Open call for proposals for improving the health of the Tor relay operator community and the Tor network
Hello,
We accomplished a number of things in our fight against malicious relays over the last 2 years[1]. One area we still need to focus on is strengthening our relay operator community. We're therefore currently collecting proposals from you or anyone else interested that could help to impove the health of the Tor relay operator community and, thus, provide our users a more trusted Tor network. We're accepting both new and old proposals, and we're open to any ideas you may have.
Although there are various proposals for improving the network and the Tor relay operator community, not all of them are being enforced at the moment. Nevertheless, some proposals that can help on increasing trust have been adopted by a meaningful fraction of the Tor community (e.g. providing valid contact information).
Another great example of such proposals is the "Expectations for Relay Operators"[2] document, where we guide relay operators to keep the Tor community and the network safe, healthy, and sustainable.
We'd love to hear your proposal on how to make it more difficult for attackers to run relays while keeping it easy for good contributors to join our network. You can share your proposals on this GitLab ticket[3] and our tor-relays mailing list. It is worth noting that at the moment we are only trying to map these proposals to get an overview over the various options available. We're not in the process of approving any of them.
If you have any experience, positive or negative, with Sybil-resistance and online abuse mitigation projects, we welcome your opinion as well.
Since in this debate we have seen previous bad actors trying to game this process and thus lowering the effectiveness of our defenses, the Tor team will take all measures to stop people acting in bad faith and enforce the Tor Code of Conduct and policies.
During the Tor Relay Operator Meetup on Saturday (March 4, 2023 - 19UTC), we will be discussing some of these proposals we've collected so far.
Thank you, Gus
[1] https://blog.torproject.org/malicious-relays-health-tor-network/ [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/team/-/wikis/Expectations-for-Re... [3] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/relays/-/issues/55
I've got some practical experience with how things are (not) handled by the Tor Project in this space which discourages involvement. The past has also shown that proposals in this area are not handled as tor proposals in the sense of [1].
We're not in the process of approving any of them.
a few questions:
- Can you describe the process these proposals will undergo after they got collected? - Who "approves" / rejects them? - Will it be a public and transparent process? - Who will be involved in the process? - How are relay operators included and to what extend?
- Will "approved" proposals be enforced? - How will they get enforced? New tor release or directory authority vote? - Will directory authorities be formally required to enforce "approved" proposals?
how to make it more difficult for attackers to run relays while keeping it easy for good contributors to join our network.
Will there be a longer problem statement and a description of your threat model?
adopted by a meaningful fraction of the Tor community (e.g. providing valid contact information).
Can you elaborate on how you define "valid" in this context?
kind regards, nusenu
[1] https://blog.torproject.org/tor-design-proposals-how-we-make-changes-our-pro... https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/proposals/001-process.txt
On Fri, Mar 03, 2023 at 11:26:07PM +0100, nusenu wrote:
I've got some practical experience with how things are (not) handled by the Tor Project in this space which discourages involvement. The past has also shown that proposals in this area are not handled as tor proposals in the sense of [1].
I believe some proposals about relay operators were not handled as people had different opinions about the Tor Community governance and its process. But, as I said in my previous email, after 2 years of Network Health team work, we have seen how much important is to build a trusted and healthy Tor Community.
We're not in the process of approving any of them.
a few questions:
Can you describe the process these proposals will undergo after they got collected?
Who "approves" / rejects them?
Will it be a public and transparent process?
Who will be involved in the process?
How are relay operators included and to what extend?
Will "approved" proposals be enforced?
How will they get enforced? New tor release or directory authority vote?
Will directory authorities be formally required to enforce "approved" proposals?
Great questions.
- Yes, it will be a public and transparent process; - Yes, it's a community-driven process;
As part of Tor's culture, we try to discuss proposals exhaustively until we reach a consensus. But, that said, there is a lack of formal process. Our goal is to build this governance process.
As part of the Tor Community, relay operators must be included, and that's why we're bootstrapping this process with this open call and inviting everyone to discuss this topic at the tor relay operators meetups. Are you joining us today?
how to make it more difficult for attackers to run relays while keeping it easy for good contributors to join our network.
Will there be a longer problem statement and a description of your threat model?
adopted by a meaningful fraction of the Tor community (e.g. providing valid contact information).
Can you elaborate on how you define "valid" in this context?
From the Expectations for relay operators:
"Be sure to set your ContactInfo to a working email address in case we need to reach you."
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/team/-/wikis/Expectations-for-Re...
cheers, Gus
[1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/relays/-/issues/18
kind regards, nusenu
[1] https://blog.torproject.org/tor-design-proposals-how-we-make-changes-our-pro... https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/proposals/001-process.txt
-- https://nusenu.github.io _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
gus:
On Fri, Mar 03, 2023 at 11:26:07PM +0100, nusenu wrote:
I've got some practical experience with how things are (not) handled by the Tor Project in this space which discourages involvement. The past has also shown that proposals in this area are not handled as tor proposals in the sense of [1].
I believe some proposals about relay operators were not handled as people had different opinions about the Tor Community governance and its process.
I actually had something else in mind (see geko's reply) but if you say that people had no clear understanding or different opinions about community governance than it might also be a good time to start clarifying it.
The point "clarify and describe the different involved roles" as mentioned on Saturday's relay meetup is a good start in this specific context and I agree that it will be useful.
We're not in the process of approving any of them.
a few questions:
Can you describe the process these proposals will undergo after they got collected?
Who "approves" / rejects them?
Will it be a public and transparent process?
Who will be involved in the process?
How are relay operators included and to what extend?
Will "approved" proposals be enforced?
How will they get enforced? New tor release or directory authority vote?
Will directory authorities be formally required to enforce "approved" proposals?
Great questions.
- Yes, it will be a public and transparent process;
When geko highlighted the sponsor in the meeting something along the lines of "sitting down with our sponsor and defining criterias" (if you haven't been at the meeting don't take this too serious) it made me wonder: If this is a public and transparent process, who is financing this work? (dubbed S112)
Our goal is to build this governance process.
Do you have a timeline for building and defining the governance process which probably should be the first thing to do so people can make up their minds on whether they like the process and want to be involved or not?
adopted by a meaningful fraction of the Tor community (e.g. providing valid contact information).
Can you elaborate on how you define "valid" in this context?
From the Expectations for relay operators:
"Be sure to set your ContactInfo to a working email address in case we need to reach you."
Since that document says nothing about verifying that string "hopefully valid" is in my opinion a more accurate description for it than "valid", no?
kind regards, nusenu
On Mon, Mar 06, 2023 at 07:49:47PM +0100, nusenu wrote:
gus:
On Fri, Mar 03, 2023 at 11:26:07PM +0100, nusenu wrote:
I've got some practical experience with how things are (not) handled by the Tor Project in this space which discourages involvement. The past has also shown that proposals in this area are not handled as tor proposals in the sense of [1].
I believe some proposals about relay operators were not handled as people had different opinions about the Tor Community governance and its process.
I actually had something else in mind (see geko's reply) but if you say that people had no clear understanding or different opinions about community governance than it might also be a good time to start clarifying it.
The point "clarify and describe the different involved roles" as mentioned on Saturday's relay meetup is a good start in this specific context and I agree that it will be useful.
We're not in the process of approving any of them.
a few questions:
Can you describe the process these proposals will undergo after they got collected?
Who "approves" / rejects them?
Will it be a public and transparent process?
Who will be involved in the process?
How are relay operators included and to what extend?
Will "approved" proposals be enforced?
How will they get enforced? New tor release or directory authority vote?
Will directory authorities be formally required to enforce "approved" proposals?
Great questions.
- Yes, it will be a public and transparent process;
When geko highlighted the sponsor in the meeting something along the lines of "sitting down with our sponsor and defining criterias" (if you haven't been at the meeting don't take this too serious) it made me wonder: If this is a public and transparent process, who is financing this work? (dubbed S112)
If you're not familiar with project management practices at the Tor Project, it's important to note that Sponsor+code is simply a numerical code assigned by the operations/grants team to a particular funded project. It is not a cypherpunk "scramble box" as some may mistakenly assume.
The sponsor name, DRL (Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor - US Gov), can be found in the linked milestone that was previously shared, during the meetup, and is also publicly listed in our GitLab instance.
Milestone: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/44#tab-issues
S112 activity tracked with the label "S112" in our GitLab: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues/?sort=created_date&sta...
You can find all the current Tor Project sponsors, projects and reports here: - Project wiki page: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/team/-/wikis/sponsors-2023 - Current Sponsors: https://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors/ - Fiscal year reports: https://www.torproject.org/about/reports/
For those interested on learning more about S112 work, the Network Health team meet every Monday at 16 UTC, on #tor-meeting (irc.oftc.net), and we've been adding the relevant topics on the relay operator meetup agenda.
Our goal is to build this governance process.
Do you have a timeline for building and defining the governance process which probably should be the first thing to do so people can make up their minds on whether they like the process and want to be involved or not?
Sure, here is the timeline: October 2022 - January 2024
- We called for proposals from the community (March 3 2023) - Work on proposals (TPO) (like meta proposal about the process and governance and different stake holders) (March/April) - Proposal evaluation (May/July) - Events and offline discussions with community (August/September) - Approving proposals after feedback from the community and figuring out the details of enforcement/adhering to them (September-December) - Proposals go live (January 2024)
adopted by a meaningful fraction of the Tor community (e.g. providing valid contact information).
Can you elaborate on how you define "valid" in this context?
From the Expectations for relay operators:
"Be sure to set your ContactInfo to a working email address in case we need to reach you."
Since that document says nothing about verifying that string "hopefully valid" is in my opinion a more accurate description for it than "valid", no?
kind regards, nusenu
hm, for the scope of that document (Expectation for relay operators), I don't think we need to describe a verification process of "working email". For other proposals, it could be important to define the process, though.
But you can suggest a better phrase here: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/relays/-/issues/18
Gus
The sponsor name, DRL (Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor - US Gov), can be found in the linked milestone
I found it after sending the question but thanks for elaborating.
a few questions:
Can you describe the process these proposals will undergo after they got collected?
Who "approves" / rejects them?
Will it be a public and transparent process?
Who will be involved in the process?
How are relay operators included and to what extend?
Will "approved" proposals be enforced?
How will they get enforced? New tor release or directory authority vote?
Will directory authorities be formally required to enforce "approved" proposals?
Great questions.
- Yes, it will be a public and transparent process;
[...]
Our goal is to build this governance process.
Do you have a timeline for building and defining the governance process which probably should be the first thing to do so people can make up their minds on whether they like the process and want to be involved or not?
Sure, here is the timeline: October 2022 - January 2024
- We called for proposals from the community (March 3 2023)
- Work on proposals (TPO) (like meta proposal about the process and governance and different stake holders) (March/April)
- Proposal evaluation (May/July)
- Events and offline discussions with community (August/September)
- Approving proposals after feedback from the community and figuring out the details of enforcement/adhering to them (September-December)
- Proposals go live (January 2024)
Based on your answer I got the impression that my question was slightly misunderstood since you outlined the timeline from the proposals to the "proposals go live" but my question was specifically about the definition of the governance process. According to the order outlined people are expected to submit proposals before the governance process (the second item in your list looks like it) is defined, shouldn't it be the other way around?
I think an effort could be made to to answer some more fundamental questions, like the one I sent previously, found under "a few questions".
I found it surprising to see some of my previous proposals linked on the slides of the meeting - because tor core people (arma, geko, more?) have practically rejected them in the past already.
kind regards, nusenu
gus:
On Mon, Mar 06, 2023 at 07:49:47PM +0100, nusenu wrote:
gus:
On Fri, Mar 03, 2023 at 11:26:07PM +0100, nusenu wrote:
I've got some practical experience with how things are (not) handled by the Tor Project in this space which discourages involvement. The past has also shown that proposals in this area are not handled as tor proposals in the sense of [1].
I believe some proposals about relay operators were not handled as people had different opinions about the Tor Community governance and its process.
I actually had something else in mind (see geko's reply) but if you say that people had no clear understanding or different opinions about community governance than it might also be a good time to start clarifying it.
The point "clarify and describe the different involved roles" as mentioned on Saturday's relay meetup is a good start in this specific context and I agree that it will be useful.
We're not in the process of approving any of them.
a few questions:
Can you describe the process these proposals will undergo after they got collected?
Who "approves" / rejects them?
Will it be a public and transparent process?
Who will be involved in the process?
How are relay operators included and to what extend?
Will "approved" proposals be enforced?
How will they get enforced? New tor release or directory authority vote?
Will directory authorities be formally required to enforce "approved" proposals?
Great questions.
- Yes, it will be a public and transparent process;
When geko highlighted the sponsor in the meeting something along the lines of "sitting down with our sponsor and defining criterias" (if you haven't been at the meeting don't take this too serious) it made me wonder: If this is a public and transparent process, who is financing this work? (dubbed S112)
If you're not familiar with project management practices at the Tor Project, it's important to note that Sponsor+code is simply a numerical code assigned by the operations/grants team to a particular funded project. It is not a cypherpunk "scramble box" as some may mistakenly assume.
The sponsor name, DRL (Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor - US Gov), can be found in the linked milestone that was previously shared, during the meetup, and is also publicly listed in our GitLab instance.
Milestone: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/44#tab-issues
S112 activity tracked with the label "S112" in our GitLab: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues/?sort=created_date&sta...
You can find all the current Tor Project sponsors, projects and reports here:
- Project wiki page: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/team/-/wikis/sponsors-2023
- Current Sponsors: https://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors/
- Fiscal year reports: https://www.torproject.org/about/reports/
For those interested on learning more about S112 work, the Network Health team meet every Monday at 16 UTC, on #tor-meeting (irc.oftc.net), and we've been adding the relevant topics on the relay operator meetup agenda.
To add to what Gus said: we have from time to time face-to-face meetings[1] and we publish meeting notes for those as well. So watch that space, too. :)
In our latest face-to-face meeting two weeks ago we had a session about network health proposals and I just finished uploading the notes[2] for those of you who are interested. Two highlights included there are
- our current draft of proposal evaluation criteria - some proposal ideas we as the Tor Project should pursue, which are all tracked in our shiny new policies project[3]. I expect more to come in this area... :)
Georg
[1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/team/-/wikis/Meetings#face-to-face-annual-... [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/team/-/wikis/2023-Tor-Meeting-Costa-Rica-W... [3] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/policies
nusenu:
I've got some practical experience with how things are (not) handled by the Tor Project in this space which discourages involvement.
That's unfortunate. What has been the problem with past proposal-handling? And how should it have been done differently?
The past has also shown that proposals in this area are not handled as tor proposals in the sense of [1].
That is correct. Proposals in this space are not necessarily related to Tor proposals that aim to specify behavior at the Tor protocol level. There might be some, though, that could lead to changes in Tor which then would merit a respective proposal in the sense you linked to. However, that would be a follow-up task so that the network team gets a specification which they could then implement.
I've been explaining that at the relay operator meetup last Saturday, but "proposal" here is meant to be used in a broad sense: some text detailing an idea or recipe for improving the health of the operator community, providing our users a safer Tor network that way. We look for all sorts of inputs here: ideas that might be enforceable at some point or could lead to technical changes at the protocol level or aimed at strengthening non-technical aspects of our operator community or...
I hope this clarifies things a bit.
[snip]
Georg
I've got some practical experience with how things are (not) handled by the Tor Project in this space which discourages involvement.
That's unfortunate. What has been the problem with past proposal-handling? And how should it have been done differently?
I would actually like to hear the torproject's "self-assessment" on this before I send my opinion on it.
kind regards, nusenu
nusenu:
I've got some practical experience with how things are (not) handled by the Tor Project in this space which discourages involvement.
That's unfortunate. What has been the problem with past proposal-handling? And how should it have been done differently?
I would actually like to hear the torproject's "self-assessment" on this before I send my opinion on it.
Well, I don't know how we should do that as you are likely the only person that knows what you mean by "how things are (not) handled by the Tor Project in this space". I don't even know the timeframe you have in mind to do any kind of digging for some potential problems you could have meant.
So, again, I (and others) would be happy to hear about the problems you had in mind when writing your email and ideally what we should have done differently, but without knowing at least the problems I don't know how we are supposed to say anything about them as I mentioned above.
Georg
kind regards, nusenu
On Sun, 2 Apr 2023, nusenu wrote:
I would actually like to hear the torproject's "self-assessment" on this before I send my opinion on it.
I agree: it would be nice to hear about the current (informal) process, flawed as it may be, and the Tor Project's self-assessment of a sample of past suggestions, how they were handled, and recommendations for improvement.
toroperlist@jrobin.ephemeron.org:
On Sun, 2 Apr 2023, nusenu wrote:
I would actually like to hear the torproject's "self-assessment" on this before I send my opinion on it.
I agree: it would be nice to hear about the current (informal) process, flawed as it may be, and the Tor Project's self-assessment of a sample of past suggestions, how they were handled, and recommendations for improvement.
Well, *that* is a good idea, which we certainly can do. Thanks for bringing it up.
I've filed a ticket to track that work for those of you who are interested.[1]
Thanks, Georg
[1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/relays/-/issues/66
tor-relays@lists.torproject.org
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Georg Koppen -
gus -
nusenu -
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