Tor Weekly News — March 12th, 2014
Lunar
lunar at torproject.org
Wed Mar 12 14:38:31 UTC 2014
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Tor Weekly News March 12th, 2014
========================================================================
Welcome to the tenth issue of Tor Weekly News in 2014, the weekly
newsletter that covers what is happening in the Tor community.
New release of tor-ramdisk
--------------------------
On March 9th, Anthony G. Basile released [1] a new version of
tor-ramdisk [2]. Tor-ramdisk is a “micro Linux distribution whose only
purpose is to host a Tor server in an environment that maximizes
security and privacy. Security is enhanced by hardening the kernel and
binaries, and privacy is enhanced by forcing logging to be off at all
levels so that even the Tor operator only has access to minimal
information. Finally, since everything runs in ephemeral memory, no
information survives a reboot […].”
The new version contains Tor 0.2.4.21 and an updated kernel. The main
change is the addition of “haveged, a daemon to help generate entropy on
diskless systems, for a more cryptographically sound system”.
[1]: http://opensource.dyc.edu/pipermail/tor-ramdisk/2014-March/000127.html
[2]: http://opensource.dyc.edu/tor-ramdisk
Tails launches a logo contest
-----------------------------
Do you want to design a piece of artwork that might be seen by hundreds
of thousands of people every day? A drawing that will appear on
websites, t-shirts, stickers, and software that protects anonymity and
privacy?
Tails is starting a logo contest [3] to “give Tails the visual impact it
deserves”. Designers have a precise list of requirements to follow that
was drawn from past discussions amongst Tails developers. Participants
should submit a version of the logo that incorporates the word “Tails”
as well as one without text; there is also a list of suggestions for
complementary material that would be welcome.
As the Tails team wants to have the logo ready for its upcoming 1.0
release, designers have until March 31st to send their submission. Be
quick!
[3]: https://tails.boum.org/news/logo_contest/
More status reports for February 2014
-------------------------------------
The wave of regular monthly reports from Tor project members for the
month of February continued, with Isis Lovecruft [4], Andrew Lewman [5],
Matt Pagan [6], and Kevin P. Dyer [7] releasing their reports this week.
The Tails developers also reported on their recent progress [8], and
Roger Dingledine sent out the report for SponsorF [9].
[4]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-March/000479.html
[5]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-March/000480.html
[6]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-March/000482.html
[7]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-March/000483.html
[8]: https://tails.boum.org/news/report_2014_02/
[9]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-March/000484.html
Miscellaneous news
------------------
Tails issued the call for testing for its 0.23 release [10]. At the very
least, the long awaited features that are MAC spoofing and bridge
integration would benefit from wider testing. Enthusiasts are encouraged
to report their findings [11] on the newly-created tails-tester mailing
list [12].
[10]: https://tails.boum.org/news/test_0.23-rc1/
[11]: https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-testers/2014-March/000000.html
[12]: https://tails.boum.org/news/tails-testers/
Nick Mathewson called on anyone who wants to make Tor relays 3% to 10%
faster to review his patches. Have a look at #9683 [13] and #9841 [14]
if you want to help out.
[13]: https://bugs.torproject.org/9683
[14]: https://bugs.torproject.org/9841
Testing of the upcoming Tor Browser Bundle 3.6 with pluggable transports
included has started [15].
[15]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-qa/2014-March/000346.html
Many thanks to Samuel D. Leslie [16] and MacLemon [17] for running
mirrors of the Tor Project website!
[16]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-mirrors/2014-March/000483.html
[17]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-mirrors/2014-March/000484.html
Karsten Loesing sent out the minutes of the March 5th Weather rewrite
online meeting [18].
[18]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-March/006400.html
Alex reported [19] on an effort to use ScrambleSuit [20] with OpenVPN.
Ultimately, Yawning Angel identified a flaw in OpenVPN implementation of
the SOCKS protocol [21] and even wrote a patch for it [22].
[19]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-March/006394.html
[20]: http://www.cs.kau.se/philwint/scramblesuit/
[21]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-March/006427.html
[22]: https://github.com/Yawning/openvpn/commit/7474f1acfc
Sebastian Urbach announced [23] that Trying Trusted Tor Traceroutes [24]
has “reached 100 completed runs from different ip’s (not to mention the
multiple runs).” To all participating relay operators, he added: “Thank
you very much for your support, you officially rock!”
[23]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2014-March/004037.html
[24]: http://web.engr.illinois.edu/~das17/tor-traceroute_v1.html
Tails reported on their 2013 bounty program [25] which led to several
changes useful for Tails in upstream software.
[25]: https://tails.boum.org/news/bounties_2013_report/
Erinn Clark discovered [26] another fake OpenPGP key with her name and
email address. Watch out! The canonical list of keys used for Tor
signatures [27] is still available on the Tor Project’s website. Also
consider verifying all signatures [28] for the reproducible Tor Browser
Bundles [29].
[26]: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-March/006422.html
[27]: https://www.torproject.org/docs/signing-keys.html
[28]: https://github.com/isislovecruft/scripts/blob/master/verify-gitian-builder-signatures
[29]: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/deterministic-builds-part-one-cyberwar-and-global-compromise
Tor help desk roundup
---------------------
Users have asked us why “About TorBrowser” in the Tor Browser’s Help
menu displays the Firefox Logo instead of the Tor logo. This has been a
known issue for some time, and fixing it is not as easy it would seem.
Relevant bug tickets here are #2176 [30], #5194 [31], #5698 [32], and
#10888 [33].
[30]: https://bugs.torproject.org/2176
[31]: https://bugs.torproject.org/5194
[32]: https://bugs.torproject.org/5698
[33]: https://bugs.torproject.org/10888
News from Tor StackExchange
---------------------------
The last few weeks have seen several vulnerabilities in the GnuTLS
library and the SSL protocol in general [34]. Ivar wanted to know if the
GnuTLS bug affected Tor somehow [35]; as Tor uses OpenSSL instead of
GnuTLS, the answer is no.
[34]: http://www.gnutls.org/security.html#GNUTLS-SA-2014-2
[35]: https://tor.stackexchange.com/q/1652/88
tor_user found the option “Socks5Proxy” in the Tor manual, and wanted to
know what OR connections are and if this option allows running a Tor
node over a SOCKS proxy [36]. Jens Kubieziel explained that OR
connections are those between two relays or between a client and a
relay. While this config option can be used to proxy outgoing OR
connections from a relay, it won’t proxy exit streams, and also the
relay still needs to be reachable on its advertised ORPort, so it is
simplest to say that no, it can’t be used to run a relay over a SOCKS
proxy.
[36]: https://tor.stackexchange.com/q/1654/88
Upcoming events
---------------
Mar 12 19:00 UTC | Tor Browser development meeting
| #tor-dev, irc.oftc.net
|
Mar 12 20:00 UTC | little-t tor development meeting
| #tor-dev, irc.oftc.net
| https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-March/006432.html
|
Mar 14 17:00 UTC | Pluggable transports online meeting
| #tor-dev OFTC
|
Mar 22-23 | Tor @ LibrePlanet 2014
| Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
| http://libreplanet.org/2014/
|
Apr 11 11:00 EDT | Roger @ George Mason University
| Washington, DC, USA
| http://today.gmu.edu/64330/
This issue of Tor Weekly News has been assembled by Lunar, harmony,
Matt Pagan, qbi and Roger Dingledine.
Want to continue reading TWN? Please help us create this newsletter.
We still need more volunteers to watch the Tor community and report
important news. Please see the project page [37], write down your
name and subscribe to the team mailing list [38] if you want to
get involved!
[37]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/TorWeeklyNews
[38]: https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news-team
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