[tor-bugs] #30441 [Circumvention/BridgeDB]: Stop BridgeDB from handing out offline bridges

[Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki]

#30441: Stop BridgeDB from handing out offline bridges
-------------------------------------------------+-------------------------
 Reporter:  phw                                  |          Owner:  phw
     Type:  defect                               |         Status:
                                                 |  assigned
 Priority:  Very High                            |      Milestone:
Component:  Circumvention/BridgeDB               |        Version:
 Severity:  Major                                |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  user-feedback, blog, anti-           |  Actual Points:
  censorship-roadmap                             |
Parent ID:                                       |         Points:  2
 Reviewer:                                       |        Sponsor:
-------------------------------------------------+-------------------------

Comment (by teor):

 Replying to [comment:14 phw]:
 > Replying to [comment:13 teor]:
 > > Replying to [comment:10 phw]:
 > > > I believe one problem is that Serge's cached-extrainfo and cached-
 extrainfo.new do not contain ''all'' bridges that are in networkstatus-
 bridges, so the results only represent a lower bound of unreachable obfs4
 bridges.
 > >
 > > In tor, extrainfo descriptors are only created when statistics are on.
 > > But we could change that so we create extrainfo descriptors that just
 contain the PT lines, even when statistics are off.
 > [[br]]
 > Does this mean that when a, say, obfs4 bridge turns off its statistics,
 we wouldn't know that it runs obfs4 because we never received the
 transport line in its extrainfo document?

 Yes, we made this change in #29018 in 0.4.1.1-alpha, so it's quite a
 recent change.

 In 0.4.0 and earlier, ServerTransportPlugin lines and bridge statistics
 were unconditionally published in extrainfo documents.

 > If so, this seems worth fixing.
 >
 > Also, what config option controls these statistics?

 ExtraInfoStatistics. Some statistics also have their own options.

 I created #30956 for this issue.

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/30441#comment:15>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
The Tor Project: anonymity online