Hi!
For visibility in the broader community, I'm sending the priorities we have for 2022 and specific projects and tasks we are working on for this quarter. There are links where you can read more about the work that different teams at Tor are doing.
If you want to read about long term strategic goals for the Tor project organization, you can go to this wiki page: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/team#organization
# The Tor Project Priorities 2022
The Tor network Make the Tor network faster for users Get Arti to production level Improve bad relay tooling Support researchers for network experiments Improve monitoring and alerting for metrics services. Maintain a healthy relay operators community Increase adoption of onion services
Trainings and User Research in the global south Connect with censored users to improve censorship circumvention Research on Tor Browser new features and VPN concept Collaborate with other organizations in the Tor ecosystem
New Tor's "VPN" client Design safety criteria Define MVP for client Build the network engine for VPN solution Evaluate orbot and leap components and architecture Start working on UI
Tor Browser Implement feedback from users Improve automatic censorship detection during bootstrap Enable HTTPS-only mode Browser is under control (releases on schedule, automated tests pass)
Censorship Circumvention Implement new pluggable transport: Conjure & HTTPT Scale Snowflake Deploy improved bridge distribution system Monitor bridge health Censorship analysis and response to it
Infrastructure User support tools gets improved User support Documentation keep up to date Improve mail services Rebuild donate page Make it easier for translators to contribute
# Tor's TEAMS PRIORITIES FOR Q2 ----------------------------------
## Applications (Led by Richard. Board https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/applications/-/boards?label_name%5B...)
Implement Tor Browser UX changes that UX team is prioritizing from user research and feedback. Improve automatic censorship detection during bootstrapping in Tor Browser (desktop and Android). Evaluate orbot and leap for components and architecture. Design VPN safety criteria. HTTPS everywhere replacement. Go/Rust/Java dependency resolution: how to resolve dependencies ahead of time. Browser: Browser is under control Android Tor Browser releases are on schedule Android/Linux Tor Browser Automated tests are passing Survey the Browser ecosystem Integration: Begin understanding application integration/embedding Begin helping Network Team create easy-to-use Arti API Document required components for Android app integration
## Community (Led by Gus. Board https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/community/-/boards?label_name%5B%5D... and https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/onion-services/-/boards?label_name%...)
- assist network health team to maintain a healthy relay operators community - assist anti-censorship team on connecting with censored users to improve censorship circumvention - improve user support tools and documentation - lead trainings with communities in latinoamerica and east africa - look for spikes in tor usage and document process and resources available for it.
## Network Health (Led by Geko. Board https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/network-health/-/boards?label_name%...)
- s61 O2.1: Reduce the number of slow and extremely slow sessions for our users by developing and deploying load balancing improvements. - s61 O4.2: Find and fix performance-impacting issues and bugs discovered from monitoring and scanning. - Run bad-relay detection scripts - Bad-relay tooling improvements . - Fix any sbws critical issues that may come up - Support for researchers for network experiments - Consider tickets from other teams - Support OTF fellow on Relay Operators Community Health Research - Relay operator meetups. - Keep moderating and answering the tor-relays mailing list - Handle EOL relays - Support mentee from GSoC - Improve monitoring and alerting for metrics services. - Deploy a data store for metrics servicesn plan - Refactor sbws2 - Surprise 'anomaly analysis' on the network as needed - Think about metrics for the VPN client and their possible privacy issues/risks - Network anomaly detection: use current monitoring infrastructure to get some of the anomalies we can catch with it.
# Network (Led by Alex. Board https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/core/-/boards?label_name%5B%5D=Q2)
- S30 2.3.3 - Improve ability for bridgedb/authority to test bridges that only expose a pluggable transport. - S30 2.4.5 - Increase stability and resilience of bridge authority and bridgeDB by exploring and implementing decentralization of those services. - S61 O1.1: Optimize user-facing performance by tuning parameters of previously deployed Tor network improvements. - S61 O2: sbws with congestion control (Tor support to pin exits/Sos Rends, or just wait). - S61 O3.2: Implement promising performance improvements from evaluation in O3.1. - S61 O4.1: Improve and implement network health monitoring and scanning. - S96 O3.5: Integrate Tor+Snowflake/obfs4 capabilities into mobile applications. - S96 O3.5.1 OnionShare, iOS. - S96 O3.5.2: OnionShare, Android. - S96 O3.5.3: Save (Share-Archive-Verify-Encrypt) by OpenArchive . - S101 O3.2: Enhance Tor to act as a VPN service, rather than an opt-in proxy as it does today. - S119 Arti 1.0.0 - Try to reach "production quality".
# Anti-censorship (Lead by Meskio. Board https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/boards?label_name...)
- S30 O2.3.1 - Develop new and/or improve existing bridge selection and distribution strategies based on data collected about successful, effective methods per evaluation during O1.1. Conjure/Tapdance implementation - S96 O1.1.1 Prepare the Snowflake system for a surge in operators and users. - S96 O1.2: Increase the number of Snowflake bridges. - S96 O1.3: Implement bridges with pluggable transport HTTPT support. - S96 O1.4: Increase the number of active obfs4 and HTTPT bridges. - S96 O2.2: Deploy improved bridge distribution systems. - S96 Start Salmon based design - S96 O2.3: React and steer our response to censorship. - S96 O4.3: Modify GetTor so that it can distribute Tor Browser via messaging apps - S28 RACE project - S2125 Automatize bridge rotation for telegram. Continue translations of anti-censorship material into russian.
# UX (Led by Duncan. Board https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/boards?label_name%5B%5D=UX%20Team)
Roadmap in https://www.figma.com/file/n4ETd0cUkcfj3KyclJQnt3/UX-Team-Planning?node-id=0...
# TPA (Led by Anarcat. Board https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/tpa/-/boards )
Roadmap in https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/wikis/roadmap/2022
# WEB
It is a collaboration between TPA and Community teams. Board https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/web/-/boards
cheers, gaba (Tor's project manager)