Hey everyone!

Here are our meeting logs: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2024/tor-meeting.2024-12-12-16.00.html

And our meeting pad:

Anti-censorship work meeting pad -------------------------------- Anti-censorship --------------------------------

Next meeting: Thursday, December 19 16:00 UTC Facilitator: meskio ^^^(See Facilitator Queue at tail)

Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 16:00 UTC, in #tor-meeting at OFTC (channel is logged while meetings are in progress)

This week's Facilitator: shelikhoo

== Goal of this meeting ==

Weekly check-in about the status of anti-censorship work at Tor. Coordinate collaboration between people/teams on anti-censorship at the Tor Project and Tor community.

== Links to Useful documents ==     * Our anti-censorship roadmap:         * Roadmap:https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/boards     * The anti-censorship team's wiki page:         * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/home     * Past meeting notes can be found at:         * https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/     * Tickets that need reviews: from projects, we are working on:         * All needs review tickets:             * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/merge_requests?sc...         * Project 158 <-- meskio working on it             * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/issues/?label_nam...

== Announcements ==

* Azure CDN from Edgio (azureedge.net) is due to be shut down as early as 2025-01-15: https://lists.torproject.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/anti-censorship-team@l...         * We stopped using snowflake-broker.azureedge.net in 2021: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/merge_req...         * But it still receives traffic somehow: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Snowflake-cos...         * onionwrapper still uses snowflake-broker.azureedge.net: https://lists.torproject.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/anti-censorship-team@l...         * (also, anything still using snowflake-broker.azureedge.net is using the old broker, see discussion below)         * == Discussion ==

* Creating container mirror for anti-cenosorship projects to deal with docker hub restriction         * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/41914#note_3138851         * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf...         * we'll create a repo in gitlab that mirrors the needed images by it's CI     * WIP MR: Add covert-dtls to proxy and client         * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf...         * is a big change, shelikhoo did review it but more eyes are needed         * cohosh will look into it     * Reasonable PollInterval for Orbot? https://github.com/tladesignz/IPtProxy/pull/58         * standalone proxy does 5seconds poll interval         * orbot was doing the same but being mobile it might be better to be slower         * 120sec sounds like a good number seeing that there are already a lot of proxies

new 2024-12-12     * snowflake-broker.azureedge.net is pointing to snowflake-broker.bamsoftware.com as the origin, which still points to the old Debian 10 broker (#40349).         * dcf will update the Azure configuration to use snowflake-broker.torproject.net as the broker instead         * dcf will delete the snowflake-broker.bamsoftware.com DNS record     * Ok to turn off the old snowflake broker now? https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf...         * Yes, okay to shut it down. shelikhoo suggests turning it off but not deleting the instance for a week or so, in order to see what might still be using it.     * > what was that censorship alerts mailing list?         * https://lists.torproject.org/mailman3/postorius/lists/anti-censorship-alerts... ? no, not that one         * On Identifying Anomalies in Tor Usage with Applications in Detecting Internet Censorship             * https://arxiv.org/abs/1507.05819             * https://censorbib.nymity.ch/#Wright2018a             * "infolabe-anomalies", though the mailing list archives may be offline now?         * GeKo: we have been in contact with the "On Identifying Anomalies" team recently, related to https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/network-health/team/-/issues/94 "Set up a detection and notification system of anomalies in Tor and bridge usage".             * The issue on the anti-censorship-team is https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf... "Add prometheus alerts to indicate potential censorship events". cohosh will contact GeKo about it.         * 2009: "An anomaly-based censorship-detection system for Tor" https://research.torproject.org/techreports/detector-2011-09-09.pdf             * which is what powers the censorship events at e.g. https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?start=2024-09-13... and https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-censorship-events.html     * Azure CDN from Edgio shutdown         * Might make our meek builtin bridge stop working, requiring a change or removal as a default option         * cohosh will follow up with micah

== 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.

cecylia (cohosh): 2024-12-10     Last week:         - wrote a STUN torrc check tool             - https://gitlab.torproject.org/cohosh/stun-torrc-check         - continued exploring options for metrics         - gitlab reviews and todos     This week:         - work on snowflake broker metrics improvements         - write a script to easily test STUN servers in snowflake's torrc         - finish snowflake dependency upgrades that were causing problems         - take a look at snowflake web and webext translations and best practices         - make changes to Lox encrypted bridge table             - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox/-/merge_requests/147     Needs help with:         - what was that censorship alerts mailing list?

dcf: 2024-12-12     Last week:         - made a graph of snowflake users in Russia in November 2024 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf...         - snowflake azure cdn bookkeeping https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Snowflake-cos...         - commented on unreliable snowflake data channel rev2 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf...     Next week:         - open issue to have snowflake-client log whenever KCPInErrors is nonzero https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf...             - parent: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf...         - open issue to disable /debug endpoint on snowflake broker Help with:

meskio: 2024-12-05     Last week:         - rdsys stopped accepting new bridges (rdsys#249)         - deploy onionsproutsbot distributing TorBrowser for win7 (onionsproutsbot#64)         - support webtunnel bridge operators         - prepare splintercon presentations         - more grant writting life         - review BridgeDB deprecation blogpost     Next week:         - AFK at splintercon

Shelikhoo: 2024-12-12     Last Week:          - [Pending] snowflake broker update/reinstall(cont.): https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf...          - [Awaiting Review] Unreliable+unordered WebRTC data channel transport for Snowflake rev2 (cont.)( https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf... ) improvements         - Merge request reviews         - Work on finishing snowflake container release(and fix the comments)         - Incorrectly flattened container image with "pull" command https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf... - Seperate Docker Hub mirroring to a Seperate Stagehttps://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf...     Next Week/TODO:         - Merge request reviews         - [Resume] Unreliable+unordered WebRTC data channel transport for Snowflake rev2 (cont.)( https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf... ) improvements         - Analysis Iran vantage point result

onyinyang: 2024-12-12     Last week(s):         - Fixed up Troll-patrol MR         - Worked on deploying test distributor             - need to enable service on the test server

Next week:

- update lox protocols to return duplicate responses for an already seen request         - Continue work on implementing issuer efficiency for check-blockage and trust-promotion protocols         - Work on outstanding milestone issues:             in particular: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/lox/-/issues/69             - key rotation automation

Later:         pending decision on abandoning lox wasm in favour of some kind of FFI? https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/43096):             - add pref to handle timing for pubkey checks in Tor browser             - add trusted invitation logic to tor browser integration: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42974         - improve metrics collection/think about how to show Lox is working/valuable         - sketch out Lox blog post/usage notes for forum

(long term things were discussed at the meeting!):         - brainstorming grouping strategies for Lox buckets (of bridges) and gathering context on how types of bridges are distributed/use in practice             Question: What makes a bridge usable for a given user, and how can we encode that to best ensure we're getting the most appropriate resources to people?                 1. Are there some obvious grouping strategies that we can already consider?                     e.g., by PT, by bandwidth (lower bandwidth bridges sacrificed to open-invitation buckets?), by locale (to be matched with a requesting user's geoip or something?)                 2. Does it make sense to group 3 bridges/bucket, so trusted users have access to 3 bridges (and untrusted users have access to 1)? More? Less?

theodorsm: 2024-12-05         Last weeks:             - Adjusting to post-student life             - WIP MR: Add covert-dtls to proxy and client                 - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowf...         Next weeks:             - Test Snowflake fork with covert-dtls             - Condensing thesis into paper (on hold)         Help with:             - Test covert-dtls in Snowflake

Facilitator Queue:          meskio onyinyang shelikhoo 1. First available staff in the Facilitator Queue will be the facilitator for the meeting 2. After facilitating the meeting, the facilitator will be moved to the tail of the queue