[tor-reports] Pearl Crescent Report - June 2016

[Mark Smith]

Work completed by the Pearl Crescent team during June 2016
(Kathy Brade and Mark Smith):

* Tor Browser and Torbutton:

This month we worked on a mix of Tor Browser 6.0.x (stable) and 6.5
alpha tasks.

We did a little testing of various Tor Browser release candidates
(6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.5a1).

We backported some Firefox improvements for our alpha releases:

  "Backport Firefox patch to mark JIT pages as non-writable"
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12523

  "Backport - Remove support for SHA-1 HPKP pins"
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19164

We worked on a SponsorU deliverable and posted a patch:
 "Write C++ patch to replace external applications helper
  dialog workaround"
 https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19273

We helped with some Tor Browser 6.0.x issues reported by our users:
  "SIGSEGV on particular website with developer tools open"
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19212

  "[Asan] Crash in js::AsmJSModule::deserialize / DeserializeSig"
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19400

  "asm.js files should not be cached to disk in Tor Browser and
   no linkability risk"
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19417

Finally, we helped with bug triage and completed code reviews for
tickets # 16998, 19186, 19193, 19276, 19478.

* Tor Browser Updater:

In addition to updater testing for the recent Tor Browser releases, we
helped with some "fallout" for the releases:
  "Windows %BUILD_TARGET% changed in Tor Browser 6.0"
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19348

  "Incremental updates from 6.0 to 6.0.1 are not working on OS X"
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19410

  "HTTPS-Everywhere vanished during update"
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19491

We also worked on a few miscellaneous updater-related tickets:
  "Update icon shows up even if partial updates are failing"
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19411

  "Change app.update.url to point to aus1.tpo"
  https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19481

* Tor Launcher:
We assisted the Tor Messenger team a little with integration of the most
recent version of Tor Launcher.

* Miscellaneous Activities:
We participated in the weekly Tor Browser meetings on IRC, we monitored
other meetings such as the UX meeting, and we participated in various
design discussions on IRC as well as on the mailing lists.

* Planned for July:
  - Finish #19273 (SponsorU task to remove C++ code from Torbutton).

  - Assist with follow up work for the Tor Browser 6.0.x stable
    releases.

  - Work on items for Tor Browser 6.5alpha. This may include
    experimenting with "side-by-side" storage of user data on
     Linux and Windows. See:
       https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18367 and
       https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18369

  - Work on other Tor Browser "loose ends", e.g.,
      #17858 (Creating incremental MARs for hardened builds)
      #17891 (Window classes change after update restart)
      #18292 (staged updates fail on Windows).
      #18913 (about:tor should not have chrome privileges)

* As Time Permits:
   - Work with UX researchers to ensure that their Tor Launcher
     research is productive. See the discussions on the UX
     mailing list or visit:
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorLauncherUX2016

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

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

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