[tor-project] Anti-censorship meeting notes, 2021 September 30

Thu Oct 7 15:18:57 UTC 2021

Hi everyone! Here are our meeting notes from last week.

First the meeting logs:

http://meetbot.debian.net/tor-meeting/2021/tor-meeting.2021-09-30-16.00.html

and the meeting pad:

Anti-censorship work meeting pad
--------------------------------

Next meeting: Thursday September 30th 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 checkin about the status of anti-censorship work at Tor.
Coordinate collaboration between people/teams on anti-censorship at Tor.

== Announcements ==

== Discussion ==

    Using the STATUS message to send PT versions to the tor process:

    https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/11101

    development of STATUS:

    https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/28181#note_2487283

https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/pt-spec.txt?id=1ecf3f66586816fc718e38f8cd7cbb23fa9b81f5#n663

    motivation is to put version information in the bridge extrainfo
descriptor, so we know when bridge operators haven't updated

    assuming network team wants this, what do we do on the PT side?

    we could add a new PT message for the version number, or reuse the
existing STATUS message

    STATUS is not implemented in goptlib, though if there's a documented
use case and a designated key string, dcf is not averse to adding
support for it

    consider: tor may want to require that the version message be sent
during the initial negotiation; i.e., before CMETHODS DONE / SMETHODS DONE.

    in that case it has to be documented that the STATUS / other message
will be ignored if sent later

    also it should be documented what happens if the version
self-reporting message is sent more than once

    perhaps good to consult with the wider PT ecosystem

    ptadapter https://github.com/twisteroidambassador/ptadapter

    has PT 2.x already considered version reporting?

    adopting zoossh

    https://github.com/NullHypothesis/zoossh/pull/12#issuecomment-930954831

    zoossh is now being used in rdsys to parse networkstatus,
bridge-descriptors, etc.

    we need modifications to the package

    phw (author of zoossh) is not developing it anymore but is willing
to merge our patches or let us fork it

    the plan for now is to send patches upstream

== Actions ==

== Interesting links ==

    https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2021-September/007142.html

    WireGuard with obfuscation support

== Reading group ==

    We will discuss "Exploring Simple Detection Techniques for
DNS-over-HTTPS Tunnels" on 2021-10-07

    https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3473604.3474563

    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 2021-09-30
Last week(s):
    - finished some s28 work
        - anti-censorship/team#24
        - anti-censorship/team#34
        - anti-censorhsip/team#26
    - added new bridges to the reachability tests we are running
    - revised client-side API changes (snowflake!56)
    - reviewed geoip standalone library (geoip!1)
    - reviewed snowflake proxy library (snowflake!52)
This week:
    - continue snowflake v2 improvements
        - implement changes to server API
    - reviews
    - catch up on censorship-analysis measurements and work
    - do some snowflake simulations in shadow :)
Needs help with:

arlolra: 2021-08-12

    Last week:

    - Migrate to v3 of the webextension manifest

    Next week:

    - Maybe get back to snowflake-webext #10

    - Write up the pitch for our use case for supporting creating
PeerConnections in background service workers
https://github.com/w3c/webrtc-extensions/issues/77

    Help with:

    -

dcf: 2021-09-30

    Last week:

    Next week:

    Help with:

agix:2021-07-15

    Last week:

    -Off due to final exams

    Next week:

    -Work on bridgebox for rdsys

    -More research on httpt #4

    Help with:

    -

hanneloresx: 2021-3-4

    Last week:

    - Submitted MR for bridgestrap issue #14

    Next week:

    - Finish bridgestrap #14

    - Find new issue to work on

    Help with:

    -

maxb: 2021-09-23

    Last week:

    - Worked on
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/issues/40054
re: utls for broker negotiation

    - Had conversation with someone about upstream utls http round
tripper https://github.com/refraction-networking/utls/pull/74

    - Too busy with work :/

    Next week:

    - _Really_ want to get a PR for utls round tripper

meskio: 2021-09-30

    Last week:

    - deploy censorship snapshot as part of rdsys (rdsys#61)

    - refactor snowflakes geoip code into a library (team#32)

    - explore zoossh as file parser (rdsys#69)

    Next week:

    - parse bridge-descriptors file and fix networkstatus parser (rdsys#69)

    - make bridgedb a rdsys distributor (bridgedb#40031)

    Help with:

    -