[tor-reports] Pearl Crescent Report – October 2015

[Mark Smith]

Tor-related work completed by the Pearl Crescent team in October 2015
(Kathy Brade and Mark Smith):

* Tor Browser Updater:

Updater-related activity was fairly light this month. We did file the 
following ticket:
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17442
   "adjust or remove updater cert pinning"

We also provided advice for updater changes related to the new hardened 
Tor Browser builds, which use a new "hardened" update channel, e.g.,
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17305
   "Make our Gitian setup able to build hardened Linux bundles (64bit)"

We also continue to monitor the updater-related work that Mozilla 
engineers are doing to prepare for any impact on Tor Browser.


* Tor Browser and Torbutton:

This month, we completed a Sponsor U task by fixing this ticket:
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/16620
   "Transform window.name handling into Firefox patch"
(Tor Browser 5.5a4 will include the fix).


Other interesting tickets that we contributed to:
   "Circuit visualizer needs a cue about guards"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/16665

   "Remove unused code / entities related to "fix_google_srch"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17351

   "Decide how to use the multi-lingual Tor Browser in
     the alpha/release series"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17400

   "Canvas image extraction prompt logic"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17446

We also reviewed several patches created by other developers, including 
for tickets #10599, #17207, #17329, #17383.


* Tor Launcher:

We added a language prompt to Tor Launcher in support of the hardened 
builds (eventually we may use this approach for all Tor Browser packages):
   "Support a multi-lingual TBB that can switch between localizations"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12967


* Miscellaneous Activities:
    We participated in the weekly Tor Browser and app team meetings
    on IRC and in various design discussions on IRC and on the
    mailing lists.


* Planned for November:
   - Assist with the Tor Browser 5.0.x maintenance releases as needed.

   - Help finish Tor Browser 5.5, including the hardened package.
     This may include work on the following tickets, among others:
       "Loading local change notes after a Tor Browser update"
       https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/16940

       https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17344
       "language prompt should enumerate available langpacks"

   - If time permits, scope out the work to make Tor Browser Unix
     Domain Socket aware.
     See https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/14270

   - Work on other Tor Browser, Tor Launcher, and Torbutton usability
     issues as time permits.

-- 
Mark Smith
Pearl Crescent
http://pearlcrescent.com/