tor-project February 2019

tor-project@lists.torproject.org

23 participants
30 discussions

Network team meeting notes from 19 Feb 2019
by Nick Mathewson 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

Hi! Our logs are available at http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2019/tor-meeting.2019-02-19-17.58.html Below are the contents of our pad: = Network team meeting pad! = This week's team meeting is at Tuesday 19 February at 1800 UTC on #tor-meeting on OFTC, because Monday is a US public holiday. Welcome to our meeting! First meeting each month: Tuesday at 2300 UTC Other meetings each month: Mondays at 1800 UTC On #tor-meeting on OFTC. February schedule: * Monday 11 February at 1800 UTC * Monday 18 February at 1800 UTC Tuesday 18 Feburary at 1800 UTC (moved because of holiday) * Monday 25 February at 1800 UTC March schedule: * Tuesday 5 March at 2300 UTC (This channel is logged while meetings are in progress.) (See https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2017-September/001459.ht… for background.) Want to participate? Awesome! Here's what to do: 1. If you have updates, enter them below, under your name. 2. If you see anything you want to talk about in your updates, put them in boldface! 3. Show up to the IRC meeting and say hi! After each week's meetings, the contents of this pad will be sent to tor-project @ lists.torproject.org. After that is done, the pad can be used for the next week. == Previous notes == (Search the list archive for older notes.) 8 Jan: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2019-January/002155.html 14 Jan: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2019-January/002170.html 22 Jan: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2019-January/002184.html 11 Feb: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2019-February/002214.html == Stuff to do every week = * Let's check and update the roadmap. What's done, and what's coming up? We're using a kanban now: https://storm.torproject.org/shared/_mx8PMGOHFBOximocl1gy3COvhLPr6k3Ja7JA1v… * Check reviewer assignments! Here are the needs-review tickets, by reviewer: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=needs_review&reviewer… Here are the outstanding reviews, oldest first: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=needs_review&componen… Including sbws: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?status=needs_review&componen… * Also, let's check for things we need update on our spreadsheet! Are there important documents we should link to? Things we should archive? * Check rotations at https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/NetworkTeam/TeamRot… Core Tor/sbws is now part of the bug triage, CI, and reviewer assignment roles == Reminders == * Remember to "/me status: foo" at least once daily. * Remember that our current code reviews should be done by end-of-week. * Make sure you are in touch with everybody with whom you are doing work for the next releases * Remember to fill up actual point when you finish a task (as well as update the estimate when starting the issue). * Add planned PTO to the calendar https://storm.torproject.org/shared/ISA5L5nH0Xu88iqSCx9ZjCXYSMKOBTdbUeWarbd… * Check other's people call for help in their entries. ------------------------------- ---- 19 February 2019 ------------------------------- == Announcements == - Onion Services proposal was accepted and we are starting with it on April. We will probably do only minimal work on it until S19 is done, though. - The master branch is now 0.4.1.x; 0.4.0 development will continue in maint-0.4.0. == Discussion == === Release Planning === * Teor wants the trac milestones to be smaller, so we can actually do most of the work in the milestones. How does everyone feel about that? << I think it would be useful to discuss Teor's thoughts when Teor is in the room >> [[+1 but if we're going to do that we should have a plan to schedule such a discussion]] << Yes >> Is it a useful goal? What can we do differently, so we have better milestones? What is one thing that we can change in the next month? Here are our release planning notes from Brussels: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2019BrusselsNetw… In December 2018, teor suggested a new process, but it didn't work out: https://pad.riseup.net/p/network-team-triage-2018 === Policy planning === * We don't have a great way to set and adopt development/support policies. How would we feel about this: Let's have policies start out as "draft". If we think a policy could maybe work out, let's call it "experimental", post it publicly, and try it out for a limited amount of time. And then let's see whether we need to amend it or adopt it or discard it entirely based on network-team rough consensus. == Recommended links == Signal uses fixed-size, overlapping range requests to hide the exact length of its previews: https://signal.org/blog/i-link-therefore-i-am/ Could we use a similar technique in Tor Browser to hide sizes from the network? (The application and the remote site know the real size. Everything else just sees fixed-size HTTPS.) How teams produce great outcomes (a long read, but a good one): https://the-composition.com/the-origins-of-opera-and-the-future-of-programm… == Updates == NOTE NEW FORMAT! Name: Week of XYZ (planned): - What you planned for last week. Week of XYZ (actual): - What you did last week. Week of ABC (planned): - What you're planning to do this week. Help with: - Something you may need help with. PLEASE DO NOT BULK-DELETE THE OLD ENTRIES! Leave the "Planned" parts! Leave the parts for last week and this week! gaba: Week of 02/11 (actual): - get roadmap into the wiki - gathering documentation on software development practices at the network team <-- if you have anything documented send it my way Week of 02/19 (planned: - look at releases estimation - look at processes and make a proposal on decision making (so far all documentes found here https://gitlab.com/gabelula/tor-documentation-processes) teor: (offline) Weeks since hackfest: - FOSDEM - Travel - Time off for extra hours during travel and hackfest - Answering some urgent emails Week of 18 Feb (planned): Roadmap Coding (3 days per week): - PrivCount proof of concept (#29004 and related tickets) - unit tests for extra-info documents (#29018) Other: - Reviews - Email, IRC, and ticket backlog - Finish travel reimbursements - Ask metrics to monitor bootstrap speed (from Sponsor 8, but worth doing anyway) - If we get bad results, tweak bootstrap settings to work: - when lots of fallbacks are down, and - on networks that drop packets (deferred from Sponsor 8, we'll only do it if it is necessary) Week of 18 Feb (actual): Roadmap Coding (3 days per week): - Finished #29017 - stats bug fix - Almost finished #29018 - stats bug fix, refactor, and unit tests for extra-info documents (PrivCount preparation) Other: - A little bit of post-travel admin Help with: These unit test errors are new in master: (I found them on macOS using clang) #29527 - Division by zero: undefined behaviour in circuitpadding/circuitpadding_sample_distribution test (mikeperry is on this one) #29529 - util/map_anon_nofork test fails on macOS (nickm is on this one) #29530 - Some address/get_if_addrs* tests fail when the network is unreachable [when did this start?] I still have 1 coding day left this week. I'd like to do #27162 (rust versions CI) next, but let me know if there's something urgent I could do. Nick: Week of 11 Feb (planned): - Identify remaining 040-must stuff - Fix some 040-must bugs; defer other 040 stuff. - Write a proposal about correct way to do onionbalance in v3 onion services - Maybe, write a proposal about "personalization" of the Tor network to prevent test network crossover. - Check OSS-Fuzz timeout issues to make sure they are false positives - "Evaluate" bridge statistics. (#29269) - Experiment with chutney & CI. Week of 11 Feb (actual): - Wrote a draft onionbalance-with-v3-onionservices proposal; asked asn and dgoulet for feedback - Started a draft proposal about network personalities based on suggestion from teor in Brussels - Looked at Chutney + Travis + CI status; learned tried to figure out what's broken - Revised fast_rng branch based on comments from asn (thanks asn) - Merged some pending 040 branches - Discussion with possible funders/collaborators - Read most session notes from brussels Week of 18 Feb (planned): - Write final onionbalance-with-v3-onionservices proposal (thanks, asn and dgoulet!) - Finish personalization proposal - Change master to 0.4.1; create maint-0.4.0 and release-0.4.0 branches (done) - Write proposed policy for merging stuff (done) - Discuss proposed merge policy; make public version. - Releases for 0.3.3 and later. - Merge and announce fix for TROVE-2019-001 (thanks dgoulet) - Discuss chutney+ci findings with teor. - Update pubsub branch as needed/useful. Check in with catalyst. - Start looking at bridge stats status for #29269 - meet with researchers about datagrams, performance, etc. Mike, please answer the scheduling email ASAP? - Reply to a large pile of emails - ADL discussion - Prop 300 - Consensus options proposal idea - and so much more... - Decide what is left in 0.4.0. I need help here. - CI / Coverity rotation: look at jenkins failures (like #29534), OSS-fuzz timeouts, etc dgoulet: Week of 11 Feb (actual): - Deploy a local BridgeDB so I can start using and testing it. - Many many discussions about how to address #29427. - I've (mistakenly!) merge #29023 (fast prng) so I can now use it for prop#289. - Some other ticket merging and review. - Updated #29391 with my merging scripts. - Opened a bunch of BridgeDB tickets for quick tasks. - Got my bridgedb.git and bridgedb-admin.git repositories! Week of 19 Feb (planned): - Follow up work on all the BridgeDB tickets. - Put prop#289 in review that will now use #29023 fast prng. - Follow up on many email thread I have opened. Mike: Week of 2/11 (actual) - Spend some time digging deep into KIST and EWMA; filed #29294 after - Looked at asn's branch for #29298 - looked good so far - Looked into #29174 - Worked on #29204; have a draft patch almost ready for dgoulet Week of 2/21 (planned): - Get #29204 branch ready for dgoulet - Hopefully start on #28780 - Vanguards package announcement Need Help With: - Running unittests under Wine to try to reproduce #29500 - Is https://github.com/ahf/tor-win32/ the best way to do this? catalyst: week of 02/11 (2019-W07) (planned): - expense reporting - more review of #28226 - other reviews - bug triage rotation week of 02/11 (2019-W07) (actual): - more review of #28226 (posted some comments on github) - bug triage (nothing much) - medical bureaucracy - talked with ahf et al re shellcheck, bash vs POSIX sh... (#29485) week of 02/18 (2019-W08) (planned): - expense reporting - #28226 review - other reviews juga (offline): Week 11 Feb (plannned): - Register for the Demoday to present the bandwidth scanner (https://prototypefund.de/demo-day/) - Continue with Include scanner country and Web server country in the bandwidth file header (#29299) - Continue with Write technical overview on how sbws works(#29149) - Continue with Adapt bandwidth file classes to be compatible with stem (descriptors, etc) documents (#29057) - Consider implementing When sbws stops making progress, log a warning (#28652) - Consider implementing other children tickets to solve Monitor relays that are not measured by each sbws instance (#28547) Week 11 Feb (actual): - Included scanner country and Web server country in the bandwidth file header (#29299) - Wrote technical overview on how sbws works(#29149) - Continued Report relays that sbws sees in the consensus, but never chooses to test (#28566) - Revised ResultDump.queue.put() can hang if the queue is full (#28866) Week 18 Feb (plan): - Continue with Adapt bandwidth file classes to be compatible with stem (descriptors, etc) documents (#29057) - Work out how long it takes sbws to measure the network (#28983) - When sbws stops making progress, log a warning (#28652) - Prepare presentation for the DemoDay - Revisions Need help with: - To release sbws 1.0.3 next week, reviewing #28897 is critical, to confirm whether sbws doesn't stall. If it doesn't, several tickets in milestone 1.0 can be closed and the remaining 1.0 milestone tickets are minor changes/easy. asn: [Did not know that meeting would be on Tuesday this week and arranged social stuff for the evening. Will try to attend if possible anyhow.] Week of 02/11 (planned): - Lots of review backlog. - Start looking at February's roadmap. - Start a tor-researchers thread about WTF-PAD projects. Week of 02/11 (actual): - Finished up reviews. - Start working on roadmap task #29298. I made a spec and code branch for Mike to check out. - Started WTF-PAD thread for researchers. - Read Karsten's scaling email. - Reviewed draft onionbalance v3 proposal. Week of 02/18 (planned): - Move towards finishing up #29298 after getting Mike's feedback. - Discuss more about WTF-PAD future. - Start looking into roadmap task #29221. - Do reviews. - If time permits, read Tim's response to "walking onions" thread wrt onion services. Help with: ahf: Week of 2/11 (planned) Sponsor 19: - Review dcf's uTLS changes to meek-lite. - Continue with architecture document in #28848 - Create the goptlibext library after discussing with dcf on #28940 - Make progress with NGO discussion with arma and cohosh. Misc (and might need some help with, but most likely from weasel): - Solve the Windows CI issue that I didn't finish before meeting. Week of 2/11 (actually) Sponsor 19: - Uploaded the goptlibext library to https://github.com/ahf/goptlibext/ (STATUS and LOG support) and said OK to DCF's Log matches for gotptlib in #28940. - Brainstorm with cohosh about the Snowflake protocol: https://github.com/ahf/snowflake-notes/blob/master/Protocol.markdown - Broker architecture draft document at https://github.com/ahf/snowflake-notes/blob/master/Broker.markdown (these two will move off GH as soon as we have the GL) - Looked at Kat's report #2. Need to write down some feedback. - Reviewed dcf's uTLS changes to meek-lite. - Read a lot of Go and webstandard documents about Go, modern JavaScript, and other things I haven't stayed up-to-date with over the years. Misc: - Lots of reviews in the network team backlog due to us being AFK to Brussels Week of 2/18 (planned) Sponsor 19: - Send feedback to Kat about Report #2. - Collect some feedback from arma & cohosh about Broker.markdown. - Begin the work on protocol changes in the Snowflake codebase together with cohosh.

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January Communications Report
by Stephanie A. Whited 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

Hello Tor, In January, we worked with the UX and teams on our new website and outreach materials. We created a 2019 strategy and communications roadmap. We got a couple very high quality press bites linked below. Jan in links and stats: New blog posts https://blog.torproject.org/expect-more-tor-2019 https://blog.torproject.org/tor-browser-tpl-defending-intellectual-freedom-… https://blog.torproject.org/strength-numbers-final-count Twitter https://twitter.com/torproject New followers: 2,894 Top tweets https://twitter.com/torproject/status/1082286334302134273 https://twitter.com/torproject/status/1080911856364122112 https://twitter.com/torproject/status/1089886122036117504 Mastodon https://mastodon.social/@torproject New followers: 210 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/tor-project/ New followers: 71 Facebook https://www.facebookcorewwwi.onion/TorProject New followers: 204 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/torproject/ New followers: 73 Newsletter https://newsletter.torproject.org/archive/2019-01-31-expect-more-from-tor/ Notable press https://www.wired.com/story/tor-anonymity-easier-than-ever/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/11/tor-lessens-reliance-us-grants/ o/ -comms -- Stephanie A. Whited Communications Director The Tor Project IRC: stephw PGP Key ID: 39A876AD <https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x6D6B72C339A876AD>

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January Fundraising Report
by sstevenson＠torproject.org 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

January was a busy month for the Fundraising team. We developed a fundraising roadmap and have been making progress on several projects. ## Year-end campaign wrap-up We began by reporting back to and thanking donors who contributed to the year-end campaign <https://blog.torproject.org/strength-numbers-final-count>. We received $300,000 in matching funds from Mozilla and $20,000 from a donor who matched funds from new contributors. ## Cryptocurrency We are working to allow donors to support Tor with a wider variety of cryptocurrencies. This is in response to many requests to give coins other than Bitcoin and also many complaints we received about Bitpay, our current cryptocurrency processor. We have been working to set up the infrastructure to make this happen and build a new page that allows donors to notify us of their gift and access the wallet addresses. We will be sure to let you know when the new page is live and promote it on social media. ## Monthly Donors Another area we spent time on in January was monthly donors. We currently have over 300 people who make automatic payments to Tor and we needed to send each a receipt for their 2018 giving. We also had to communicate with those who give via Paypal about an error in our processing that is now fixed, but resulted in charging them twice for their initial gift. Donors were understanding about the mistake and grateful for the communication and transparency. We receive around $4,500 per month from this group, so it is important that they know how much we appreciate them. We are also laying the groundwork to expand the monthly donor program. We are working on a program name, special swag, and a page through which we can invite people to join. The existing group self-selected, so we are expecting to see a lot of growth once we begin monthly invitations to select groups of donors. ## Grants On the grants front, we submitted a final report to the Rose Foundation, two proposals to NLnet--one on ESR migration and another on improving transparency and trust for exit relays. We also wrote a concept note on UX improvements to OTF and submitted funder-requested edits on an OTF proposal for onion services. We met with Alison and OONI to discuss how we can can assist them in finding and applying to new funding sources. Finally, we assisted with content for the Sponsors page on the new website. Feel free to get in touch at any time with questions or suggestions! Sarah Stevenson Fundraising Director The Tor Project sstevenson(a)torproject.org Public Key: 93B3 AC08 4257 FA3D D4BB 8E95 CC08 5DBA C015 612A

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OONI Monthly Report: January 2019
by Maria Xynou 20 Feb '19

20 Feb '19

Hello, The OONI team started the year by launching OONI Probe mobile 2.0 (revamped mobile app) for Android, iOS and F-Droid. We also established three new partnerships, published three research reports, and updated four test lists. We also published a job opening to hire a backend engineer. ## Stable release of OONI Probe mobile 2.0 We launched OONI Probe mobile 2.0! This is a major milestone in the OONI-verse, enabling community members to test the URLs of their choice (directly inside the app), have an overview of test results (thus the ability to compare measurements), a better user experience, and more. Information about the revamped app is available via our announcement blog post: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/revamped-ooni-probe-mobile-app/ You can also learn about OONI Probe mobile 2.0 via Sinar Project's great review: https://sinarproject.org/digital-rights/updates/ooni-2-0-review After the initial launch of OONI Probe mobile 2.0 on Android and iOS, we also released OONI Probe on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.openobservatory.ooniprobe/ Thanks to support from the Localization Lab and the translator community, OONI Probe mobile 2.0 was translated to the following 13 languages: Albanian, Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish. ## Established new partnerships We are excited to have established new partnerships with: * ASUTIC: Senegalese Association of ICT Users (Senegal) * Fundación Internet Bolivia.org (Bolivia) * Open Culture Foundation (Taiwan) ASUTIC released the following press statement (encouraging the use of OONI Probe leading up to Senegal's 2019 elections): http://jotali.com/asutic/fr/monitoring-citoyen-dinternet-et-des-r%C3%A9seau… ## Year in Review: OONI in 2018 To share an overview of what the OONI team worked on in 2018, we published a blog post titled "Year in Review: OONI in 2018", available here: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/ooni-in-2018/ This blog post also highlights some of the projects we expect to launch in 2019. ## Report on internet disruption in Gabon In collaboration with CAIDA's Philipp Winter, we published a report on the internet disruption that occurred in Gabon amid a coup attempt: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/gabon-internet-disruption/ In this report, we share IODA data and Google traffic data that corroborate local reports on the internet disruption. ## Report on internet censorship in Zimbabwe In collaboration with the Digital Society of Zimbabwe, we co-published a research report examining social media blocking and internet blackouts in Zimbabwe amid the fuel protests. Our joint report is available via the following links: * OONI site: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/zimbabwe-protests-social-media-blocking-20… * Digital Society of Zimbabwe site: http://www.dszim.org/2019/01/23/zimbabwe-protests-social-media-blocking-and… ## Report on internet censorship in Venezuela In collaboration with Venezuela Inteligente and IPYS Venezuela, we co-published a research report examining the blocking of Wikipedia and social media in Venezuela amid the country's political crisis. Our joint report is available via the following links: * OONI site: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/venezuela-blocking-wikipedia-and-social-me… * Venezuela Inteligente site: https://vesinfiltro.com/noticias/report-jan-2019/ * IPYS Venezuela site: https://ipysvenezuela.org/2019/01/29/from-the-blocking-of-wikipedia-to-soci… This research was possible thanks to OONI Probe measurement campaigns coordinated by Venezuela Inteligente and IPYS Venezuela. ## Updated test lists We carried out research to create and/or update the following test lists: * Senegal: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/424 * Bolivia: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/426 * Mexico: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/428 * Paraguay: https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists/pull/427 ## Job opening We're looking for a Backend Engineer to join OONI to work on: * our data processing pipeline (& other backend components) * the improvement of our data analysis heuristics * the improvement of our network measurement methodologies Information about the job opening is available here: https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs-backenddeveloper.html.en ## Userbase In January 2019, OONI Probe was run 24,5660 times from 4,121 different vantage points in 211 countries around the world. ~ The OONI team. -- Maria Xynou Research & Partnerships Director Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) https://ooni.torproject.org/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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Next network-team meeting moved to Tuesday, same time as usual
by Nick Mathewson 15 Feb '19

15 Feb '19

Hi! Monday is a company holiday, so we're moving the next network-team meeting to Tuesday, at the regular time (1800UTC). I've updated the pad. Cheers, -- Nick

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Notes from February 14 2019 Vegas team meeting
by Karsten Loesing 15 Feb '19

15 Feb '19

Notes for February 14 2019 meeting: Antonela: 1) Doing what is needed to launch tpo.org at the end of the month. a) Sent Call for QA to tor internal. b) Replied all the emails I received about that. c) Triaged all the tickets filed for it. d) Working with Hiro on those tickets. e) Ran first run of illustrations discussions at the UX team meeting. 2) Met a) Kevin Gallagher about further collaboration and next academic usability research. b) Eillen from Simply Secure about the new metrics portal, the ckan theming and, underexposed summer edition. c) A researcher who is going to interview me about the work doing at the UX team. d) Firefox monthly meeting. e) Gus, a usability researcher connected via Gaba. 3) Designing donate.tpo.org/cryptocurrencies. 4) Reviewing Caroline Sinders scripts for user research. 5) Pari is running user research in India. 6) Pilar is traveling to India to run user research. 7) Emmapeel is traveling to Indonesia to run user research. 8) Designing covers for the Outreach Material. 9) Reviewing OONI Country pages redesign. Nick: 1) 0.4.1.x merge window opens tomorrow 2) New 0.4.0.x and 0.3.5.x likely around the end of the month 3) Team still recovering from Brussels. We have to be careful how much travel we do! Gaba: 1) network team: a) convert roadmap into the kanban board b) started looking at the onion services project (sponsor 27) 2) ooni: a) reviewing applications to the backend developer position & looking for a fair way to evaluate them Mike: 1) Getting into Sponsor2 work for 0.4.1; it is starting to balloon up Steph: 1) created comms 2019 roadmap from the strategy, met with roger and isa to finish 2) final website and illos reviews 3) press inquiries and interview coordination 4) preparing def con vendor application 5) chatting about mozilla's internet health report on tuesday 6) meetup and event promotions 7) ED tea time arrangements Sarah: 1) adding missing monthly gifts from Paypal into Civi to reconcile all of the different systems 2) planning additions/modifications to the Fundraising Team and Sponsors wiki 3) prep for DRL SOIs due next month 4) looking for major donors to sponsor an Outreachy intern 5) planning for cryptocurrency page and outreach when we launch Sue: 1) Worked on getting, hopefully, final documentation to auditors 2) Working on responses to findings for the auditors 3) Normal Accounting stuff, payroll, disbursements, allocations and invoicing Isabela: 1) reviewing auditors findings docs 2) working on confirming hotel and kicking off some of the dev meeting organizing 3) personnel stuff 4) syncs w/ PEP, NYU - meeting steph and Roger 5) vegas team availability to be part of execution team of dev meeting 6) I will be offline for 2 weeks in November [yesterday i had it down as oct, is it nov now? -steph] Pili: 1) Ran Community Team Vision Brainstorming 2) Browser Roadmap Kanban maintenance 3) India prep 4) Reviewing Browser developer CVs 5) Write ups for Tor Browser and Community Vision Brainstorming 6) I will be mainly afk in India next week for S9 travel Karsten: 1) Working on a second draft of the user-perceived performance analysis based on existing OnionPerf data. Erin: 1) hr stuff

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Anti-Censorship Team Meeting Notes, 14 Feb 2019
by Alexander Færøy 14 Feb '19

14 Feb '19

Hello. The weekly anti-censorship team meeting took place earlier today. The IRC log of the meeting can be found at http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2019/tor-meeting.2019-02-14-19.58.log… We had three discussion topics for the meeting this week, but only managed to do two of them before we ran out of time: - How do we kick off the NGO discussion and what do we want to do there: We need to get some help with (among other) how to test for connectivity issues with bridges from different locations in the world. We decided to do a discussion on IRC before our next anti-censorship team meeting and discuss this through about our next steps. - Snowflake Protocol discussion: cohosh and ahf presented some notes from the Brussels network-team meeting about some possible enhancements to the Snowflake protocols between bridge and broker as well as proxy and broker. We would like to be able to collect some usage metrics from the proxies to see which locations people are successfully connecting from (like Tor's GeoIP summaries in relay descriptors). We had a lot of items on this list and we agreed that we cannot do all of them, but we should do some of them to the point where the protocol becomes more extensible in the future. Ensuring that the system doesn't go down when the broker goes down was also something we want to look into (availability of the entire system). The aforementioned protocol notes are available at https://github.com/ahf/snowflake-notes/blob/master/Protocol.markdown We postponed the following item to next week: - Pluggable Transport Gathering before our next Tor Meeting. Please read the meeting IRC minutes if you want to read the full discussion that took place. Next meeting is going to take place in #tor-meeting on OFTC at the 22nd of February at 20:00 UTC. See you there! Weekly Check-Ins: Gaba: Last week (02/07): - digitalize roadmap from hackweek This week (02/14): - finally go through kat's report and add comments dgoulet: This week: - Going over BridgeDB infrastructure with sysrqb. - Got commit access to bridgedb.git and ssh access to the machine where it is running. - Documenting everything in the process! ahf: Last week (2019/02/07): - Relax a bit after our meeting. - Follow up on everything from the meeting: look at roadmapped tickets, etc. - Continue with architecture document. - Figure out where we should begin with Snowflake: code reviews, repositories, etc. - Do the goptlibext library after discussing with dcf on #28940 This week (2019/02/14): - Sounds like we'll get the Gitlab instance very soon now. - Uploaded the goptlibext library to https://github.com/ahf/goptlibext/ and said OK to DCF's Log matches for gotptlib in 28940. - Brainstorm with cohosh about the Snowflake protocol: https://github.com/ahf/snowflake-notes/blob/master/Protocol.markdown - Broker architecture draft document at https://github.com/ahf/snowflake-notes/blob/master/Broker.markdown (these two will move off GH as soon as we have the GL) - Lots of reviews in the network team backlog due to us being AFK to Brussels To do: - Look at Kat's report #2 kat5: Last week (Feb 4, 2019): - going over new tickets (since Brussels) to figure out what to integrate into report 2 This week (Feb 11, 2019): - More work on new tickets (since Brussels) for report 2 - great input from cohosh on some tickets! - waiting for some great input from sysrqb :-) - had hoped to be finished with the Snowflake tickets, at least, but I'm not - will check in what I have before I go away Next week (Feb 18, 2019): - away (at FC) - will be working part of the time that I'm away Help with: - private bridge guide for NGOs (hold off until we figure out a strategy for making set-up easy) - not sure where this is nor what should heppen next dcf: 2019-02-14 Last week: - snowflake sysadmin (#29308, thanks cohosh) - patch for LOG support in goptlib (#28940, thanks ahf) - port of meek-http-helper to WebExtension, no domain fronting or proxy support yet (https://bugs.torproject.org/29347#comment:9 ) - opened ticket for meek with uTLS in Tor Browser (#29430) This week: - domain fronting and proxy support for meek-http-helper WebExtension Help with: cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2019-02-14 Last week (planned): - Come up with a definite plan for obfs4 reachability tests - Continue getting up to speed on snowflake - Start on Snowflake tasks Last week (actual): - started on Snowflake protocol specification design with ahf - started putting together a local networked test environment for snowflake - some reviews and getting familiar with snowflake code Next week (plan): - Continue work on Snowflake protocol specification - Finish networked test environment and get other people to test it out - read some papers suggested by phw RE obfs4 reachability in China to come up with testing plan catalyst: week of 2019-02-04 (2019-W06) (planned): - recovery from travel - maybe look at #28925 some more week of 2019-02-04 (2019-W06) (actual): - recovery from travel - mostly no sponsor19 stuff week of 2019-02-11 (2019-W07) (planned): - reviews - #28925 Cheers, Alex. -- Alexander Færøy

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Tor Brand Study
by Stephanie A. Whited 12 Feb '19

12 Feb '19

Hi Tor, A couple months ago, we worked with an organization called The Berkeley Group who conducted a study on Tor's brand and perception and made recommendations on how we can improve. They interviewed a few of us, ran surveys, and held a couple of focus groups to get their findings. There's a lot of interesting info about what current and potential users think of Tor and how we can improve our communications to them (preview attached). We will be incorporating some of their suggestions into our communications strategy this year. You can take a look at their midpoint presentation to us and final deliverable here: https://storm.torproject.org/shared/7b2s7stZR_-MwkfrRXIXAcHi6GpYPjPutF3ukt2… Happy perusing! Best, Steph -- Stephanie A. Whited Communications Director The Tor Project IRC: stephw PGP Key ID: 39A876AD <https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x6D6B72C339A876AD>

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January 2019 in sysadmin land
by Linus Nordberg 12 Feb '19

12 Feb '19

Hi Tor, Here's what January looked like to the sysadmin team. # What's been done - Dealt with an unusual high frequency of hardware issues on physical machines. - Held a two days meeting in Brussels, just before FOSDEM, where a lot of work got done. Minutes from the meeting can be found at [minutes]. - Silvia Puglisi (hiro) has joined the sysadmin team! - The ordinary resolving of requests and bug reports, as can be followed better over at [tickets]. [minutes] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2019BrusselsAdmi… https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/report/44 # Upcoming new things - Migration of CiviCRM to new VM's. - New VM for an evaluation of GitLab. - Continue onboarding hiro. # Fact of the month We use icinga for checking the status of the systems we're running. From the 42 types of checks we have defined, each system ends up with a catalogue of 237 unique checks. Many of these checks are for a certain service, like checking that backup files on the backup storage system are current. Tor sysadmins and service admins can be notified of problems in a variety of ways -- f.ex. on a web page, by email or through an IRC bot.

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Tor Browser team meeting notes, 11 Feb 2019
by Georg Koppen 12 Feb '19

12 Feb '19

Hi all! We had another weekly Tor Browser team meeting yesterday in #tor-meeting2. The IRC log can be found at: And the notes from our pad are copied below for your convenience: Monday February 11, 2019 Discusion: - vision meeting retrospective? https://storm.torproject.org/shared/VzVdyS_d0Qxwr0o-ewcRyYcjiviT31bO91dz_Vu… - Tor Browser as a full browser brainstorm - hiring with folks from other teams involved? [GeKo: We could think about including folks from other teams in later stages of the hiring process] GeKo: Last week: - begin of the month team admin stuff (mcs/brade: I realized we had #27484 and #27486 as items on the roadmap. What do you think about those two for 8.5? At least the latter seems to be low-hanging fruit at first glance reply from mcs: More discussion is needed for #27484; maybe the UX team can test and get some feedback. I added #27486 to our TODO list) - reviews (#29120, #29183, #29238, #29378, #28885, #29180, #29349, #29325, backport of #29185 and friends to maint-8.0 branch) - wrote a patch for x86 Android support (up for review in #27210) - wrote a patch for aarch64 support (seems to compile fine; we have missing aarch64 support for Orbot, though, see: #28119) - wrote a patch for Rust support for Tor in Windows nightly builds (#25849) - wrote patch for #29453 - worked on the NSIS reproducibility issue (#29185), but no easy fix is in sight; need to see NSIS in action to understand what is wrong - vision meeting prep and follow-ups - thought a bit more about the patch for our mingw-w64-clang toolchain, need to do at least another revision once we are in better shape with Tor Browser 8.5 for Android - TBA-a3 planning and work (Torbutton localization which ties into #10760 + mobile branding #28622) - release prep This week: - release prep - TBA-a3 work - doing the vacation thing mcs and brade: Last week: - Created a patch for #29328 (account for tor 0.4.0.x's revised bootstrap status reporting). - Revised patch for #28885 (notify users that update is downloading). - Helped a little with #29347 (Rewrite meek-http-helper as a WebExtension). - Looked at #29045 (ask tor to leave dormant mode). - Filed #29357 for the Network Team to work on (add an ActiveOnStartup config option) - Worked on #28044 (Integrate Tor Launcher into tor-browser). - Received and responded to helpful feedback from intrigeri. - Code reviews. - Participated in Tor Browser Vision meeting. This week/soon: - #28044 (Integrate Tor Launcher into tor-browser). - #27486 (Onboarding: "Visit an Onion" creates an "about:blank" loading page) - Spend more time looking at the Firefox updater security audit report. tjr - Wrote the tor browser as a full browser brainstorm above - Fixed some tough tests for letterboxing. Hope to land it in Nightly this week. That would be really cool. - For those curious: making a colored margin, or a striped or otherwise non-white margin is not easy :) So it's white. - I will go on leave around Mar 11 until possibly late May - Talked to Jacek about accessibility (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1520177 ), got a comparison file. No further movement - Organization for the monthly Mozilla/Tor meeting tomorrow! - confirmed gk's mingwclang builds run fine for me - read cypherpunks comments about the toolchain. While I agree with most of them, they all seem to be very non-essential changes; and I am more enthusiastic to work on more impactful work. - this and next few weeks: aside from letterboxing, mostly non-Tor stuff unless someone wants/needs something in particular [GeKo: I think it would be helpful to put the -g -gcodeview behind --enable-debug-symbols or something. We exclude that for the toolchain already][tjr: The correct incantation to avoid the debug flags should be --disable-debug --enable-debug-symbols=""] pospeselr: Last week: - #26568 (security settings) UI work, plumbed through torbutton settings to new about:preferences and partially in the door-hanger - alpha release build This week: - finish functionality/plumbing work for #25658, pipe in torbutton strings - macOS build for antonela and pili's india trip (by Wednesday) - uplift #29120 sisbell: Last week: - Added patches for tor-android-service - 29312 TBB for TOPL - working - requires some minor patches for versions This Week: - 29313 - TBB for tor-android-service - TBB with Orbot UI (whatever is currently in build but this should be compatible with new UI version) - By end of week I expect to have full TBB generated apk ready for testing/review sysrqb: Last week: TBA Bootstrapping (#28329) Reviewing TOPL patches This week: Push #28329 branch for review (today) Squeeze in any a3 patches, if possible TBA-a3 prep igt0: Last week: - Allowed the tor circuit for TBA to use strings from torbutton(part of the #28580) - TBB/TBA release prep meeting - Tried to follow the TOPL reviews/conversation This week: - More integration and edge case fixes for #28580 boklm: Last week: - made patches for: - #29325 (Non-Android Tor Browser nightly builds are broken when compiling obfs4) - #29183 (We are using Linux i686 langpacks in the Linux x86_64 builds) - #29378 (Remove 83.212.101.3 from default bridges) - backported #29158, #29181, #29235 patches to maint-8.0 - worked on #26323 (Build 32bit Linux bundles on 64bit systems) This week: - help with new releases - try to finish patch for #26323 (Build 32bit Linux bundles on 64bit systems) - continue work on testsuite - fix nightly builds emails - some reviews pili: Last week: - Tying up GSoC loose ends and submission - Preparing for Tor Browser vision brainstorm This week: - Follow up from vision brainstorm - India prep - I'll be in India next week so I'll miss the meeting but will be available via email and IRC - will need a custom build with security settings:) anto: Last week: - Prepared usability testing for India This week: - Support what is needed for TBA release - Check TB build for user testing - Added #27484 for ux discussion Georg

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tor-project February 2019