[tor-dev] Scheduling future Tor proposal reading groups

[Nick Mathewson]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 1:04 PM, George Kadianakis <desnacked at riseup.net> wrote:

Thanks for picking this up again, George!

 [...]
> - Post-Quantum key exchanges for Tor
>
>   There are a few proposals falling under this topic that were developed in the
>   past months. Here are a few:
>     https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/proposals/263-ntru-for-pq-handshake.txt
>     https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/proposals/269-hybrid-handshake.txt
>     https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/proposals/270-newhope-hybrid-handshake.txt
>     https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2016-October/011553.html
>
>   I'm far from an expert on this field, so I'm not sure about the current
>   status of this project and the right direction to approach it. However, it
>   seems that there have been enough developments here lately that a group
>   discussion might be useful.

Could be!  I'd like to hear more here from our domain experts, since
as far as I can tell, we have more to discuss here.

Also, (nearly?) all of these  will need proposal 249 (for large create
cells) or something like it.

> - A name system API for Tor
>
>   This is a proposal suggesting a single API that allows us to integrate secure
>   name systems with Tor hidden services:
>     https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2016-October/011514.html
>
>   The proposal received useful feedback in and out of the mailing list. It
>   seems that implementing the proposal as part of a Tor controller might be an
>   easier way to test it. Some discussion on future directions might be helpful
>   here, as this is something that will be needed sooner than later.

+1.

> - New topics in Next Gen Hidden Services
>
>   We've done multiple IRC meetings on prop224, but it keeps on growing as it's
>   being developed. Here are a few topics that might be worth discussing as a group:
>   - Control port API for hidden services (https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/20699)
>   - torrc UX for hidden services (https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2016-November/011661.html)
>   - torrc/control UX for hidden service client auth (https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2016-November/011617.html)
>   - UX for offline keys (https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18098)
>   - UX of hidden services on Tor Browser

+1, but let's make sure we have at least a sketch proposal or list of
questions for each thing as we discuss it?

> - Prop271: Another algorithm for guard selection
>
>   We've also done a few IRC meetings on future guard algorithms, but we are now
>   closer to completing that project than ever. After we have a few results and
>   statistics of the new guard algorithm, it might be worth scheduling a meeting
>   to discuss how well it works and ways to improve it.

Also +1.  It might be a good idea to schedule this after we have time
to review the code we've got so far. (See #19877)
-- 
Nick