[tor-talk] Orbot v14 alpha: obfsclient, Tor 0.2.5.3-alpha

[Nathan Freitas]

On May 3, 2014 6:10:58 AM EDT, George Kadianakis <desnacked at riseup.net> wrote:
>Nathan Freitas <nathan at freitas.net> writes:
>
>> Orbot now supports Obfs3 and Scramblesuit, thanks to Yawning's help.
>>
>
>Great news! Thanks!
>
>BTW, how are obfs3 bridges supposed to be used?

This is the string I use for scramblesuit, copied directly from the bridges.tp.o page:

scramblesuit xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxxx fingerprintxxx password=sharedsecretxxx

>I installed Orbot-v14.0.0-ALPHA-2a.apk and checked the Preferences
>menu. There used to be an option called 'Obfuscated Bridges' that it's
>not there anymore. I assumed that I just have to specify a bridge, and
>then prefix it with the transport name, like you do in the torrc.

Yes.

>
>So I clicked on 'Bridges' and then inserted 'obfs3 <ip>:<port>' (with
>my own <ip> and <port>) and started up Orbot. Unfortunately, I think
>that it didn't work very well. In the logs I got:
>""""
>Adding bridge: obfs3 <ip>:<port>

Hmm.... Add a fingerprint perhaps?

>Setting conf: SOCKSPort=127.0.0.1:9050
><snip>
>WARN: Controller gave us config lines that didn't validate: If you
>setUseBridges, you must specify at least one bridge.
><snip>
>Starting polipo process
>"""
>and then Orbot bootstrapped directly, without using my bridge :/

Yes... Bridges are applied via the control port, and Tor will still bootstrap if the config settings fail. Maybe we should not do that on further thought.

>
>I'm not sure exactly why my bridge was not set in Tor. Maybe I'm not
>supposed to specify my obfsbridge using the 'Bridges' dialog?

Will do more testing with obfs3.

>
>Cheers!
>
>PS: I think the move from the 'Obfuscated Bridges' box is a good
>    idea. IIRC, the 'Obfuscated Bridges' box assumed that the bridge
>    is obfs2, without even mentioning it to the user, which is not
>    good now that we have more pluggable transport around.

Yes this is a better design. We will be working on more ways to simplify bridge setup including qrcode scanning, NFC tapping and more.

+n