[tor-bugs] #29285 [Obfuscation/Pluggable transport]: Improve the PT spec and how PTs interface with Tor (was: Improve the PT interface with Tor)

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#29285: Improve the PT spec and how PTs interface with Tor
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 Reporter:  cohosh                           |          Owner:  (none)
     Type:  project                          |         Status:  new
 Priority:  Medium                           |      Milestone:
Component:  Obfuscation/Pluggable transport  |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                           |     Resolution:
 Keywords:                                   |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                                   |         Points:
 Reviewer:                                   |        Sponsor:  Sponsor19
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Description changed by cohosh:

Old description:

> Make it easier for developers (and academics) to do things with PTs so
> that we can improve the PT integration pipeline.
>
> We need to assess current pain points, think about how the bridge
> distribution will factor into it, and talk with the community to see what
> they need.

New description:

 We want to make it easier for developers (and academics) to design and
 implement new pluggable transports and get them easily integrated with Tor
 so that we can have a well-functioning PT integration pipeline.

 This is a large project that will consist of several things:

 - We need to assess pain points with the current PT spec and desired
 features from a variety of PT developers.

 - We might want to take a look at the PTv2 specification to see where
 features differ from our v1 and also which features seem to be liked or
 used by PT developers.

 - We should think about how bridge distribution should factor into the PT
 specification. For example, some transports such as meek and snowflake
 handle "bridge" information differently than transports whose bridges are
 distributed through BridgeDB. This results in a different interaction with
 Tor, and we might consider modifying the spec with the snowflake/broker
 model in mind (ticket #29296).


 In general, we should improve our communication with the pluggable
 transports community to see what they need and figure out how to get more
 PTs integrated with Tor.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29285#comment:3>
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