Dear Tor-Dev, My name is Alessandro Greco and I am an Italian computer science student, I am finishing my studies and therefore I am working with my thesis and, as a topic, my supervisor and I have chosen the Tor network.
The work done focuses entirely on the Tor Browser torrc configuration file, which is why I wrote Professor Steven Murdoch and he pointed me to this method in order to get in touch with the current Tor-Project developers.
I state that I am not good in English and therefore I may be wrong or not give the right weight to the words.
Going into the matter, I have developed an extension currently available only on Firefox reachable via the addresshttps://addons.mozilla.org/it/firefox/addon/tropea-project/. The initial goal was to simplify the tunneling phase, already editable through the Tor Browser torrc file, through commands such as ExitNode or ExcludeNode and much more. In order to simplify the use, I decided to create an extension and an "advanced" section, thus bringing back user-friendly graphic interfaces already well known to average users (the advanced section consists of a web page), which would allow modify the file to your liking without necessarily having to follow correct syntax and without having to go too far into the technical aspect of Tor Browser.
Why? I decided to simplify the use of this configuration file because I believe that the path of "simplification" is the only (or in general one of the most important) way to be able to expand the catchment area by trying to accommodate more people who have the need for a network like Tor in order to be able to divert dictatorial censorship methods by governments.
I want to give a practical example, let's consider the current situation between Russia and Ukraine. Although Putin belongs to Russia, it is also true that there is a large slice of Russian citizens who are intellectually suppressed every day given the limits of censorship by the Russian government and by other governments that limit the people in order to weaken Putin. Russia has currently blocked several social networks so that citizens can no longer share the atrocities that are happening, so much so that Anonymous has asked to publish photos and videos of what is happening through Google Maps or other applications that are currently not censored.
In all this mess, I sincerely think that Tor can significantly affect the protection of truth and rights on the net. But it is also true that many people do not know how to use or modify these settings correctly or, more simply, they may not even know that they can change some settings. I strongly believe that a breakthrough in the world of Tor Networks is needed and so that citizens of every state in the world can have, without minimum IT requirements, the ability to fully use Tor Browser and consequently Tor.
The thesis work is called Tropea-Project (Tropea is a type of onion from our area, if you want to do a search, look for Tropea Onion on Google) and it is completely free and open-source so that anyone can dare to add new features. The features currently available are the following: [Add-Remove] EntryNodes + StrictNodes [Add-Remove] ExitNodes + StrictNodes [Add-Remove] ExcludeNodes [Add-Remove] ExcludeExitNodes [Edit] GeoIPExcludeUnknow [Edit] Reset configuration [Torify App] Torify /*It depends on the application launched, [Working Application](https://github.com/NoNameoN-A/Tropea-Project/blob/main)*/
Please consider this project, at the moment I am struggling with the writing of the thesis so in a few weeks an extremely detailed guide on the whole programming aspect will be published so that I can help any student, programmer, hacker and anyone who wants to improve existing features or add new ones.
I am very excited to write you this email and I hope you can consider this development of mine which focuses 100% of the forces so that the Tor project can help free as many people as possible from inhuman web slavery.
I believe that online freedom is a humanitarian right on par with education and water, so I think it is appropriate to develop new features that simplify its use.
If you have read this far I would ask you now to see the demonstration video that I have published so that you can see for yourself what it does and I hope you can understand how much I care. Now more than ever anyone needs Tor.
* Technical notes on the extension * In order for it to be used correctly, you must first start a local script called tropea.js, which is located in the socket-tropea folder of the Repository. The extension code is in the tropea folder of the Repository. Since the exact path of the Tor Browser folder is required, due to the configuration of the torrc file, it would be ideal to install it when installing Tor Browser so as to further simplify the whole process so that they don't even have to run the local script as it might launch when Tor Browser starts.
Repository:https://github.com/NoNameoN-A/Tropea-Project Demonstration video:https://peertube.uno/w/acz9VzntwYFicwgxk7i9by I wrote an informal article on my blog:https://greco-alessandro.netlify.app/articles/tropea-project-la-rete-tor-da-... Thesis with technical documentation of the code: At the moment not available because I haven't finished writing it yet.
Best Regards, Alessandro Greco.