[tor-bugs] #6396 [Tor Bridge]: Reachability tests for obfuscated bridges

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#6396: Reachability tests for obfuscated bridges
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 Reporter:  asn         |          Owner:                  
     Type:  task        |         Status:  new             
 Priority:  normal      |      Milestone:  Tor: unspecified
Component:  Tor Bridge  |        Version:                  
 Keywords:  pt          |         Parent:                  
   Points:              |   Actualpoints:                  
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Comment(by arma):

 I think 'a' is a good start, and may well be good enough.

 It's not clear to me that the bridge authority is the right place to do
 complex reachability testing. The bridge authority's main jobs are to a)
 receive bridge descriptors, b) give them out to people who know the
 identity key, and c) export stuff so bridgedb can work. The design is
 pretty flexible about what 'stuff' means exactly.

 In a world where bridges can work from one place but not another, and
 where making direct connections to all bridge addresses from a central
 place is a poor security idea, it seems we should move toward "bridges
 test themselves somehow, and the bridge authority trusts that they work as
 described." Then the bridge authority does a simple test for "is the
 bridge present or not" (though I'd like to get away from even that), and
 anything more complex comes in the form of inputs to bridgedb from ooni-
 style reachability tests.

 (Should we rename this ticket, to constrain it to the bridge authority
 piece of reachability tests for obfsbridges?)

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/6396#comment:2>
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