tor-project May 2017

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April 2017 Report for the Tor Browser Team
by Georg Koppen 02 May '17

02 May '17

Hi all! In April we made two releases, Tor Browser 6.5.2[1], and Tor Browser 7.0a3[2]. Tor Browser 6.5.2 picked up Firefox security bug fixes and provided fixes for a broken Twitter experience and a crash bug affecting users on Windows. Additionally, we updated the bridges we ship in Tor Browser. The alpha release was the first one based on Firefox ESR 52. There were a lot of changes related to switching to this new major Firefox version.[3] We got great bug reports from our alpha testers and either already resolved those issues or are still working on doing so for the next alpha release which is planned for mid-May. There was no new release in the hardened series and there won't be one in the future either. Rather, users on this series got updated to the latest alpha version. We discontinued the hardened series as we heard numerous reports from users being confused about it being called "hardened" while including debugging tools as well.[4] We recommend using the Sandboxed Tor Browser from now on instead.[5] Apart from doing release work we focused on getting Tor Browser 7.0 more stable and on making our build system faster and more scalable.[6] We are about to switch our official nightly builds to using rbm, our new reproducible builds manager. The full list of tickets closed by the Tor Browser team in April is accessible using the TorBrowserTeam201704 tag in our bug tracker[7]. For May we plan to do another Tor Browser alpha release picking up the latest changes and testing them. If all goes well we should be ready to release Tor Browser 7.0 by end of May/begin of June. The tickets we want to have solved by then are currently tagged with the `tbb-7.0-must-alpha` and `tbb-7.0-must` keywords.[8] Besides working on getting Tor Browser 7 into stable shape we plan to continue our build system improvements and spend further time on integrating our Panopticlick instance into our Q&A environment[9]. All tickets on our radar for this month can be seen with the TorBrowserTeam201705 tag in our bug tracker.[10] Georg [1] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-browser-652-released [2] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-browser-70a3-released [3] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-qa/2017-April/000892.html [4] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/discontinuing-hardened-tor-browser-series [5] https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en#downloads-sandbox [6] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17379 [7] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=closed&keywords=~TorB… [8] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=accepted&status=assig… [9] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/6119 [10] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?keywords=~TorBrowserTeam2017…

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April 2017 report for the metrics team
by Karsten Loesing 02 May '17

02 May '17

Hello Tor, hello world! Below you'll find the highlights of Tor metrics team work done in April 2017. On behalf of the Tor metrics team, Karsten Added French, Romanian, and Swedish translations to the ExoneraTor website [1], in addition to existing languages English and German, and made all languages available via links in the footer rather than relying on the user to configure their browser for any given language. All new languages have been translated by the Transifex community [2] and reviewed by Tor people. [1] https://exonerator.torproject.org/ [2] https://www.transifex.com/otf/torproject/ Replaced Tor performance measurements gathered by Torperf (torperf, moria, siv) with measurements performed by OnionPerf (op-hk, op-nl, op-us) on CollecTor [3] and Metrics [4]. [3] https://collector.torproject.org/recent/torperf/ [4] https://metrics.torproject.org/torperf.html Published Tor Technical Report 2017-04-001 [5] titled "Privacy analysis of Tor's in-memory statistics" that "analyzes which possibly sensitive, potentially personally identifying data is stored in memory of Tor relays and bridges or reported to the directory authorities and makes suggestions to reduce the collection and temporary storage of such data." [5] https://research.torproject.org/techreports/privacy-in-memory-2017-04-28.pdf Made a couple more usability and robustness enhancements to Atlas [6], including adding a red/green indicator to easily distinguish currently running relays [7], adjusting the size of a kilobyte to tor's [8], reducing redundant custom CSS and external resources [9, 10], and removing confusingly empty fields when no data is available [11]. [6] https://atlas.torproject.org/ [7] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/6355 [8] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21822 [9] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22056 [10] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21699 [11] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22039 Lost CollecTor and Onionoo mirrors run on a community-contributed host, and set up a new CollecTor mirror on a Tor host kindly provided by SUNET [12]. [12] https://www.sunet.se/about-sunet/

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UX team April 2017 summary
by Linda Naeun Lee 01 May '17

01 May '17

Hello! In April, the UX team did three major things: 1) research and design work for torproject.org 2) started building content for support.torproject.org 2) coordinating with mobile developers on features 3) better team organization and project management 1) Got the necessary research done for redesigning torproject.org (#21222). Since we now have a handle on how the website is structured, how we want the new website structured, and what content we want where, we can start moving forward with wireframing. The research tasks are all grouped in #22120 as its sub-tickets for your viewing pleasure. 2) We wrote over 100 questions and answers for the upcoming support portal ( https://gitweb.torproject.org/support-portal.git/tree/plain). These questions cover frequently asked questions during the download and install process, troubleshoot the most common errors with Tor Browser, and address a wide array of other questions. 3) Isabela and Linda joined the weekly #tor-mobile scrums, where we got to listen to what's going on with tor-mobile (we are glad that there is better communication here now!) and give feedback on the their features. They're working on better user-facing error messages when a connection fails, and how they can make use of the waiting time when connecting to educate users about Tor and its features. 4) We now have a regular UX team meeting (Mondays 1500 UTC @ https://meet.jit.si/TorUX) with an agenda (https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-ux agenda), a team roadmap to keep track of tasks to do this month and the following months (https://storm.torproject.org/grain/XaENCFTXJzFYWgxSnK4mgJ/), and create/triage tickets to keep track of work. Major thanks to Antonela, Alison, and Colin for doing such great work this month! ヽ(•◡•)ﾉ, Linda

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Network team meeting notes and status updates, 5/1
by Nick Mathewson 01 May '17

01 May '17

Below are the status updates from our weekly meeting. The notes and logs are at http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-dev/2017/tor-dev.2017-05-01-16.59.html ================================ Updates for network team meeting, 1 May 2016 Happy international workers day Happy may day Um and also........... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_Day (No, people don't actually observe that, afaik.) ============= Discussion: * feature freeze may 15 (?) * 032 priorities * dgoulet's tickets questions * Mike wants to discuss is_client wrt #16861, #21406, and #21585 * rust proposal ============= To do after meeting * Everyone update milestone progress on isabela's roadmap storm pad. * Plan 032 planning ============= ahf: I'll be missing from the meeting today to celebrate May 1st, feel free to ask questions on IRC and I'll respond when I'm online again. Last week: Sponsor4: - Landed patches for new compression backend: #21662, #21663, #21664, #22066, and #22085. - Reviewed #22061, #22051, #21648, #22065, and #21646. - Fixed #21665, but the code have not landed yet. Misc: - Fixed minor build-system issue on OS X (bug #13802). This week: Sponsor4 (ordered): - Working on the last prop278 (for now?) bug: #21667 - Figure out what's next for Sponsor4 or help out with 0.3.1 bugs or XXX (depending on what is most urgent). Misc: - Coverity duty. Nick: (I have a dentist appointment this morning; I think I'll be back to the meeting on time.) - Last week * Nearly done with prop140 stuff: diffs are generated and compressed and I have the code to serve them. * Also refactored some sucky APIs. directory_initiate_request_routerstatus_rend(), anyone? I think we should declare open season on any function taking more than 6 or 7 arguments. * Moved a bunch of stuff out of 0.3.1 based on triage * Released 0.3.0.6 (stable!) - This week * Catch up on hard design-y emails * Finish prop140 implementation (!!!1!) * Help ahf as needed with prop278 stuff. * Try the gitlab instace * Create a review-group * Review lots of stuff * UX-TorLauncher meeting later today asn: Last week: - Worked on #21859. Unittests mainly - Opened #22052 based on lessons from #21859. - Implemented the ed25519 torsion validation at #22006. Branch is pushed and looks good, but it needs a bit more work needed before needs_review: Ian suggested we do this check for all network-received ed25519 keys, so I need to make sure I actually validate all of them. - Opened #21969 but haven't had time to think about it. - Started looking at guard discovery stuff again. This week: - Finalize #21859. Put it in needs_review. - Finalize #22006. Put it in needs_review. - More work on guard discovery. Mike: Last week: - Did triage. Wasn't a whole lot to triage that week. - Updated #16861 some more for dgoulet; I have a question about a couple other bugs - Did a little more work on Sponsor2 stuff - Some coordination with Mozilla; some rusting This week: - Tor Launcher meeting and discussion - Sponsor2 work continues dgoulet: Last week: - Worked on #20657 unit testing. Also, rebased that branch onto master resolving conflicts from the refactor of directory.c. - Final review and test of #16861 (mikeperry netflow). - Worked on #22060 which turns out to be a bit more tricky than expected. - Addressed asn's review for #21978. - Worked on random 031 tickets: #22042, #22034, #21715, #21293, - We got #13802 merged finally! Thanks to pastly and nickm's feedback! - We had some bad-relays business to take care of and help out a bit with asn on some next steps for Guard discovery stuff for HS. This week: - Finishing test coverage of #20657 and prepare it for early 032 merge. - Integrate asn's work on circuit e2e #21859 with #20657. - Depending on the state of things for the prop224 service implementation, I might start the client implementation big branch! catalyst: Last week: * started sketching out new baseXX APIs that will be more robust and less error-prone (#19531). e.g., given our calling patterns it actually makes sense for encoding functions to return void, unless they're allocating memory or lengths are variable. almost all of our base32 and base16 uses involve fixed-size arrays, so having assertions for length checks might actually be the right thing. * did more analysis about PT arguments (#12930). filed #22088 with proposed minor PT spec changes to mitigate this issue. * looked at Tor Launcher usability stuff This week: * 15-minute fixes * Tor Launcher usability meeting * more digging into control port stuff and bootstrap progress reporting to improve Tor Launcher usability isis: last week: - took the week off - worked with dcf to finish getting the meek-bridgedb channel set up this week: - sort out new contract - several meetings regarding roadmapping and the new distributor komlo: - have more time this month so can be on irc more during the day! - Reviewed Sebastian's intial Rust integration patch - Fixed up my partial implementation of protover in Rust from Sebastian's review - This week: - Work with Sebastian on writing a "Rust in Tor" document - we have a rough working draft. - Continue with finishing a full protover implementation in Rust Sebastian: Opened https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22106 for initial Rust integration work Isabela: Last week: - had a call with drl on our proposal - got good clarification - bugged folks on roadmap :) - organized meeting for tor launcher automation feature definition. This week: - working on April report to OTF - replying to DRL follow up questions on our proposal / also emailing a summary of the proposal deliverables to folks involved on it. - doing another check on roadmaps. and emailing tor project all teams roadmaps

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Notes from April 27 2017 Vegas team meeting
by Karsten Loesing 01 May '17

01 May '17

Notes for April 27 2017 meeting: Alison: 1) did a training in Atlantic City NJ this week; next week I've got a few events in Boston and Rhode Island. 2) starting to work on the Community Team roadmap and organizing our tasks into trac tickets 3) lots more content completed for the support portal 4) working on the membership guidelines again and will propose them after the CC vote is completed. 5) working on Global South meeting info gathering 6) doing preliminary stuff for Montreal meeting Shari: 1) I'm in New York this week, meeting with funders and others. 2) Offered job to a new writer, and he seemed to have accepted. We'll announce after we receive it in writing! 96 people applied for that job! 3) Still waiting for decision from our favored communications director candidate. If he doesn't commit by next week, we'll open it up and start circulating the job description. 4) Reviewing OTF metrics proposal and writing up the budget. Arturo: 1) Probe orchestration prototype almost complete: https://github.com/thetorproject/proteus 2) Held a community meeting on Tuesday 3) Coordinated with translators for the Arabic, Farsi, and Russian translations of ooniprobe (which are expected to be included in the next ooniprobe release) 4) Meeting with the Localization Lab about next steps in terms of localizing our tools, methodologies, and documentation 5) This week OONI partners are hosting OONI workshops at the Internet Freedom Festival in Lagos, Nigeria 6) There will be a OONI workshop at CryptoRave (https://cryptorave.org) in Brazil Georg: 1) Ongoing work on getting Tor Browser 7.0 into stable shape (release planning/bug triage etc.) 2) Roadmapping taking dependencies to other teams/Mozilla into account Nick: 1) Work goes on. New Tor release out yesterday. TB users should have it in a month or so. Sponsor4 deliverables on-track for 0.3.1. 2) 0.3.1 feature freeze may 15; tell your friends 3) meeting with folks Monday to coordinate tor launcher stuff; potential opportunities / problems to consider as we move ahead. 4) speaking at MIT class on 10 May ; Bostonians should feel free to crash 5) using new format at our team meetings: pad -based status updates, plus additional discussion on IRC Mike: 1) Got a mail from Mitchell introducing me to Jofish, the Mozilla IoT person. 2) Also meeting about the Tor Launcher bridge automation 3) Trying to get Ben Rosenfeld involved in Trademark notices. Not hearing from Wendy? 4) Continue working on Tor padding and playing with Rust (and triaging Tor tickets). Karsten: 1) Continued writing funding proposal that is due April 30. 2) Made plans to add a second CollecTor instance and a full Onionoo mirror on tpo hosts. 3) Added translations and language selection to https://exonerator.torproject.org/. 4) Finished technical report on privacy of Tor's in-memory statistics that will be published by end of this week. Isabela: 1) Working on OTF proposal with Metrics team 2) Following up on answers for DRL 3) Dependencies Dependencies Dependencies - working on organizing them with teams. Automation feature for Tor Launcher is the main one that cross many teams, hopefully on Monday we will meet and get everyone on the same page there. 4) Linda is working on site-mapping the current site and the new ones in order to organize the content for each new portal and make sure we are not missing anything. 5) Hiro got a gitlab instance working for Network team to test and this will be the beginning of 'moving away from trac' mission. She is also working on migrating the blog -> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/22013 6) OMG need to finish my report on user growth strategy :(

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tor-project May 2017