[tor-project] Anti-censorship meeting notes, 2021 October 7

Thu Oct 14 17:53:19 UTC 2021

Hey everyone!

Here are our meeting logs:

http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-10-14-15.59.html

and our meeting pad:

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

Next meeting: Thursday October 14th 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.

== Announcements ==

== Discussion ==

    Snowflake usage is approaching meek levels

https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-transport.html?start=2021-07-16&end=2021-10-14&transport=meek&transport=snowflake

    Comparison of throughput through bridges:

    flakey:
https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/5481936581E23D2D178105D44DB6915AB06BFB7F

    meek bridge:
https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/8F4541EEE3F2306B7B9FEF1795EC302F6B84DAE8

    PT spec v2.2.1 [RFC] --
https://github.com/Pluggable-Transports/Pluggable-Transports-spec/tree/main/releases/PTSpecV2.2.1

    comments requested

    for now, put feedback in github issues

    anadahz is working on providing a text format for easier commenting

    PTIM 2021 registration closes at October 17th 2021 AoE --
https://www.pluggabletransports.info/ptim2021/

    Unifying bridge/broker domain names? All these different names point
to the same place

    proxy uses snowflake-broker.bamsoftware.com and
snowflake.bamsoftware.com

    webext uses snowflake-broker.freehaven.net and snowflake.freehaven.net

    client uses snowflake-broker.torproject.net

https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/31522
would make all use torproject.net; closed without action, see
http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2019/tor-meeting.2019-08-15-16.59.log.html

https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40028
changed CNAME for freehaven.net to avoid malware detection problems

https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40070#note_2753884
if other people start embedding domain names in their configs, it
becomes harder for us to change in the future

    Note that torproject.net might be blocked in the UK:
https://gitlab.torproject.org/legacy/trac/-/issues/31250#note_2330960

    Choose a reading to discuss :)

== Actions ==

== Interesting links ==

    Using censor middleboxes to amplify DoS attacks:

   https://geneva.cs.umd.edu/posts/usenix21-weaponizing-censors/
   https://lwn.net/Articles/869842/

== Reading group ==

    We will discuss "Characterizing Transnational Internet Performance
and the Great Bottleneck of China" on 2021-10-28

    https://censorbib.nymity.ch/#Zhu2020a

    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): last updated 2021-10-14
Last week:
    - worked on snowflake simulations in shadow (snowflake#40026)
    - updated docker obfs4 bridge image to 0.7
        - https://hub.docker.com/r/thetorproject/obfs4-bridge/tags
    - helped network health team contact bridge operators running old
tor versions (core/tor#40480)
    - generated reachability plots for our new rotating IP bridges
(censorship-analysis#40020)
    - opened MR to unify broker/bridge domains for snowflake.git
(snowflake!59, snowflake-webext!22)
This week:
    - automate blocking detection for rotating IP bridges
(censorship-analysis#40020)
    - finish up snowflake library changes for v2 (snowflake#40063)
    - more snowflake performance work (snowflake#40026)
Needs help with:
    - review of snowflake!59 and snowflake-webext!22

arlolra: 2021-08-12

    Last week:

    - Migrate to v3 of the webextension manifest

    Next week:

    - Maybe get back to snowflake-webext #10

    - Write up the pitch for our use case for supporting creating
PeerConnections in background service workers
https://github.com/w3c/webrtc-extensions/issues/77

    Help with:

    -

dcf: 2021-10-14

    Last week:

    - snowflake Azure bookkeeping
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Snowflake-costs

    Next week:

    - review broker domain name normalization
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/merge_requests/59
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake-webext/-/merge_requests/22

    Help with:

agix:2021-07-15

    Last week:

    -Off due to final exams

    Next week:

    -Work on bridgebox for rdsys

    -More research on httpt #4

    Help with:

    -

hanneloresx: 2021-3-4

    Last week:

    - Submitted MR for bridgestrap issue #14

    Next week:

    - Finish bridgestrap #14

    - Find new issue to work on

    Help with:

    -

maxb: 2021-09-23

    Last week:

    - Worked on
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40054
re: utls for broker negotiation

    - Had conversation with someone about upstream utls http round
tripper https://github.com/refraction-networking/utls/pull/74

    - Too busy with work :/

    Next week:

    - _Really_ want to get a PR for utls round tripper

meskio: 2021-10-14

    Last week:

    - honour bridge operator distribution request (rdsys!16)

    - update circumvention settings distributor for TB needs (rdsys#59)

    - extend zoossh to parse bridge descriptors and consensus files

      https://github.com/NullHypothesis/zoossh/pull/13/

    - digg into bridgedb bridge storage to replace it by rdsys
(bridgedb#40031)

    - update obfs4 bridge docker documentation

      https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/community/-/merge_requests/99

    Next week:

    - make bridgedb a rdsys distributor (bridgedb#40031)

    - update gettor links (gettor#82)

    - figure out what happens with gitlab gettor repo