[tor-project] Anti-censorship meeting notes, 20 Aug 2020

Philipp Winter phw at torproject.org
Thu Aug 20 16:19:42 UTC 2020


Hi all,

Here are our meeting minutes:

http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-08-20-15.59.html

And here is our meeting pad:

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

Next meeting: Thursday August 20th 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?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=opened&assignee_id=None
        * 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&state=opened&label_name%5b%5d=Sponsor%2028&milestone_title=None
    * 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
    * Public bug-reporting pad:
        * https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-anti-censorship-bugs-keep

== Announcements ==

    *

== Discussion ==

    * Cool stuff happens in anti-censorship-team-land, and we have a twitter audience who would love to learn about them. So one of the items to consider periodically should be: is there something compelling to tweet about? This period includes Belarus, ESNI, Turbotunnel video, more.

    * Brainstorm ways to learn more about Tor blocking in Belarus.

== Actions ==

    *

== Interesting links ==

    * Spike in Tor [bridge] usage in Belarus: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/i82v45/surge_in_tor_activity_from_belarus/
        * https://labs.ripe.net/Members/alun_davies/our-first-glance-at-the-belarus-outages
        * https://blog.qrator.net/en/what-happening-BY_86/
        * Non-bridge usage decreased:
            * https://people.torproject.org/~dcf/metrics-country.html?start=2020-05-01&end=2020-08-13&country=by
        * Psiphon usage greatly increased:
            * https://psix.ca/d/nyi8gE6Zk/regional-overview?orgId=2&var-region=BY
            * https://archive.is/HoUDm
    * GFW has stopped blocking connections from Tor exits? (Tor users can access China-based destinations again now?)
        * https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/43#issuecomment-673544223

== Reading group ==

    * We will discuss "Turbo Tunnel" on Aug 20 Aug 27
        * PDF: https://www.bamsoftware.com/papers/turbotunnel/turbotunnel.pdf
        * Web version: https://www.bamsoftware.com/papers/turbotunnel/
        * 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 (2020-08-20):
        * Spent most of my time working on BridgeDB reimplementation.
            * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgedb/-/issues/32900
        * Experimented with Salmon implementation.
            * https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgedb/-/issues/31873
            * Brainstormed privacy-preserving features with cohosh.
        * Onionperf & exitmap work.
        * Drafted blog post on challenges, priorities, and progress in our work.
            * Let me know and I'll send you a draft! One needs a blog account to look at it :/
        * Various bridgestrap performance and reliability improvements.
        * Deployed a new set of 10k CAPTCHAs on BridgeDB, just to see if it would affect presumed-to-be bots.
  Next week:
        *
  Help with:
        *

cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2020-08-20
Last week:
    - deployed webext#13
    - performed more measurements for snowflake#33666
    - updated snowflake stats to include NAT types (snowflake#40008)
    - commented on salmon implementation progress (bridgedb#31873)
    - performed throughput measurements on restricted and unrestricted NAT topologies (snowflake#32545)
    - implemented simple round robin multiplex across proxies (#25723)
    - suggested improvement in Docker networking setup for proxy docker (snowflake#40002)
This week:
    - perform measurements on throughput improvements of (snowflake#25723)
    - avoid double delays from ReconnectTimeout (snowflake#34080)
    - strategize on where to go next for snowflake NAT issues
    - continue working on NAT test suite (snowflake#25595)
    - continue with GetTor + BridgeDB refactor
    - look at snowflake#40004
Needs help with:
    - review of fix for snowflake#21314 (snowflake!9)
    - review of fix for snowflake#40008 (snowflake!10)
    - review of and feedback on snowflake#25723 (snowflake!11)

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: 2020-06-11
    Last week:
        -
    Next week:
        - follow ups to #33365
        - start on #31201
    Help with:
        -

dcf: 2020-08-19 (will be absent 2020-08-20)
    Last week:
    Next week:
        - review snowflake client inactivity https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/merge_requests/9
        - try again with the CDN invitation link for #30510
        - add licenses of kcp-go and smux (tor-browser-build#40031)
        - start metrics-team thread on finding a new home for the Metrics Timeline
    Help with:

Antonela: 2020-07-23
    Last week:
    - (S28) Snowflake Android App UI
        https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake-mobile/-/issues/11
    - (S30) Making bridges.tpo looks like tpo.org
        https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/bridgedb/-/issues/34322
    - (S30) Planning activities for the user group in HK (happening next week):
        - Run emma
            https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/blob/master/scripts%20and%20activities/2020/run-emma.md
        - Discovery issues with Bridges flow - working on the script
            https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/4
    This week:
    - (S28) Review Snowflake Android App UI
    - (S30) Working on making bridges.tpo work with lektor
    - (S30) Sent Get Bridges User Research to the group in HK. Will meet them on Friday. Final script: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/4

agix:2020-08-20
    Last week:
        -Read the Turbotunnel paper
    Next week:
        -
    Help with:
        -

hanneloresx: 2020-08-20
    Last week: Read the Turbotunnel paper
    Next week:
        - Start on #33727
        - Continue investigating and respond to comments on #32117
    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: 2020-08-13
    This week:
            - Working on application UI #11
            - MR on Animation change #18
    Next week:
            - Further work on ticket #11
            - Work on Network checks if time permits #16
    Help with: -



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