[tor-reports] Pearl Crescent Report – October 2014

[Mark Smith]

Tor-related work that the Pearl Crescent team did in October
(Kathy Brade and Mark Smith):

* Firefox updater for Tor Browser:
We made some additional fixes to our updater patches for ESR31 / TB 4.0.
We followed up on the TB 4.0-alpha-3 and 4.0 releases and fixed various 
updater issues.  Several of these are still "in progress", but many 
issues have been fixed.
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13087
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13301
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13247
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13406
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13432
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13433
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13512
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13594

We also reviewed Nicolas Vigier's code for generation of incremental MAR 
files (for incremental updates of course).  End-users should get a 
chance to experience incremental updates soon (probably for the upgrade 
from TB 4.0 to 4.0.1).
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13324

Finally, we started to look at improving the security of updates, 
beginning with signing of our MAR files:
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13379


* Tor Browser and Torbutton:
We helped with some ESR31 issues, with the TB 4.0 release, and with the 
"fallout" from the release.
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/11449
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13091
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13472
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13475
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13485
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13507

We spent a little time on CSS and Canvas fingerprinting issues:
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13016
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13400

We also answered a few tor-browser-bundle questions on 
https://tor.stackexchange.com/


* We participated in the weekly Tor Browser dev meetings on IRC and
   in various design discussions on IRC and on the mailing lists.


* Planned for November 2014:
     - Work on signing of MAR files, fix other updater issues,
       and add improve the update user experience.

     - Assist with other Tor Browser and Torbutton issues.

     - Spend some time on Tor Launcher to add polish and address
       usability issues.

-- 
Mark Smith
Pearl Crescent, LLC
http://pearlcrescent.com/