tor-project February 2020

tor-project@lists.torproject.org

23 participants
48 discussions

Tor Talk - NetDev 0x14, March 17th-20th 2020
by David Goulet 04 Feb '20

04 Feb '20

Greetings! Some good news. Rob Jansen and I have submitted a talk to NetDev 0x14 (https://netdevconf.info/0x14/) which has been accepted! https://netdevconf.info/0x14/session.html?talk-reducing-kernel-queuing-dela… https://twitter.com/netdev01/status/1224690477926055936 The conference white paper is still not publicly available but will be by the time the conference starts on March 17th 2020. Come see us in Vancouver! It is _just_ before the IETF meeting starting on the 21st ;). Cheers! David -- Bbbgg4u8CrNOEpbT98JqIsuQesh4Pr607DGrz6pE1F8=

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Poll for the next Global South meeting
by cy63113 04 Feb '20

04 Feb '20

[EN] Hi Tor friends, last week we had very few people attending our monthly Global South meeting. So I decided to open a poll to decide which day is best for our next meeting. Please respond by February 15th. https://framadate.org/tor-global-south Cheers, [ES] Hola amigos de Tor, En la semana pasada tuvimos muy pocos participantes en nuestro encuentro mensual del Global South. Asi que decidi abrir una votación para que podamos encontrar un mejor dia para el proximo encuentro. Les pido el favor de contestar hasta el dia 15 de febrero https://framadate.org/tor-global-south <https://framadate.org/tor-global-south> Abrazos, [PT-BR] Olá amigs do Tor, Na semana passada, tivemos muito poucas pessoas participando da reunião mensal do Global South. Por isso, decidi abrir uma votação para saber qual dia vocês acham melhor para a nossa próxima reunião. Por favor, responda até 15 de fevereiro. https://framadate.org/tor-global-south <https://framadate.org/tor-global-south> Abraços, -- Cybelle DC8F 1F4C 9167 049F 7AA1 0BD6 2FB3 B0C9 F369 34C5 https://keybase.io/cy63113 @cyb3113

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Network health meeting notes, 3 Feb 2020
by Georg Koppen 04 Feb '20

04 Feb '20

Hello! Yesterday, we held our first weekly meeting related to network health. For those of you who missed it (or just wanted to recap the meeting), the IRC log can be found on: http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2020/tor-meeting.2020-02-03-18.59.log… Here comes what we were up to in the previous week(s) and what we plan to work on in the coming week: GeKo: Last week: * mostly away at the Mozilla All hands meeting * worked a bit on the DNS exit failure ticket (#32864) * getting up to speed on DocTor to help with #33067 * team planning This week: * work more on #32864 to refine test based on feeback (https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/network-health/2020-January/000456.h…) * fix #33067 * get up to speed on sbws to be able to help with code reviews dgoulet: Last week(s): * Moved a bunch of code to dip.tpo related to health team. This week: * The usual bad-relays reject. Gus: Last week: * Talked with RotationMatrix about GoodBad ISPs new page in community portal. We were thinking to export data from metrics and work in a snapshot to suggest good ISPs. (We -- network health -- should probably discuss that in another meeting) This week: * Coming back from FOSDEM * We had a Tor meetup this saturday in FOSDEM, we didn't have too many people running relays, but the room was full. * Organizing a meetup with relay operators in Berlin, Germany on Thursday (announcing soon) * Working on Tor Legal FAQ with Cleopatra: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32934 Gaba (Feb 3): Last week: * fosdem * meeting about sbws's roadmap This week: * help with sbws's proposal for funding During the week we plan to finish our roadmapping efforts (the pad for that moved[1]) so we can discuss the result at the next weekly meeting and make changes where we think that's necessary. Georg [1] https://pad.riseup.net/redirect#https%3A//pad.riseup.net/p/network-health-t…

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Anti-censorship team monthly report: January 2020
by Philipp Winter 03 Feb '20

03 Feb '20

Hi all, Here's what the anti-censorship team has been up to in January 2020: Snowflake ========= * Debugged and wrote a Tor Browser patch to fix throughput issues with Snowflake on Windows. <https://bugs.torproject.org/32870> <https://bugs.torproject.org/31971> * Started implementing a feature for proxies to conduct throughput tests before polling. <https://bugs.torproject.org/32711> * Continued Snowflake network health measurements and analysis. <https://bugs.torproject.org/32545> * David built a prototype that integrates Turbo Tunnel in Snowflake. Take a look at his detailed technical summary: <https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/anti-censorship-team/2020-February/0…> GetTor ====== * Fixed a bug in GetTor's email responder. <https://bugs.torproject.org/32906> * Got GetTor's Gitlab distributor back up and running. <https://bugs.torproject.org/32711> * Moved GetTor's Github repository and got it up and running. <https://bugs.torproject.org/32977> * Modified GetTor to hand out localized binaries. <https://bugs.torproject.org/33002> * Fixed up GetTor's tests to run locally. <https://bugs.torproject.org/33004> * Filed a ticket on GetTor's problematic use of rate limiting. <https://bugs.torproject.org/33123> BridgeDB ======== * Damian generously spent a lot of time and effort getting BridgeDB very close to supporting Python 3. A handful of issues remain, but the bulk of the code base now support Python 3. <https://bugs.torproject.org/30946> * Started working on a patch that allows BridgeDB to test its bridges using bridgestrap. The idea is that broken bridges are logged (allowing us to inform the operator) and aren't handed out to users. <https://bugs.torproject.org/31874> * Filed a ticket to display BridgeDB's distribution bucket for a bridge on Relay Search. <https://bugs.torproject.org/33008> * Improved BridgeDB's CAPTCHAs. We modified gimp-captcha (the script that BridgeDB uses to generate CAPTCHAs) to make the CAPTCHAs easier to solve. Our BridgeDB usage metrics reveal that the success rate of our users increased from ~58% to ~87% after we deployed the new CAPTCHAs. Take a look at the following comment for a more in-depth analysis: <https://bugs.torproject.org/24607#comment:13> It's still not perfect but it's a step forward. <https://bugs.torproject.org/24607> Bridges ======= * Coordinated the set up of a new default bridge in Denmark. The bridge speaks both IPv4 and IPv6. Thanks to Toke Høiland-Jørgensen for running this new default bridge! <https://bugs.torproject.org/32891> * We did a retrospective analysis of our bridge campaign from September 2019. In particular, we tested how many bridges were still online (61%) and we sent an email to all operators. We thanked the ones who are still running a bridge and we asked the ones whose bridge vanished what went wrong. <https://bugs.torproject.org/33007> Outreach ======== * Philipp gave a talk at FH Hagenberg on the Tor network and censorship resistance: <https://www.fh-ooe.at/campus-hagenberg/die-fakultaet/aktuelles/news/news/in…> Approximately 80-100 people attended -- mostly students but also a handful of faculty members and visitors. Almost all have heard of Tor before and most have used it in the past. There were plenty of questions at the end, and the event stopped before Philipp was able to answer them all. All Tor stickers were gone almost instantly! Miscellaneous ============= * Added go.mod and go.sum to bridgestrap. <https://dip.torproject.org/phw/bridgestrap/commit/0e33599d6e6d1c0a809d5c59c…> * Coordinated with OONI on their new Tor test and its user interface. <https://github.com/ooni/backend/issues/305> <https://github.com/ooni/probe/issues/967> * Made two minor fixes to obfs4portscan (the service behind <https://bridges.torproject.org/scan/>): 1. Made it clear that the service supports IPv6 and expects IPv6 addresses in square bracket notation. 2. Made the service use GET instead of POST requests, to make it easier to hand people clickable links for their bridge. * We roadmapped the following three months, ranging from February to April 2020. Check out our team's wiki page for the goals of this roadmapping period: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/AntiCensorshipTeam#…> * Lots of work on an NSF "Transition to Practice" grant we have been working on.

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minutes from the sysadmin meeting
by Antoine Beaupré 03 Feb '20

03 Feb '20

Hi everyone! Here are the usual minutes from the last sysadmin meeting. # Roll call: who's there and emergencies anarcat, gaba, hiro, linus and weasel present # What has everyone been up to ## anarcat * worked on evaluating automated install solutions since we'd possibly have to setup multiple machines if the donation comes through * setup new ganeti node in the cluster, fsn-node-03, [#32937][] * dealt with disk problems with said ganeti node [#33098][] * switched our install process to setup-storage(8) to standardize disk formatting in our install automation work [#31239][] * decom'd a ARM build box that was having trouble at scaleway [#33001][], future of other scaleway boxes uncertain, delegated to weasel * looked at the test Discourse instance hiro setup * new RT queue ("training") for the community folks [#32981][] * upgraded meronense to buster [#32998][] surprisingly tricky * started evaluating the remaining work for the buster upgrade and contacting teams * established first draft of a [sysadmin roadmap][] with hiro and gaba * worked on a draft "support policy" with hiro [#31243][] * deployed (locally) a [Trac batch client][] to create tickets for said roadmap * sent and received feedback requests * other daily upkeed included scaleway/ARM boxes problems, disk usage warnings, security upgrades, code reviews, RT queue config and debug [#32981][], package install [#33068][], proper headings in wiki [#32985][], ticket review, access control (irl in [#32999][], old role in [#32787][], key problems), logging issues on archive-01 [#32827][], cleanup old rc.local cruft [#33015][], puppet code review [#33027][] [#33027]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33027 [#33015]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33015 [#32827]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32827 [#32787]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32787 [#32999]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32999 [#32985]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32985 [#33068]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33068 [#32998]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32998 [#32981]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32981 [#33001]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33001 [#33098]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33098 [#32937]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32937 [Trac batch client]: https://help.torproject.org/tsa/howto/trac/ [sysadmin roadmap]: https://help.torproject.org/tsa/roadmap/2020/ ## hiro * Run system updates (probably twice) * Documenting install process workflow visually on [#32902][] * Handled request from GR [#32862][]) * Worked on prometheus blackbox exporter [#33027][] * Looked at the test Discourse instance * Talked to discourse people about using discourse for our blog comments * Preparing to migrate the blog to static [#33115][] * worked on a draft "support policy" with anarcat [#31243][] * working on a draft policy regarding services [#33108][] [#33108]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33108 [#33115]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33115 [#32862]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32862 [#32902]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32902 ## weasel * build-arm-10 is now building arm64 binaries. We build arm32 binaries on the scaleway host in paris still. # What we're up to next Note that we're adopting a roadmap in this meeting which should be merged with this step, once we have agreed on the process. So this step might change in the next meetings, but let's keep it this way for now. ## anarcat I pivoting towards stabilisation work and postponed all R&D and other tweaks. New: * new gnt-fsn node (fsn-node-04) -118EUR=+40EUR [#33081][] * unifolium decom (after storm), 5 VMs to migrate, [#33085][] +72EUR=+158EUR * buster upgrade 70% done: 53 buster (+5), 23 stretch (-5) * automate upgrades: enable unattended-upgrades fleet-wide [#31957][] [#33085]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33085 [#33081]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33081 Continued: * install automation tests and refactoring [#31239][] * SLA discussion (see below, [#31243][]) [#31243]: https://bugs.torproject.org/31243 [#32462]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32462 [#32351]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32351 [#31239]: https://bugs.torproject.org/31239 [#29387]: https://bugs.torproject.org/29387 Postponed: * kvm4 decom [#32802][] * varnish -> nginx conversion [#32462][] * review cipher suites [#32351][] * publish our puppet source code [#29387][] * followup on SVN shutdown, only corp missing [#17202][] * audit of the other installers for ping/ACL issue [#31781][] * email services R&D [#30608][] * send root@ emails to RT [#31242][] * continue prometheus module merges [#32802]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33082 [#17202]: https://bugs.torproject.org/17202 [#31781]: https://bugs.torproject.org/31781 [#30608]: https://bugs.torproject.org/30608 [#31242]: https://bugs.torproject.org/31242 ## Hiro * storm shutdown [#32390][] * enable needrestart fleet-wide [#31957][] * review website build errors [#32996][] * migrate gitlab-01 to a new VM (gitlab-02) and use the omnibus package instead of ansible [#32949][] * migrate CRM machines to gnt and test with Giant Rabbit [#32198][] * prometheus blackbox exporter [#33027][] [#32390]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32390 [#32198]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32198 [#32949]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32949 [#32996]: https://bugs.torproject.org/32996 [#31957]: https://bugs.torproject.org/31957 # Roadmap review Review the roadmap and estimates. We agreed to use trac for roadmapping for february and march but keep the wiki for soft estimates and longer-term goals for now, until we know what happens with gitlab and so on. Useful references: * temporal pad where we are sorting out roadmap: https://pad.riseup.net/p/CYOUx21kpxLL_5Eui61J-tpa-roadmap-2020 * tickets marked for february and march: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/SysadminTeam # TPA-RFC-1: RFC process One of the interesting takeaways I got from reading the [guide to distributed teams][] was the idea of using [technical RFCs as a management tool][]. [guide to distributed teams]: https://increment.com/teams/a-guide-to-distributed-teams/ [technical RFCs as a management tool]: https://buriti.ca/6-lessons-i-learned-while-implementing-technical-rfcs-as-… They propose using a formal proposal process for complex questions that: * might impact more than one system * define a contract between clients or other team members * add or replace tools or languages to the stack * build or rewrite something from scratch They propose the process as a proposal with minimum of two days and a maximum of a week discussion delay. In the team this could take many forms, but what I would suggest would be a text proposal that would be a (currently Trac) ticket with a special tag, which would also be explicitely forwarded to the "mailing list" (currently tpa alias) with the `RFC` subject to outline it. Examples of ideas relevant for process: * replacing Munin with grafana and prometheus [#29681][] * setting defaut locale to C.UTF-8 [#33042][] * using Ganeti as a clustering solution * using setup-storage as a disk formatting system * setting up a loghost * switching from syslog-ng to rsyslog [#33042]: https://bugs.torproject.org/33042 [#29681]: https://bugs.torproject.org/29681 Counter examples: * setting up a new Ganeti node (part of the roadmap) * performing security updates (routine) * picking a different machine for the new ganeti node (process wasn't documented explicitely, we accept honest mistake) The idea behind this process would be to include people for major changes so that we don't get into a "hey wait we did what?" situation later. It would also allow some decisions to be moved outside of meetings and quicker decisions. But we also understand that people can make mistakes and might improvise sometimes, especially if something is not well documented or established as a process in the documentation. We already have the possibility of doing such changes right now, but it's unclear how that process works or if it works at all. This is therefore a formalization of this process. If we agree on this idea, anarcat will draft a first meta-RFC documenting this formally in trac and we'd adopt it using itself, bootstrapping the process. We agree on the idea, although there are concerns about having too much text to read through from some people. The first RFC documenting the process will be submitted for discussion this week. # TPA-RFC-2: support policies A *second* RFC would be a formalization of our support policy, as per: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/31243#comment:4 Postponed to the RFC process. # Other discussions No other discussions, although we worked more on the roadmap after the meeting, reassigning tasks, evaluating the monthly capacity, and estimating tasks. # Next meeting March 2nd, same time, 1500UTC (which is 1600CET and 1000EST). # Metrics of the month * hosts in Puppet: 77, LDAP: 80, Prometheus exporters: 124 * number of apache servers monitored: 32, hits per second: 158 * number of nginx servers: 2, hits per second: 2, hit ratio: 0.88 * number of self-hosted nameservers: 5, mail servers: 10 * pending upgrades: 110, reboots: 0 * average load: 0.34, memory available: 328.66 GiB/1021.56 GiB, running processes: 404 * bytes sent: 160.29 MB/s, received: 101.79 MB/s * completion time of stretch major upgrades: 2020-06-06 -- Antoine Beaupré torproject.org system administration

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January 2020 User Feedback Report
by Enjeck Cleopatra 03 Feb '20

03 Feb '20

Hello! Welcome to the *January 2020 user feedback report!* Hope the new year has been exciting so far :D TL;DR: There is some user feedback that we haven't seen in previous months. Users have gotten acquainted with the letterboxing feature and have the necessary Windows dlls, so there are lesser reports on this. - Reddit has some commonly-seen questions, as well as relatively new questions. There are mostly questions about how to download Tor, Tor Browser for Android, letterboxing, targeted ads while using Tor and problems with Orbot. ## Common questions on Frontdesk - How do I download/install Tor Browser? - Why am I getting captcha/verification issues? - Why does Tor Browser not launch? - How do I fix "Tor exited unexpectedly" error? - Why can't I access some websites on TB? - Why can't I donate with Tor Browser - How to fix "This app can't run on your PC.... " error - How do I fix "Something went wrong. Tor is not working in this browser" error? ## Most common questions of Reddit (/r/TOR) - How do I download Tor? - Why does Orbot not work/ Orbot stuck at "Orbot is starting"? - How do I remove the gray bars? - Tor for Android? - Should I install add-ons/extensions? - How do I fix tab crashes? - How to save browsing history in TBA? - Should I use (certain) extensions/add-ons with TB? - Beginner guide to Tor? - Why do I still get targeted ads when using Tor? ## TBA Reviews & Feedback on Google Play Store The average review score has risen from *4.2 stars* to *4.3 stars*. Below are some common problems mentioned in the by users in Google Play reviews: - Can't save/download photos or videos - Can't access some onion links/ websites. - Crashes all the time/force stops. - Browsing speed is very slow. - "Proxy server is refusing connections" error. - TBA needs an adblocker ## Most common stack exchange tags anonymity: 6 this month security: 6 this month onion-routing: 5 this month relays: 5 this month exit-relays: 5 this month hidden-services: 5 this month tor-browser-bundle: 4 this month proxy: 4 this month android: 4 this month ## Notable bugs, fixes, & issues mentioned by users - Blog comment [1] - Tor doesn't works within China without upstream proxy. - Blog comment [2] - Click-to-play videos don't work on the Tor Project blog in Safer mode. A ticket has been created at [3] - OPEN. - #32997 [4] - Captcha error on bridges.torproject.org - CLOSED as duplicate. - #33017 [5] - Tor-Browser: NoScript configuration is not reset after New Identity - OPEN. - #32877 [6] - Sandbox crash when reloading log configuration - CLOSED as duplicate. ## Annotations 1. https://blog.torproject.org/comment/286280#comment-286280 2. https://blog.torproject.org/comment/286439#comment-286439 3. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/33000 4. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32997 5. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/33017 6. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32877

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December 2019 User Feedback Report
by Enjeck Cleopatra 03 Feb '20

03 Feb '20

Hey, team! Welcome to the *December 2019 user feedback report!* Happy New Year. TL;DR: There didn't seem to be much user feedback that we haven't seen in previous months. Since the update to Tor Browser 9.0, some users were still confused with the letterboxing feature and there were reports of missing dlls on Windows. - Reddit is mostly buzzing with the same questions we usually see. I'm also seeing questions about letterboxing, ISP block circumvention, proxy server errors, specifying exit nodes and getting Tor for Mac and iOS. ## Common questions on Frontdesk - Why can't download Tor Browser / download button not working. - Why can't I connect to Tor Browser? - How to fix missing dll files on Windows? - Why can't I access some websites on TB? - How to circumvent internet ban in Iran/ bridges for Iran users? - Is TB infected with malware/ why does my antivirus pop up a warning? - How long does it take to ship donation gifts? ## Most common questions of Reddit (/r/TOR) - Tor Browser for iOS/iPhones? - What are the borders in Tor Browser / how to remove them? - Can my ISP see what I do on Tor Browser/ bypassing ISP blocks/throttling? - How to specify exit nodes? - Do I need both Tor for Android and Orbot? ## TBA Reviews & Feedback on Google Play Store The average review score is still at *4.2 stars*. Below are some common problems mentioned in the by users in Google Play reviews: - The proxy server is refusing connections. - Crashes all the time / force stops. - Browsing speed is extremely slow . - Can't download any image - Some websites don't work/ Onion links don't work. - Why does TBA not block ads? - Need to donate to use app (It appears the EOY banner makes some users think they must donate to use the app). - How to import and sync bookmarks. - Why doesn't TBA have an adblocker? ## Most common stack exchange tags tor-browser-bundle: 10 this month hidden-services: 7 this month configuration: 4 this month directory: 3 this month windows: 3 this month server: 3 this month ## Notable bugs, fixes, & issues mentioned by users - Blog comment [1] - Difficulty verifying Tor Browser signature on Android. This could be addressed while working on [8]. - Blog comment [2] - Pictures not loading on websites. This problem was fixed by [9] - CLOSED. - #32847 [3] - Tor crashes when quitting Tor Browser nightly on macOS - OPEN. - #32693 [4] - TBB Android: startup crash when opened from external link - CLOSED as duplicate. - #32733 [5] - "Find" feature leaks information between Tor Browser and regular Firefox on macOS 10.15.1 - CLOSED as duplicate. - #32857 [6] - File parts are being automatically downloaded to /tmp - OPEN. - #32654 [7] - Torbrowser overrides user disabling tor proxy after restart - OPEN. ## Annotations 1. https://blog.torproject.org/comment/285898#comment-285898 2. https://blog.torproject.org/comment/285810#comment-285810 3. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32847 4. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32693 5. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32733 6. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32857 7. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32654 8. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/31296 9. https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32238

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January 2020 report for the Network Health team
by Georg Koppen 03 Feb '20

03 Feb '20

Hello! We were excited to finally kick off the network health team in January 2020. It's a long overdue effort to complement our performance and scalability work and coordinate a lot of other network health related tasks. Check out our new team page[1] for more details about the general topics we work on. We were busy with getting our team work up to speed. We had a first kick-off meeting[2] and have weekly team meetings[3] from now on to coordinate our tasks. We started to work on our roadmap for the coming weeks and months which we hope to finish this week. Even though the month was work-wise shorter than usual (some folks took a holiday at the begin of 2020 and were last week at the Mozilla All Hands meeting) there was not just work for setting up team processes to do last month but code related tasks, too. We started to move all our network health projects to our Gitlab instance[4], a process that will continue this month. Furthermore, we started to investigate and solve actual issues, ranging from exit nodes failing to resolve DNS[5] to working with the directory authorities to resolve the ongoing high load on them.[6] For February we plan to further work on the previously mentioned tickets[5][6] and follow-up with tasks from our roadmap. Georg [1] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/NetworkHealthTeam [2] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2020-January/002677.html [3] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/network-health/2020-January/000455.h… [4] https://dip.torproject.org/torproject/network-health [5] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/32864 [6] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/33018

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tor-project February 2020