[tor-project] Anti-censorship team meeting notes, 2022-09-22

Shelikhoo shelikhoo at torproject.org
Thu Sep 22 17:12:13 UTC 2022


Hey everyone!

Here are our meeting logs:
http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2022/tor-meeting.2022-09-22-15.58.html

And our meeting pad:

Anti-censorship work meeting pad

--------------------------------

Next meeting: Thursday Sept 29 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 check-in 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 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
         * Sponsor 96
             * https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/24

== Announcements ==

     *

== Discussion ==

     * snowflake-01 bridge running into resource limitations
         * need to increase number of tor instances at least
         * 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40173
         * also running into other resource limitations: CPU cannot be 
increased much more, and snowflake-server is periodically restarting due 
to a lack of memory
             * the snowflake-01 bridge is one of the largest relays in 
the network. compare to 
https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#toprelays. snowflake-01 had 72 
MB/s average throughout August 2022, so it is right up there with the 
top relays.
             * tried in the past to decrease resource requirements of 
snowflake-server, without much results 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40086
                 * will at least recompile snowflake-server with a 
recent golang compiler when redeploying this time
         * what about making snowflake the default recommendation in 
Iran? https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/119
             * possible, but there are still concerns about load at the 
bridge
         * how close are we to being able to start using the 
snowflake-02 bridge? 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/28651 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40129
             * will be necessary soon, because snowflake-01 cannot scale 
forever
             * the limiting factor at this point is the number of 
proxies that multi-bridge aware
             * only about 30% of available proxies are multi-bridge aware
             * is 30% sufficient for current client demand?
             * most proxies are browser add-ons, which should 
automatically update
                 * shelikhoo will investigate why such a large fraction 
of proxies have not updated
             * does connection assist help with getting clients to use a 
second bridge, or does it require a new Tor Browser release?
                 * connection assist likely does not help, since old 
clients will not know how to send the bridge fingerprint they want to 
the broker -- if they use the -02 fingerprint but do not tell the broker 
that, the broker will connect them with the -01 bridge, and the 
connection will fail
     * Gettor Telegram Bot down. Fix deployed
         * increase in user result in hit Telegram API Limit
         * Fix deployed to restore it to working state
     * Community Team developed a guide for IR circumvention
         * 
https://forum.torproject.net/t/iran-circumventing-censorship-with-tor/4590
         * currently awaiting translation

== Actions ==


== Interesting links ==


== Reading group ==

     * We will discuss "" on
         *
         * 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 2022-09-08
     Last week:
     - took a look at Snowflake mDNS issue (snowflake#40123)
     - worked on Snowflake manifest v3 webextension fixes 
(snowflake-webext#29)
     This week:
     - Snowflake web extension v3 manifest
         - usability improvements to chrome badge helper
         - finish updating Firefox extension to mv3
     - a few quality of life conjure issues
         - 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/conjure/-/issues/?sort=updated_desc&state=opened&assignee_username%5B%5D=cohosh&first_page_size=20
     Needs help with:

dcf: 2022-09-22
     Last week:
         - snowflake CDN bookkeeping 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Snowflake-costs/diff?version_id=363dbbcf5c3598491a82c7cbff77a97ff6403a0d
         - submitted merge request to change the format of placeholder 
pluggable transport addresses to work with FascistFirewall, 
ReachableAddresses 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/40624
         - investigated recent increased usage of snowflake and opened 
issue to increase the number of tor instances 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40173
     Next week:
         - increase number of tor instances on snowflake-01 bridge 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40173
         - disable non-WireGuard SSH access to snowflake-02
         - migrate goptlib to gitlab 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/86#note_2823122
         - try Conjure PT development version 
https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-dev-introducing-a-conjure-pt-for-tor/4429
     Help with:

meskio: 2022-09-08
    Last week:
        - plan obfs4proxy 0.0.14 update (obfs4#40008)
        - package obfs4proxy 0.0.14 for debian
        - test obfs4proxy backward compatibility
        - rdsys-gettor is deployed, planning for the final switch
        - deploy more BridgeDB fixes
        - submit a project proposal for Outreachy
    Next week:
        - deploy rdsys-gettor
        - fix language issues in BridgeDB (bridgedb#40056)

Shelikhoo: 2022-09-22
    Last Week:
         - [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to 
snowflake (snowflake!64)
         - [Discussion & Deployment] Rollout of Distributed Snowflake 
Support
         - [Coding & Deployment] Proposal: Centralized Probe Result 
Collector (anti-censorship/team#54)
         - [Research] HTTPT Planning 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/httpt/-/issues/1
         - In Person Meetup!
         - [Research] Log Collector Performance Collection (Bootstrap time)
         - Write Survival Guide For Log Collector 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Survival-Guides/LogCollector-Survival-Guide
         - [Deployment] Emergency fix for OnionSproutsBot 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/gettor-project/onionsproutsbot/-/commit/0067121ff606a8a908729f12d63e570cd19dddd6
    Next Week:
         - [Research] WebTunnel Planning (Continue)
         - Generate Charts for presention: 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/92#note_2836476



Itchy Onion: 2022-09-22
     Last week:
         - several attempts (adjusting various timeout, trying the obfs 
approach of creating a smux session, and reserching other options) to 
fix the RACE unclosed TCP connection issue 
(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40160). 

     This week:
         - update snowflake plugin API to RACE 2.3.x 
(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/58)
         - I learned yesterday that there is a working build of 
snowflake 2.2.x from Eliana. I have requested the code and am still 
waiting for it. Will ask again in my 1-1 meeting with Eliana later today




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