[tor-dev] oppy - an Onion Proxy in Python

[Damian Johnson]

Hi Nik, very nice work! We love seeing alternative tor implementations
since it gives us the chance to test if specs are up to snuff (Orchid
is the only other one that comes to mind, but that has been inactive
since 2013 [1]). Personally I've been curious if we can shift core tor
to Python, Ruby, or Go for some functionality like descriptor handling
(C isn't exactly renowned for string parsing, and memory management
could make things safer), but that's Nick's show and he has good
reasons for it to be pure C.

Your codebase mentions that you had trouble with the ExitPolicy's
can_exit_to() when you omit an address. Could you please provide an
example of a policy you were having trouble with and the expected
behavior? From the docs and code it sounds like if you omit an address
it should be permissive. [2][3]

> 1. Do you think this project is/could be interesting, useful, or
> potentially beneficial as an addition to the world of Tor software?

Certainly! Always happy for new people to get involved. :)

> 2. If so, do you see any major use-cases for oppy?

Interesting ideas. I'm not entirely sure how Oppy dovetails with any
current work. First thought was 'I wonder if there's anything good to
merge into Stem' and second was 'maybe this could benefit Chutney or
other core tor work?'. Nick, thoughts?

> 3. If yes to 1 or 2, would anyone here be interested in hacking on oppy
> with me? :)

Personally I try to stay pretty focused on Stem and arm but if this
treads into those areas I'd be delighted to work with you. Wish you
the best of luck finding people to collaborate with though - most of
our projects are one man efforts, and that's unfortunate.

Cheers! -Damian

[1] https://subgraph.com/orchid/index.en.html
[2] https://stem.torproject.org/api/exit_policy.html#stem.exit_policy.ExitPolicy.can_exit_to
[3] https://gitweb.torproject.org/stem.git/commit/?id=caee7d6c