[tor-reports] Mike's July 2012 Status Report

[Mike Perry]

I closed the following following trac tickets in July:
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?keywords=~MikePerry201207

Exec Summary of Trac Tickets:

Most my dev time was consumed by two tickets: writing a prototype patch
to isolate the image cache in Tor Browser to the url bar domain, and
adding an API to Firefox to support URL redirection by extensions (due
to a popup-based temporary URL spoofing vulnerability in
HTTPS-Everywhere's current URL redirection mechanism).

I also spent a fair amount of time rebasing our patches and reviewing
the changes to Firefox 14, and then fixed a TBB-alpha crash bug that was
introduced by a hasty rewrite of one of those patches due to the
underlying pipelining code being rewritten by Mozilla.

Finally, I made StartPage the url bar search engine in TBB, and also
enabled WebGL by default (though it is still click-to-play with
our default NoScript settings).


Non-Trac tasks:

I attended the tor-dev meeting and was rather handicapped by the lack of
reliable, non-fascist Internet access. I didn't get much done outside of
meetings and discussion during this period. (~30 points, not counting
travel).

I discussed SponsorL tasks, new hires, job post content, responsibility
allocation, and other related things via email. (~12 points).

I reviewed a HotPETS paper on Tor Browser Bundle usability, filed a
bunch of bugs from it, and spent time thinking about what needs to go
into our ideal Browser Privacy UI (8 points).

I spent a tiny bit of time filling in for Runa and managing a pair of
TBB releases on tor-qa. They found a crash bug I missed during my own
ad-hoc tests. (1 point).

I didn't really count email time accurately this month. Some of it is
reflected in the above tasks, but not all. At a guess, I'd say I
probably spent about 3 points/week in addition to the above, but only
over three weeks due to the dev meeting's lack of reliable Internet. (9
points).


Time Keeping Notes: 

I did 38.5 points of trac-recorded development activity this month (bean
counters: 6 points of the ticket totals were actually done in June). I
did 60 points of non-development work this month.


Trac Workload Stats:

I only closed 6 tickets of priority major and above in July. At the
beginning of July, 54 major+ tickets were opened against me. As of this
report, 59 major+ tickets are now opened against me. Another month of
negative progress, though most of these new bugs came from filing the
new tbb-usability bugs mentioned above. Perhaps usability shouldn't be
classified as a major issue? Hard to say. Either way, hard choices
are going to have to be made with respect to prioritization :/.

https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=accepted&status=assigned&status=needs_information&status=needs_review&status=needs_revision&status=new&status=reopened&max=1000&component=!Torbutton&order=id&priority=major&priority=critical&priority=blocker&col=id&col=summary&col=priority&col=status&col=type&col=milestone&col=component&owner=mikeperry&desc=1
aka
https://bit.ly/KZcmA9


Next Month:

https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?keywords=~MikePerry201208

Exec Summary:

I need to fix some Torbutton issues before Firefox 15 drops and breaks
it entirely, shake out the remaining bugs in my image cache isolation
issues, and help work towards a fix for a weird Tor warning issue in
0.2.3.x that I introduced in the path bias defense. I also still need to
clean up and write scripts for my tor relay best practice idea, and
review a few patches by other people. 

I also expect to sink a fair amount of time into the Tor Browser Hacker
interview process.


Comments:

I felt like I was treading water this month. I suppose there were
several reasons why I didn't close as many tickets as I set out even in
my meager July goals. The tickets I did close were way harder than
normal, and there was also the dev meeting to contend with... I really
hope this interview process works out, otherwise we're going to have to
make harder and harder choices with respect to our browser, not to
mention Torflow and the bw auths (which are due to explode as soon as we
deprecate Tor 0.2.2.x), and other random Tor performance stuff I should
probably be helping with. I suppose those decisions will just have to be
made by virtue of what catches on fire first.


-- 
Mike Perry
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