions will be written in text on the pad at any time during the presentation. Presenters will answer them in audio. -- Antonela Debiasi UX Team Lead torproject.org @antonela E2330A6D1EB5A0C8

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Community Council activity summary, April 2020-August 2020
by Taylor Yu 13 Nov '20

13 Nov '20

Hi all, Here is a brief summary of the Community Council's activities from April 2020 through August 2020. The 2019 and 2020 Community Councils overlapped in the month of August. April 2020 The Council talked about longer term plans for the Council's role in the future. May 2020 The Council started planning for the upcoming Community Council election cycle. Some exploration of how to make the handover to the new Council go more smoothly because we won't have an in-person meeting for the foreseeable future. June 2020 The Council reviewed an existing community health concern in the light of new information, and began to draft a statement for internal communication. The Council reviewed existing practices in choosing to reject bad relays. Given the shortage of volunteers, made a one week extension for the call for volunteers for the next Community Council. More reminders in more places about Code of Conduct the Community Council, and other related documents. July 2020 The Council took action regarding a past Code of Conduct violation by a community member. The Council took action regarding an existing community health matter. The Council began the process of elections for the next year's Council. August 2020 The Council began the transition process to the 2020 Council. The Council continued to take action regarding an existing community health matter. --- end of summary --- This summary will also be posted on the Council's wiki page. This will be the last update from the 2019 Community Council. If you have any feedback about this summary format, or any other feedback to the Council, please contact us at tor-community-council(a)lists.torproject.org.

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