tor-project May 2017

tor-project@lists.torproject.org

25 participants
35 discussions

New blog deployed
by Silvia [Hiro] 16 Jun '17

16 Jun '17

Hi everyone, The new blog has been deployed and is now living on https://blog.torproject.org as before. If you find any bugs or issues please add to the master ticket: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22013 Talk soon, -hiro/silvia

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How to have a meeting on IRC + finding a slot for the UX team meeting
by Linda Naeun Lee 02 Jun '17

02 Jun '17

Hey all, What's the right way to go about hosting a reoccurring meeting on irc? I know that other teams have their meetings, and that the channels are used for specific things/we don't necessarily want them to be primarily scheduled with meetings. I'd like to have the UX team meeting on IRC on Wednesdays at 1500 or 1600 UTC, on either tor-dev or tor-project. Would this be okay? Which channel should I use? Thanks, Linda

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UX team monthly summary + Linda's monthly summary
by Linda Naeun Lee 31 May '17

31 May '17

Hi all, UX team: We also restructured our meetings, triaged tickets across components to find UX-related tasks, and started using the #ux-team ticket to triage our tickets across components. I'm very excited about these new processes, since I think they'll be beneficial for organizing UX work in the future. Linda: I made the initial wireframes for all pages and subpages for torproject.org and participated in brainstorming next steps for improving Tor launcher. I also attended Stockholm Internet Forum, worked on organizing the UX team, and spent time talking to volunteers/journalists/researchers. Reflection: I think that the UX team is maturing, with the new processes and organization. This makes me excited, and I also hope to spend less energy organizing and doing more work. While I am also proud to have finished the wireframes for tpo.org and did a lot of work, this month had more travel/outreach interaction than I would have liked. I need to work on balancing that with my work. Cheers,

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Fwd: Thank you!
by Erin Wyatt 30 May '17

30 May '17

Hi everyone! I’ve been helping train a new person at my old job, and I got some Tor Project fan mail to pass along to you. Also, over the weekend I met a couple non-technical people that are totally obsessed with Tor and wanted to send their love as well. <3!!! Thanks, everyone, for all your hard work! People notice and appreciate you! :) -Erin > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Christopher Mounce > Subject: Thank you! > Date: May 29, 2017 at 9:38:05 PM PDT > To: ewyatt(a)torproject.org > > Hi Erin, > > This is Angie's fiancé (Angie from Vartan). I wanted to say thank you for the Tor stickers/webcam covers, and thank you for your work on the Tor Project! > > As a programmer, I've long been interested in how technology can aid anonymity and free speech, and I have a lot of respect for Tor and the team behind it. So when Angie told me her manager was being trained by someone from that team, that was exciting news to hear! Surprising, too -- I didn't realize anyone from Tor was in the Seattle area. > > Hope you had a good Memorial Day weekend, and thank you again for your work! > > Chris Mounce

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Notes from May 25 2017 Vegas team meeting
by Karsten Loesing 29 May '17

29 May '17

Notes for May 25 2017 meeting: Nick: * Question about network team hiring progress? * Synchronizing wrt tor-launcher features, security plans, on drl-new (sponsor8) contract * Request: let's consider a parallel on-pad update methodology for these meetings? * 0.3.1.1-alpha out, 0.3.1.2-alpha coming soon. Shari: * getting ready to host a bunch of people in Seattle next week * update on communications director hiring * update on unixstickers * focusing on various funding proposals, getting Tommy up to speed * going through old press tickets and updating our press list Mike * Worked with Isa on the tor-launcher automation doc * Talked with Matt about the blog. * Continued working on Guard meeting plans and padding Georg: * moving forward with Tor Browser 7.0 work * Do we need someone taking care of press related things after 7.0 gets released? <- we don't have someone particular for that Isabela: * shared notes about the Tor Launcher automation feature - now is time to collect problems with the V1 implementation, so we can think on how to fix those / change the implementation and get to a final plan so a roadmap can be build (by when we need each team task etc). Next meeting is on Wed at 1800utc * Met with Tommy - went over metrics proposal, also other proposals and what teams are working on etc Would be nice to talk about new proposals besides the current ones under review that we should be writing while we are in Seattle. Alison: * nonstop work on IMLS proposal * submitted Lush Digital Fund proposal * just finished a month of intense travel for LFP trainings. Will be doing many fewer trainings this summer! * work on the support portal continues, and Phoul is still covering all the questions that come into the RT desk * Samdney is working on support for the mirror operators * membership guidelines are just about ready to go into the proposal phase, but I've been asked not to have that overlap with the network team meeting mid-June, so I will probably send it around to a few people for final edits and then start the discussion right when the network team meeting ends * Global South outreach is going well. * in Seattle next week, and my big priority there is to work on the Community Team roadmap and dependencies

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GSoC Student Introduction 2017
by iry 27 May '17

27 May '17

Hello everyone! My name is iry. I am a GSoC student who will be mentored by both Sukhbir (sukhe) and Patrick Schleizer! Although I have heard this good news for a while, I still feel great excitement and happiness every time I think about it. This is because contributing to the Tor/Whonix is my dream that has been encouraging me to move on. Therefore, you can imagine how appreciated I am to the Tor community for offering me such a great opportunity to let me get more involved with Tor! The following is a Q&A about myself and the project I will be working on this summer. I hope it will help you have a better idea about me and the project I will be working on! Also, if there is any question, feedback or anything else you would like to discuss with me, please do not hesitate to let me know! I will be more than happy to discuss them with you! #####What project would you like to work on? I would like to work on the anon-connection-wizard. It is a Python-clone of the Tor Launcher which aims at providing Tor users with a graphical instruction on configuring the Tor. This [application](https://github.com/Whonix/anon-connection-wizard) has been developed as a part of the Whonix Project. Some of the screenshots of its old version can be found [here](https://www.whonix.org/blog/connection-bridge-wizard). This application is especially helpful for users who live in Tor-censored area. This is because those users can only connect to the Tor network with the help of other censorship circumvention tools which include but are not limited to Tor bridges, pluggable transports and other third party Internet censorship circumvention tools like Lantern and VPN. Currently, the Tor Launcher is shipped with the Tor Browser Bundle and heavily relies on the Tor Browser for its implementation. Although thanks to the great efforts([[1]](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/tree/config/chroot_local-hooks/06-adduser_tor-launcher?h=devel), [[2]](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/tree/config/chroot_local-hooks/10-tbb?h=devel), [[3]](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/tree/config/chroot_local-includes/usr/local/sbin/tails-tor-launcher?h=devel), [[4]](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/tree/config/chroot_local-includes/usr/local/bin/tor-launcher?h=devel)) of Tails, the Tor Launcher can be run as a stand-alone XUL application currently, since the XUL will not be supported by mozilla in Firefox ESR branch anymore [some time next year](https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2016/11/23/add-ons-in-2017/), that implementation may not work for a long time. Beiseds, I agree with the Whonix core developer Patrick Schleizer that "the Tor Browser Bundle has its kind of users. system Tor (refers to Tor from packages.debian.org or deb.torproject.org) users, where Tor runs as daemon, is used in different ways for different purposes". Therefore, although anon-connection-wizard is a Python-clone of the Tor luancher, since all its dependencies are already in Debian and already packaged, it can still serve as a really useful tool for the system Tor users or a loose coupling substituition to the Tor Launcher. In addition, the current instructions provided by the anon-connection-wizard and Tor launcher is not clear enough for users to configure Tor correctly. Therefore I would like to implement and redesign the anon-connection-wizard. I hope that my work will help more people to connect to the Tor network efficiently and successfully. #####Your proposal should also try to break down the project into tasks of a fairly fine granularity, and convince us you have a plan for finishing it. As mentioned above, my project goals include two main parts: ######The clone implementation of Tor Launcher: Currently, I have helped to implement the basic functions of anon-connection-wizard. However, there are still several bugs need fixing and a large number of exciting features need implementing, which include: 1. The current implementation of configuring torrc file is very rudimentary. The anon-connection-wizard should read the previous bridge/proxy configuration from the file and adjust the default UI accordingly. Just like what Tor Launcher has been doing. The ["edit marker approach"](https://forums.whonix.org/t/graphical-gui-whonix-setup-wizard-anon-connection-wizard-technical-discussion/650/226) is preferred way to implement this; 2. The password for proxy setting should be covered by character *. ######The redesign of the anon-connection-wizard: I have made a specific [proposal](https://forums.whonix.org/t/a-proposal-for-redesigning-anon-conne… for this topic. And the redesign should at least includes: 1. Rearranging the instruction page orders for better usability; 2. Rewriting the literal instruction so that it fits the actual situation of people in censored areas; 3. Adding more features to the custom Tor bridges configuration input box for more clear instruction. For example, syntax highlight, tool-tips, etc; 4. Doing user behavior experiment to find out what can be helpful for better usability; 5. Modifying the anon-connection-wizard based on the result of the experiment. #####A timeline for what you will be doing throughout the summer is highly recommended. Since the specific dates may be changed with the undecided working schedule. I arrange my timeline in a week unit. Please notice that I have communicated with my potential mentor that we can work on some tasks in advance if the project plan for a specific week is finished earlier than expected. | TIME | TODO | |------|------| |Week 1 | The password for proxy setting should be covered by character *.| |Week 3 | Rewrite the literal instruction so that it fits the actual situation of people in censored areas.| |Week 4 | Generate ideas on redesigning the anon-continence-wizard users interface, basing on the recommendations from outside sources,problems discussed above and suggestions from other people. Present the planning redesign to public to receive feedback.| |Week 5 | Rearrange the instruction page orders for better usability; Rewriting the literal instruction so that it fits the actual situation of people in censored areas.| |Week 6 | Add more features to the custom Tor bridges configuration input box for more clear instruction. For example, syntax highlight, tool-tips, etc.| |Week 7 | Prepare for the user behavior experiment, including recruitment and setting up environment.| |Week 8 | Conduct the experiment.| |Week 9 | Process and analysis the experiment data.| |Week 10| Write the research report.| |Week 11| Modify the anon-connection-wizard based on the result of the experiment.| |Week 12| Modify the anon-connection-wizard based on the result of the experiment.| #####Point us to a code sample: something good and clean to demonstrate that you know what you're doing, ideally from an existing project. The followings are a part of my pull requests to the anon-connection-wizard project on GitHub: 1. [Basic features implementation](https://github.com/Whonix/anon-connection-wizard/pull/1); 2. [Pluggable transport renew](https://github.com/Whonix/anon-connection-wizard/pull/2); 3. [Port from Python2 to Python3.4 & from PyQt4 to PyQt5](https://github.com/Whonix/anon-connection-wizard/pull/4). The following is my proposal for the redesign of anon-connection-wizard in Whonix Forum: 1. [A proposal for redesigning anon-connection-wizard for better usability](https://forums.whonix.org/t/a-proposal-for-redesigning-anon-conn… #####Why do you want to work with The Tor Project in particular? As one who was living in oppressive area, I deeply understand the importance of Internet freedom to a society. At first, I merely considered Internet freedom as fighting against Internet censorship. However, after a large amount of observation, reading and reflection, I realized that the self-censorship conducted by every scared citizens was much more powerful and terrible than the censorship conducted by the outside world. It was at that moment I realized the online anonymity was a vital component to Internet freedom because it frees people from fear. I value Tor/Whonix. Without it, I couldn't have been freed from the fear and explored the world freely and finally became who I am today. Therefore, contributing to Tor/Whonix as a career is not only a dream that I have been fighting for, but also an essential approach to my self-actualization. #####Tell us about your experiences in free software development environments. We especially want to hear examples of how you have collaborated with others rather than just working on a project by yourself. I agree that “[o]pen and clear communication is of utmost importance”. This is because of two main reasons from my point of view. First, a successful free and open source software development heavily relies on the collaboration between different people. A good communication skill will create a positive and supportive atmosphere which not only make everyone works for it more efficient but also attracts more people to join the development. Second, feedback from others, especially mentor, can be extremely beneficial to a student’s progress. Without the feedback, it may take a student years until one day after a frustrating debugging process to realize a mistake he/she made; while he/she may realize several mistakes he/she made almost immediately from his/her mentor’s feedback. I have already been working on the project with my potential mentor Patrick Schleizer. A small part of our open communication can be found [here](https://forums.whonix.org/t/graphical-gui-whonix-setup-wizard-ano n-connection-wizard-technical-discussion/650/222), which may be helpful to prove we have been having an open and clear communication. I also take Jean-Philippe Ouellet's words said on the Qubes-devel mailing list as an encouragement to me: > This kind of detailed and engaged communication is a model to all GSoC applicants #####Will your project need more work and/or maintenance after the summer ends? Yes! Tails developer anonym pointed out a promising future for the anon-connection-wizard on the tor-dev mailing list: >"I also see potential for future collaboration between Whonix and Tails for extending the usefulness of anon-connection-wizard beyond what Tor Launcher (and its replacement) offers [2]; anon-connection-wizard targets the OS, not just a single application, so it could integrate the choices of network configuration (wired? which wireless network? MAC spoofing?) and Tor configuration (proxy? pluggable transport?) in a single place which probably makes more sense for users and also allows us to more easily (optionally) save these settings so they are restored the next time you visit the same network. This could potentially even be used to help giving users control over entry node selection to avoid persistent Entry Guards from leaking information about you geographical movement. [3]" #####What are the chances you will stick around and help out with that and other related projects? Since I would like to take contributing to Tor/Whonix as a career, I will definitely stick around the Tor/Whonix community and help out with the future development of my project and other related ones. I never consider my project as a one-time project. Instead, I consider it as an important step to help myself get more invovled in the Tor/Whonix community. #####What is your ideal approach to keeping everybody informed of your progress, problems, and questions over the course of the project? Said another way, how much of a "manager" will you need your mentor to be? My plan is to take the [Whonix Forum](https://forums.whonix.org/) as the daily communication platform with my potential mentor Patrick. And just like what I have been doing, I will also post a detailed progress report for each working period which is no more than a week. Since the anon-connection-wizard is hosted on Github right now, people can also take it as a way to see my commits and progress. I can also send the posts to the tor-dev mailing list if it is considered as a good idea. #####How can we contact you? Currently, people can contact me through the following ways: 1. Email: iry at riseup dot net [GPG](https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0xA14B4DBC6DCDD53C) 2. Github: @irykoon 3. Whonix Forum: @iry I will inform the public if there is any change to my contact information. #####In addition, what's your IRC nickname? Interacting with us on IRC will help us get to know you, and help you get to know our community. I am going to join the IRC and inform the public my IRC nickname before the end of the next week.

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We killed the User Experience component - how to use #ux-team tag
by Linda Naeun Lee 26 May '17

26 May '17

Hello all, The purpose of the UX team is to work with all teams at Tor to help them build great user experience for their projects. The previous work that the UX team has done also reflects this--evaluating the Tor launcher interface, redoing the metrics website, creating web and mobile interfaces for OONI, testing the mobile security slider. Since our work is always in collaboration with another team, we decided to instead of having a component for UX team (vertical way of organizing our tasks) we are adopting a keyword (tag) for our team #ux-team (horizontal way to organize our tasks) that can be used across components on Trac. *What will you do with the #ux-team tag? * We will be labeling ongoing projects that we work on with this tag. But we are also building a process for you to 'tag' a ticket with #ux-team if you think we should look at it. We will triage tickets with the #ux-team tag every Tuesday at 1500 UTC time on #tor-project. There, we will evaluate if those issues are indeed something we can help with and give you an answer of what's next. *When do I use the #ux-team tag? * "If something is broken and the user can't use it is not necessary ux related - more chances are that is ux related if *its working* and the user still can't use it."Common tasks that the ux team does includes creating or editing user interfaces, creating images/videos/other media, testing your product on users, and helping communicate with users. *What about #usability and #tbb-usabilty tags?* People can use them to track things they want, but we won't specifically look at tickets marked with those tags until there is the #ux-team tag. We have already looked at tickets with those other tags, and tagged relevant tickets for the UX team with the #ux-team tag--if we missed one, please tag it with the #ux-team tag! *Ok, what will happen with website and blog components under the "User Experience" component?* We have reorganized the "User Experience" component into a "Webpages" component! The tickets under the "User Experience" component currently were previously all torproject.org and blog.torporject.org related, so this seemed like a good transition. It also made sense to have a component for webpages, so that we can track work for other webages in the future: media.tpo, extra.tpo, and various new portals (dev, support, and community). Sites that won't be subcomponet of this components, are sites that we consider they are a product of a team, like OONI page, or the metrics page. This information exists on our wiki page as well: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/UxTeam#Tickets We think that this is a much more intuitive way to organize the work! Thanks for your cooperation. Thanks, UX team

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Re: [tor-project] [ux] We killed the User Experience component - how to use #ux-team tag
by Linda Naeun Lee 26 May '17

26 May '17

Thanks for the clarification, Text. Yes. We will be using the keyword "ux-team." On May 25, 2017 6:51 PM, "teor" <teor2345(a)gmail.com> wrote: > (Also sent to tor-project, resending this because my first ux message > bounced.) > > > On 26 May 2017, at 08:00, Linda Naeun Lee <linda(a)torproject.org> wrote: > > > > Hello all, > > > > The purpose of the UX team is to work with all teams at Tor to help them > build great user experience for their projects. The previous work that the > UX team has done also reflects this--evaluating the Tor launcher interface, > redoing the metrics website, creating web and mobile interfaces for OONI, > testing the mobile security slider. > > > > Since our work is always in collaboration with another team, we decided > to instead of having a component for UX team (vertical way of organizing > our tasks) we are adopting a keyword (tag) for our team #ux-team > (horizontal way to organize our tasks) that can be used across components > on Trac. > > Hi Linda, > > Sounds like a great idea! > > For people who haven't used trac before: > > Trac doesn't use '#' in its tags, and it calls them 'keywords'. > > So to tag a ticket, do: > > Keywords: ux-team > > You can have as many keywords as you like, separated by spaces. > (And commas, if you like commas.) > > T > -- > Tim Wilson-Brown (teor) > > teor2345 at gmail dot com > PGP C855 6CED 5D90 A0C5 29F6 4D43 450C BA7F 968F 094B > ricochet:ekmygaiu4rzgsk6n > xmpp: teor at torproject dot org > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > _______________________________________________ > UX mailing list > UX(a)lists.torproject.org > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ux > >

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State of the blog
by Silvia [Hiro] 23 May '17

23 May '17

Hi everyone, The blog migration is almost completed and we now need your input for some QA. The new blog is live at: https://live-tor-blog-8.pantheonsite.io/ You can start using it and see if is there something amiss. You should be able to login with your old blog credentials. If this doesn't work you should be able to request a password reset. Please consider that sending email directly from the blog platform can be slow and unreliable, so if after a few minutes you haven't got your reset email, send me a message and I'll do that for you. If you find an issue you can check the master ticket: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22013 and add your issue to it. Talk soon, -hiro/silvia

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Re: [tor-project] VKontakte recommending Tor for circumvention, links sketchy app for iOS
by Nathan Freitas 22 May '17

22 May '17

I have fwd to Mike Tigas who can hopefully coordinate some appropriate outreach and awareness. On Sat, May 20, 2017, at 06:33 PM, David Fifield wrote: > I was reading about Ukraine's May 16 blocking of Russian web sites and > the resulting increase in Tor users: > https://www.rt.com/business/388502-ukraine-bans-vk-yandex/ > https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?start=2017-05-0… > https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-country.html?start=2017-05-… > > One of the blocked sites is VKontakte, a service like Facebook. I found > that they have a page on circumvention that recommends e.g. Opera VPN, > Tunnelbear, and Tor Browser. > https://vk.com/page-22884714_52979730 (https://web.archive.org/web/20170520222918/https://vk.com/page-22884714_529…) > > Their links for Windows, macOS, and Android look good, but for iOS they > are linking to some weird third-party app "VPN Browser - TOR-powered > unlimited VPN": > https://itunes.apple.com/ru/app/vpn-browser-tor-powered-unlimited-vpn/id961… > Perhaps someone could get them to link something more reasonable? > _______________________________________________ > tor-project mailing list > tor-project(a)lists.torproject.org > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-project

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