[tor-project] Anti-censorship team meeting notes, 2022-09-22

Hey everyone!

Here are our meeting logs:
http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2022/tor-meeting.2022-09-22-15.58.html

And our meeting pad:

Anti-censorship work meeting pad

···

--------------------------------

Next meeting: Thursday Sept 29 16:00 UTC

Weekly meetings, every Thursday at 16:00 UTC, in #tor-meeting at OFTC
(channel is logged while meetings are in progress)

== Goal of this meeting ==

Weekly check-in about the status of anti-censorship work at Tor.
Coordinate collaboration between people/teams on anti-censorship at Tor.

== Links to Useful documents ==

 \* Our anti\-censorship roadmap:
     \* Roadmap: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/boards
 \* The anti\-censorship team's wiki page:
     \* https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/home
 \* Past meeting notes can be found at:
     \* https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/
 \* Tickets that need reviews:  from sponsors we are working on:
     \* All needs review tickets:
         \* https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/anti-censorship/-/merge_requests?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=opened&assignee_id=None
     \* Sponsor 28
         \* must\-do tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/10
         \* possible tickets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=opened&label_name%5b%5d=Sponsor%2028&milestone_title=None
     \* Sponsor 96
         \* https://gitlab.torproject.org/groups/tpo/-/milestones/24

== Announcements ==

 \*

== Discussion ==

 \* snowflake\-01 bridge running into resource limitations
     \* need to increase number of tor instances at least
     \* https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40173
     \* also running into other resource limitations: CPU cannot be increased much more, and snowflake\-server is periodically restarting due to a lack of memory
         \* the snowflake\-01 bridge is one of the largest relays in the network\. compare to https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#toprelays. snowflake\-01 had 72 MB/s average throughout August 2022, so it is right up there with the top relays\.
         \* tried in the past to decrease resource requirements of snowflake\-server, without much results https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40086
             \* will at least recompile snowflake\-server with a recent golang compiler when redeploying this time
     \* what about making snowflake the default recommendation in Iran? https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/119
         \* possible, but there are still concerns about load at the bridge
     \* how close are we to being able to start using the snowflake\-02 bridge? https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/28651 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40129
         \* will be necessary soon, because snowflake\-01 cannot scale forever
         \* the limiting factor at this point is the number of proxies that multi\-bridge aware
         \* only about 30% of available proxies are multi\-bridge aware
         \* is 30% sufficient for current client demand?
         \* most proxies are browser add\-ons, which should automatically update
             \* shelikhoo will investigate why such a large fraction of proxies have not updated
         \* does connection assist help with getting clients to use a second bridge, or does it require a new Tor Browser release?
             \* connection assist likely does not help, since old clients will not know how to send the bridge fingerprint they want to the broker \-\- if they use the \-02 fingerprint but do not tell the broker that, the broker will connect them with the \-01 bridge, and the connection will fail
 \* Gettor Telegram Bot down\. Fix deployed
     \* increase in user result in hit Telegram API Limit
     \* Fix deployed to restore it to working state
 \* Community Team developed a guide for IR circumvention
     \* https://forum.torproject.org/t/iran-circumventing-censorship-with-tor/4590
     \* currently awaiting translation

== Actions ==

== Interesting links ==

== Reading group ==

 \* We will discuss "" on
     \*
     \* Questions to ask and goals to have:
         \* What aspects of the paper are questionable?
         \* Are there immediate actions we can take based on this work?
         \* Are there long\-term actions we can take based on this work?
         \* Is there future work that we want to call out in hopes that others will pick it up?

== Updates ==

Name:
This week:
- What you worked on this week.
Next week:
- What you are planning to work on next week.
Help with:
- Something you need help with.

cecylia (cohosh): last updated 2022-09-08
Last week:
- took a look at Snowflake mDNS issue (snowflake#40123)
- worked on Snowflake manifest v3 webextension fixes (snowflake-webext#29)
This week:
- Snowflake web extension v3 manifest
- usability improvements to chrome badge helper
- finish updating Firefox extension to mv3
- a few quality of life conjure issues
- Issues · The Tor Project / Anti-censorship / Pluggable Transports / conjure · GitLab
Needs help with:

dcf: 2022-09-22
Last week:
- snowflake CDN bookkeeping Changes · Snowflake costs · Wiki · The Tor Project / Anti-censorship / Team · GitLab
- submitted merge request to change the format of placeholder pluggable transport addresses to work with FascistFirewall, ReachableAddresses Change placeholder bridge addresses to make snowflake and meek work with ReachableAddresses/FascistFirewall (#40624) · Issues · The Tor Project / Applications / tor-browser-build · GitLab
- investigated recent increased usage of snowflake and opened issue to increase the number of tor instances Increase number of tor instances from 4 to 8 on snowflake-01 bridge (#40173) · Issues · The Tor Project / Anti-censorship / Pluggable Transports / Snowflake · GitLab
Next week:
- increase number of tor instances on snowflake-01 bridge Increase number of tor instances from 4 to 8 on snowflake-01 bridge (#40173) · Issues · The Tor Project / Anti-censorship / Pluggable Transports / Snowflake · GitLab
- disable non-WireGuard SSH access to snowflake-02
- migrate goptlib to gitlab migrate away from git.torproject.org (#86) · Issues · The Tor Project / Anti-censorship / Team · GitLab
- try Conjure PT development version [tor-dev] Introducing a Conjure PT for Tor
Help with:

meskio: 2022-09-08
Last week:
- plan obfs4proxy 0.0.14 update (obfs4#40008)
- package obfs4proxy 0.0.14 for debian
- test obfs4proxy backward compatibility
- rdsys-gettor is deployed, planning for the final switch
- deploy more BridgeDB fixes
- submit a project proposal for Outreachy
Next week:
- deploy rdsys-gettor
- fix language issues in BridgeDB (bridgedb#40056)

Shelikhoo: 2022-09-22
Last Week:
- [Merge Request Awaiting] Add SOCKS5 forward proxy support to snowflake (snowflake!64)
- [Discussion & Deployment] Rollout of Distributed Snowflake Support
- [Coding & Deployment] Proposal: Centralized Probe Result Collector (anti-censorship/team#54)
- [Research] HTTPT Planning Add HTTPT as a pluggable transport to Tor Browser (#1) · Issues · The Tor Project / Anti-censorship / Pluggable Transports / HTTPT · GitLab
- In Person Meetup!
- [Research] Log Collector Performance Collection (Bootstrap time)
- Write Survival Guide For Log Collector LogCollector Survival Guide · Wiki · The Tor Project / Anti-censorship / Team · GitLab
- [Deployment] Emergency fix for OnionSproutsBot Replace dynamic profile name with string (0067121f) · Commits · The Tor Project / Anti-censorship / GetTor Project / OnionSproutsBot · GitLab
Next Week:
- [Research] WebTunnel Planning (Continue)
- Generate Charts for presention: Prepare for s28 PI and ECP presentations: Oct 31 and Nov 1-2 2022 (#92) · Issues · The Tor Project / Anti-censorship / Team · GitLab

Itchy Onion: 2022-09-22
Last week:
- several attempts (adjusting various timeout, trying the obfs approach of creating a smux session, and reserching other options) to fix the RACE unclosed TCP connection issue (Snowflake stops working after large size tests (#40160) · Issues · The Tor Project / Anti-censorship / Pluggable Transports / Snowflake · GitLab).

 This week:
     \- update snowflake plugin API to RACE 2\.3\.x \(https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/issues/58)
     \- I learned yesterday that there is a working build of snowflake 2\.2\.x from Eliana\. I have requested the code and am still waiting for it\. Will ask again in my 1\-1 meeting with Eliana later today
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