[tor-project] Anti-censorship team monthly report: June 2019

[Tom Ritter]

I greatly appreciate the email and its format!

-tom

On Mon, 1 Jul 2019 at 22:50, Philipp Winter <phw at torproject.org> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Here's a summary of the anti-censorship team's progress in June:
>
> BridgeDB
> ========
>
> * Blacklisted 53 bridges whose obfs4 port was unreachable.  Most of
>   these bridges had no contact info.  Some did, but the operators did
>   not respond to our emails.
>
> * Tried to understand why BridgeDB responded to many requests with no
>   bridges: <https://bugs.torproject.org/30441>
>   - Eventually, the problem seems to have fixed itself.
>   - We'll keep a close eye on the logs.
>
> * After hearing back from Tor's research safety board, we implemented a
>   new feature that lets BridgeDB export statistics:
>   <https://bugs.torproject.org/9316>
>   The feature is currently under review.
>
> * Removed support for Yahoo email accounts:
>   <https://bugs.torproject.org/28496>
>
> * Published a blog post about BridgeDB's new 0.7.1 release:
>   <https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-bridgedb-071>
>
> Snowflake
> =========
>
> * We released a prototype for snowflake's webextension!  For Firefox,
>   you can get it here:
>   <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/torproject-snowflake/>
>   We're still working on getting it published in Chrome's web store.
>   By installing the addon, you turn your browser into a circumvention
>   proxy for censored users.
>
> * Working on integrating pion/webrtc to ease builds and reduce
>   dependencies: <https://bugs.torproject.org/28942>
>
> * We wrapped up a ticket to collect statistics on snowflake's broker:
>   <https://bugs.torproject.org/21315>
>
> * Brainstormed mechanism for snowflake update versioning:
>   <https://bugs.torproject.org/30704>
>
> Pluggable transports
> ====================
>
> * Implemented a patch to reorder PT/proxy phases:
>   <https://bugs.torproject.org/28930>
>   The patch is currently under review.
>
> * Brainstormed ideas for obfs4's successor:
>   <https://bugs.torproject.org/30716>
>   - We decided to first study the "long tail" of network traffic because
>     it will allow us to make better design decisions:
>     <https://bugs.torproject.org/30986>
>
> * We made some progress on improving our PT spec:
>   <https://bugs.torproject.org/29285>
>   - For now, we have been collecting a list of issues with the v1 spec.
>
> * We made some progress with loading shared libraries for PTs into the
>   Tor executable (on Linux for now).
>
> Miscellaneous
> =============
>
> * Deployed <https://bridges.torproject.org/scan/>.  The service allows
>   obfs4 operators to test the reachability of their obfs4 port -- at
>   least until we are done with the following ticket:
>   <https://bugs.torproject.org/30477>
>
> * We wrapped up our "does the GFW block obfs4?" ticket:
>   <https://bugs.torproject.org/29279>
>   The answer is: no.
>
> * Published a blog post that introduces our anti-censorship team and our
>   Sponsor 19 report:
>   <https://blog.torproject.org/tors-new-anti-censorship-team-defending-open-internet>
>
> * Asked tor-relays@ to set up more obfs4 bridges:
>   <https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2019-June/017419.html>
>
> * Worked with a handful operators whose obfs4 bridges were broken.
>   Several operators believed that only a bridge's OR port must be
>   externally reachable.  Others forgot to configure port forwarding for
>   their obfs4 port.
> _______________________________________________
> tor-project mailing list
> tor-project at lists.torproject.org
> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-project