[tor-relays] Next Tor Relay Operator online Meetup - Saturday, October 21 @ 19 UTC

[gus]

Hi,

Here are the meetup notes from the last saturday.
Thanks everyone!
Gus

# Tor Relay Operator Meetup - October 21, 2023

Duration: 1 hour
Participants: 42

## Agenda

  - (Update) Tor in Turkmenistan: 
    We still need more obfs4 bridges on residential connections and obfs4 port 8080, 80, 443 or 6667
    https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-relays-help-turkmens-to-bypass-internet-censorship-run-an-obfs4-bridge/7002
  - WebTunnel PT is available on Tor Browser 13
    https://forum.torproject.org/t/call-for-testers-webtunnel-a-new-way-to-bypass-censorship-with-tor-browser/9855
  - Tor Hackweek (November 6th to November 9th): 
    - Announcement: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/2023-August/003675.html
    - Projects: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/hackweek/-/issues
  - (Update) Tor on Universities: https://toruniversity.eff.org/
  - Meta-proposal for new policies: 
    https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/policies/-/blob/master/001-community-relay-operator-process.md
  - Code of Conduct update:
    https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/policies/-/issues/7
  - Contactinfo proposal: 
    https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/relays/-/issues/71
  - 0.4.7.x exit traffic notice: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-relays/2023-October/021357.html
    - We don't actually know if anybody running an exit on 0.4.7 has seen this drop -- so if you have or have not, let us know!

## Notes

- We discussed the impact of more relays per IP address, where the growth in family size has led to huge microdescriptors, which is a problem on iOS because of memory space limitations. In general the network team people have been trying to avoid new relay features in C-Tor, in hopes to wait for Arti relay functionality to be ready and then it will be more fun to add features. One proposal we might want to do in C-Tor before that future arrives is: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/torspec/-/blob/HEAD/proposals/321-happy-families.md

- Relay operator meetup at 37C3 (December 2023)? 
We are thinking of a Tor talk submission to 37C3 too. CFP is open. Leibi can organize it. We have this ticket to track Tor activities at 37C3: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/outreach/-/issues/40051

- Would the ContactInfo requirement proposal break existing tooling (nusenu), is the new text field a separate proposal?

Nusenu would need to adapt their tooling, yes; the new text field would be included in the technical spec which we'd would work later on and would land in the torspec repository where all our other changes on the protocol/tor core parts are tracked -- [GeKo]
  
- Spamcop (or Katie Holly) is sending me lots of e-mails claiming my Tor exit is an open mail proxy. Is this even possible? I am using Nusenu's Ansible role.

Forward them to /dev/null. If you're having issues, please contact the tor-relays mailing list.
Over the years there have been automated tools that send out "helpful" emails like this. Often they aren't actually based on reality. What they might mean by 'open mail proxy' could be anything. For example, maybe they received some webmail connections.

- Would the residental bridges for Turkmenistan need to be long-lived? or would it be fine to run one for just a month or two.

Running an obfs4 bridge for .tm actually only lasts about a week or so these days. that is, you run it, people get told about it, they tell more people, after 3 or 6 or 8 days the wrong person has hearrd of it and it gets blocked. The censors in TM also inspect the traffic. If one IP is receiving "a lot" (some hundreds GBs) of Internet traffic, they will block your IP.

- Translation of technical documents:
In the Tor Project we are adding more and more documentation for translation. But our translators are not experts, and many times they get confused when translating. If you speak languages other than English, we welcome an attentive eye on our translations. Our translations are done in https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/tor/ now. A big documentation is at https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/tor/support-portal/ - https://support.torproject.org - also some relay documentaiton at https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/tor/community-portal/ emmapeel[@]torproject.org  / #tor-l10n:matrix.org (tor-l10n - irc.oftc.net)

State of the Onion 2023:

Tor "State of the Onion" talks by the various Tor teams will be in two pieces this year: Nov 29 for the core Tor teams, and Dec 6ish for the Tor community projects -- Globaleaks, Onionshare, Guardian, Tails, etc

Video/comms suggestion: 
- gather all of the Tor talks into one easily-found place. Roger's talks are great but they are scattered around the internet! Tor should collect them all in one place.

The next Relay Operator Meetup will happen in November.

On Sat, Oct 21, 2023 at 03:37:14PM -0300, gus wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Reminder: The Tor relay operator meetup is today and it's starting in
> ~25 minutes (19 UTC).
> room link: https://tor.meet.coop/gus-og0-x74-dzn
> 
> Gus
> 
> On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 03:04:04PM -0300, gus wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > The next Tor relay operator meetup will happen this Saturday, October 21 @ 19 UTC. 
> > 
> > Where: BBB - https://tor.meet.coop/gus-og0-x74-dzn
> > 
> > No need for a registration or anything else, just use the room-link
> > above. We will open the room 10 minutes before so you can test your mic
> > setup.
> > 
> > Note: BBB requires a browser that supports webRTC such as Firefox, Safari,
> > or Chromium/Chrome.
> > 
> > Agenda 
> > ------
> > 
> > https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/relays/-/issues/77
> > 
> > [Expected meeting duration: 60 to 90 minutes]
> > 
> > - Announcements:
> >   - WebTunnel PT is available on Tor Browser 13
> >   - (Update) Tor on Universities
> >   - Meta-proposal for new relay operator policies: 
> >     https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/policies/-/blob/master/001-community-relay-operator-process.md
> > - [Discussion] ContactInfo proposal
> > 
> > Everyone is free to bring up additional questions or topics at the
> > meeting itself.
> > 
> > Please share with your friends, social media and other mailing lists!
> > 
> > cheers,
> > Gus
> > -- 
> > The Tor Project
> > Community Team Lead
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> The Tor Project
> Community Team Lead



-- 
The Tor Project
Community Team Lead
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