tbb-dev February 2017

tbb-dev@lists.torproject.org

13 participants
9 discussions

Feedback on design decision for Tor Launcher
by isabela＠riseup.net 02 Mar '17

02 Mar '17

Hello TBB team! and Linda ;) I would like to ask your feedback on some feature decisions we have to make for Tor Launcher. We got fund to work on improving Tor Launcher user experience. We are going to use Linda's paper as our reference on how we will go about that. We might add some new things on the top of the suggestions she makes on her paper, I know Linda herself has some stuff she wants to consider that is not there. But! This email is a question on a more specific thing, a question that comes out whenever one talks about Tor Launcher is 'why not automate it?'. And our sponsors are asking us that exactly question. I am in favor of making it easier for the user that will prefer not to deal with settings, but I am also a big fan on making sure our users are safe. As I believe you all are! Our sponsors are asking for the PT selection part of the launcher to be automated. For us to test the user network and figure out the best solution to get the user connected to the Tor network - we could leave an option for those users who would prefer to go through settings and configure it as they will. That said, Linda has specific design considerations that lead her to decide against that because of user security. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorLauncherUX2016#Designc… Another thing to consider is that we this will already obtain enormous gains with the improvements we will be doing at the Tor Launcher step, even without this automation piece. Linda's paper shows that. So, I would prefer we don't base this decision on 'gains' for Tor (of course automation will increase metrics is the easiest growth hack trick) but to base it on the user and their security. What we are looking for here is feedback on those points on 'design considerations' to make sure we are not missing anything here. Does the threats there has enough weight for us to not consider automation? Does anyone think different or has other points we are not considering? We would like feedback on this soon as we have a deadline (March 3rd) to decide on what to do about this feature request. Thanks! Isabela ps: Linda is updating her paper once that is done we will share with y'all o/

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Re: [tbb-dev] Feedback on design decision for Tor Launcher
by Linda Naeun Lee 27 Feb '17

27 Feb '17

Mike, Thanks for the reply! On 2017-02-23 19:16, isabela wrote: > + Linda > > On 2/21/17 17:02, Mike Perry wrote: >> Linda Naeun Lee: >>> On 2017-02-21 06:30, isabela(a)riseup.net wrote: >>>> Hello TBB team! and Linda ;) >>>> >>>> I would like to ask your feedback on some feature decisions we have >>>> to >>>> make for Tor Launcher. >>>> >>>> We got fund to work on improving Tor Launcher user experience. >>> >>> Yay! >>> >>>> We are going to use Linda's paper as our reference on how we will go >>>> about that. We might add some new things on the top of the >>>> suggestions >>>> she makes on her paper, I know Linda herself has some stuff she >>>> wants to >>>> consider that is not there. >>> >>> :) >>> >>>> But! This email is a question on a more specific thing, a question >>>> that >>>> comes out whenever one talks about Tor Launcher is 'why not automate >>>> it?'. >>> >>> The quick answer is, "we might be able to do just as well without >>> automation, and if we can, we should!" And that they should let us >>> try. >>> >>>> And our sponsors are asking us that exactly question. I am in favor >>>> of >>>> making it easier for the user that will prefer not to deal with >>>> settings, but I am also a big fan on making sure our users are safe. >>>> As >>>> I believe you all are! >>>> >>>> Our sponsors are asking for the PT selection part of the launcher to >>>> be >>>> automated. For us to test the user network and figure out the best >>>> solution to get the user connected to the Tor network - we could >>>> leave >>>> an option for those users who would prefer to go through settings >>>> and >>>> configure it as they will. >>>> >>>> That said, Linda has specific design considerations that lead her to >>>> decide against that because of user security. >>>> >>>> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorLauncherUX2016#Designc… >>>> >>>> Another thing to consider is that we this will already obtain >>>> enormous >>>> gains with the improvements we will be doing at the Tor Launcher >>>> step, >>>> even without this automation piece. >>>> >>>> Linda's paper shows that. >>>> >>>> So, I would prefer we don't base this decision on 'gains' for Tor >>>> (of >>>> course automation will increase metrics is the easiest growth hack >>>> trick) but to base it on the user and their security. >>>> >>>> What we are looking for here is feedback on those points on 'design >>>> considerations' to make sure we are not missing anything here. >>>> >>>> Does the threats there has enough weight for us to not consider >>>> automation? Does anyone think different or has other points we are >>>> not >>>> considering? >>> >>> I'm certainly discouraging moving it from what it is now straight to >>> an >>> automated thing, because I think that's going to take time to >>> implement such >>> a thing and we can help people a LOT just by making design changes. I >>> think >>> this is what you should emphasize. >>> >>> I think we can have WAYYYY better design than what I have in my >>> paper, too. >>> If I could redesign it now, I'd try to: 1) put everything on one >>> screen >>> (like how it is in the browser, if you go to connection settings), 2) >>> simplify even more, 3) give advice that doesn't require inputs (i.e. >>> "try >>> using X if you are in countries a,b,c"). >>> >>> Something that also isn't automated is asking something like "you are >>> about >>> to make a connection to Tor. is this okay?" or give options like >>> "connect" >>> and "connect with extra caution (this may be slower)"--and this can >>> be the >>> difference between a direct connection or use an unlisted bridge >>> running >>> some obfuscation protocol. >>> >>> I think that the threats there are not necessarily enough to deter us >>> from >>> automation. My point in the paper is that automation is not as simple >>> as >>> people think, and that this needs to be done carefully. With proper >>> tone, >>> consent, and miscellaneous things (user education, SEO-ing official >>> tor >>> mirrors, etc.), automation can be done. >>> >>> I think we can get it to be ALMOST as easy as automation if we design >>> it >>> right, though. And if we can, then we should do that instead. I have >>> no >>> evidence to support that case, but that's my two cents. We can even >>> test the >>> new design against automation (i.e. just compare it to a 100% success >>> rate >>> and how many seconds it would take to connect with an automated >>> process). >> >> First off, I agree with everything you said above, Linda. And your >> Design Considerations page captures the current set of concerns well. :) >> For brief historical context: The Tor Launcher configuration UI is the >> way it is because it was designed before Tor Browser had an updater. >> This meant that any automation would be done *every* time the user got >> a >> new copy of TBB. This was clearly unsafe and completely unacceptable, >> so >> we had to make everything an explicit choice. I didn't know this. Thanks for the information. I'm glad we have an updater now. >> Now that we do have an updater, I actually think that an optional "Try >> Everything!" button that tests all PTs (and fetches new PT bridges >> from >> a BridgeDB API via domain fronting) will definitely be safer than what >> we have now, and I think it is also likely that some form of optional >> automation (after a proper user warning) is likely to beat out >> anything >> that requires more decision points or interactions. I totally agree with this. Most (80%+) of the people who couldn't connect directly to Tor and couldn't connect with the recommended obfs3 bridge failed to connect. And they usually try the previous two options before getting the right configuration anyway. Overall, even users who don't need such fancy configurations make mistakes along the way, just because it's a foreign concept to them. I think that eliminating user error will be much safer, and I am a total advocate of this. My research can be used to see how many people this can help (i.e. "64% of attempts to connect on the first try (across different censorship environments) failed."). >> One hard part will be figuring out how to best provide the choice of >> using automated PT testing to the user, and describe the risks. Yep! This is something I can design/handle. >> Another hard part will be deciding which things to include in the >> automated testing: the public tor network, provided bridges, bridges >> from BridgeDB, or some subset/combination. Which of these things we >> include in the test will change the user's risk profile with respect >> to >> the categories you mentioned at >> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorLauncherUX2016#Designc… Deciding what to include in the automated testing is something other people should handle. >> I do think these problems are solvable, but the reality of the >> situation >> might be that the user has to do a couple of interactions before the >> automation starts. (Like being asked where they are or what they want >> to >> test, being warned about the risks of each test, etc). It will be some >> work to design UX experiments to figure out which UX actually >> communicates this information to users without confusing them or >> scaring >> them off, but I know you're quite capable of that :). :) >> If we get painted into a corner where we don't get to do any of our >> own >> UX experiments for this, I think we should be prepared to resign >> ourselves to only automating the safest possible thing, and only after >> a >> scary warning box :/. I hope that eventually, we would get funding to do work that helps us. And I don't like the idea of funders being able to demand features from us without properly understanding the problem. We can talk about what we can do, if we are in that corner. Hopefully we won't be! (My impression is that it's still to be decided.) -- Current Key: https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?search=lindanaeunlee GPG Fingerprint: FA0A C9BE 2881 B347 9F4F C0D7 BE70 F826 5ED2 8FA2

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Release schedule for TBB based on FF52ESR?
by anonym 24 Feb '17

24 Feb '17

Hi, I looked at the master ticket [0] for rebasing Tor Browser on FF52ESR, but couldn't find any sort of schedule. Is there somewhere else than Trac where I should look for such plans? Otherwise, do you have estimations for: * when to expect a development build? * when to expect the final release? This timing info is important for us at Tails, since the ESR migrations historically has required quite some work on our side. Cheers! [0] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21147

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quick question on tor browser
by isabela＠riseup.net 23 Feb '17

23 Feb '17

hello tbb-dev team!! I am writing a report and i need to know how many PTs (and which ones) Tor Browser supported back in july/2014. Can someone help me dig this from git repo? Thanks! Isabela

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Team meetings calendar and Tor Browser Team
by isabela＠riseup.net 21 Feb '17

21 Feb '17

Hello Tor Browser Team! I would like to share a little bit how we will be organizing the team meetings day at Amsterdam Meeting. As you might have seem at the meeting wiki: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2017Amsterdam#We… We are reserving a day just for the teams to meet: Thu, 23 Mar: Teams meet to work on mapping and other issues; general meeting invitees arrive; group dinner in the evening. We created a 'calendar' system to better organize this day. I bet most of you haven't use google calendar but at Twitter we did and a cool feature was to be able to see everyone's calendar so you could figure out a good time to schedule a meeting. I created a 'calendar' for us here: https://storm.torproject.org/shared/_xuQsyM7Lkssjv9gKLw2rePMn9JYhtUBx1nr5Wg… You will see that some folks have already schedule meetings on it. Please read the suggested guidelines on how to use it. Some things to keep in mind as we organize Tor Browser Team meetings: 1. In the past we used this time to organize our roadmaps 2. You might want to invite Linda to join your roadmap discussion as she will be working on some tasks with you (all ux work before building UIs etc) 3. You should think if you want invite any person who is coming to Tor Meeting and you think should be in an specific meeting (remember this day is for teams and teams invites only) - maybe would be good to include some mobile people and have a mobile roadmap meeting? Let me know if you have any questions o/ Isabela

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Tor Browser and Mozilla addon verification
by bancfc＠openmailbox.org 20 Feb '17

20 Feb '17

Hi, does Tor Browser check addon code for tampering for addons downloaded from the Mozilla server?

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Next Tor Browser meeting on Monday, Feb 20 1900 UTC
by Georg Koppen 09 Feb '17

09 Feb '17

Hi all, as the subject indicates there won't be a Tor Browser meeting next Monday. The next meeting will be on Monday, Feb 20 1900 UTC as usual in #tor-dev on irc.oftc.net. Georg

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tbb (disable network is set)
by 0xdog 08 Feb '17

08 Feb '17

Hello. I don't know if this is the correct mailing list to post this question, so in that case my apologies in advance. Last year I was using TBB (on windows server 2003 32bits PC) for a while and it was working perfect, suddenly it stopped working and the logs said "DisableNetwork is set. Tor will not make or accept non-control network connections. Shutting down all existing connections...". At that time I just stopped using TBB and I checked TBB frequently, one day, suddenly again, apparently with no change on my computer or my network it started working again for a while but right now I have the same problem as before, it stopped working again and the logs said "DisableNetwork is set. Tor will not make or accept...". Now I have a strong decision to find where is the problem: 1. I have spent a lot of hours surfing the web looking for a solution. Many many people has the same problem, but only a few have found a solution. 2. The rules and firewall of my antivirus are fine, even with the antivirus totally deactivated it does not work. 3. I have normal access to torproject.org throught firefox browser so I don´t think my ISP is blocking the tor network or doing DPI. 4. I have checked my timezone against an internet service and the time of my system seems to be incorrect but since I am behind a proxy server that is far from my hands my timezone is that of the proxy server and I can not fix it. Do you think this is the cause of the problem? In this case is there a workarround for this? 5. I have been viewing the tor source code trying to figure out under which conditions the DisableNetwork flag is set to 1, no much advance. Can someone point out which source file is the one I´m looking for? I can post the whole logs if someone is interested. Thanks. Best regards.

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Future of Tor Browser hardened
by Georg Koppen 06 Feb '17

06 Feb '17

Hi all, a while ago a ticket about renaming our "hardened" series got filed[1]. There, it is argued we should think about renaming the hardened series to something else as it is probably not as hardened as one would expect and thus misleading our users. Especially shipping that build with Address Sanitizer (ASan) enabled caused some folks to point out that ASan is mainly a debugging tool (which the other goal of the hardened series is) which is very likely at odds with the hardened aspect of the series. While I still stand to the things we said in our blog post[2] back then when we introduced the hardened series I am fine with picking this discussion up right now and moving on to a decision. The reason for that is that we have Yawning Angel's sandboxed Tor Browser which achieves the goal of preventing harm from our users much better than the hardened aspect of our hardened series could ever do. Moreover, selfrando, one of the noteworthy aspects of our hardened series, is about to get shipped in our regular alphas. If all goes well it will be available in 7.0a2. So, things we need to decide are 1) What do we want to do with our hardened series? Should we rename it to "debug series" or something similar? 2) Should we expose the renamed thing to the general public as an own, new series or should we just ship the means to create a debugging build whenever we need one? 3) What should we do with users already being on the hardened update channel? Should they get moved to our alpha channel with some notice? or maybe some fourth or fifth item rendering 1)-3) moot but which I did not come up with? Georg [1] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/20814 [2] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-browser-55a4-hardened-released

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tbb-dev February 2017