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Tor Weekly News July 9th, 2014
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Welcome to the twenty-seventh issue of Tor Weekly News in 2014, the
weekly newsletter that covers what is happening in the Tor community.
On being targeted by the NSA
----------------------------
Das Erste has published an articleÂ[1] and supporting materialÂ[2]
showing how the NSA explicitly targets Tor and Tails user through the
XKEYSCORE Deep Packet Inspection system. Several other media picked up
the news, and it was also discussed in various threads on the tor-talk
mailing listÂ[3,4,5,6,7,8,9].
The Tor Projectâs view has been repostedÂ[10] on the blog. To a comment
that said âI felt like i am caught in the middle of a two gigantic rocks
colliding each otherâ, Roger Dingledine repliedÂ[11]: âYouâre one of the
millions of people every day who use Tor. And because of the diversity
of usersÂ[â], just because they know you use Tor doesnât mean they know
*why* you use Tor, or what you do with it. Thatâs still way better than
letting them watch all of your interactions with all websites on the
Internet.â
[1]:Âhttp://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/nsa230_page-1.html
[2]:Âhttp://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/xkeyscorerules100.txt
[3]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-June/033473.html
[4]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-July/033564.html
[5]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-July/033640.html
[6]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-July/033642.html
[7]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-July/033656.html
[8]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-July/033703.html
[9]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-July/033749.html
[10]:Âhttps://blog.torproject.org/blog/being-targeted-nsa
[11]:Âhttps://blog.torproject.org/blog/being-targeted-nsa#comment-64376
More monthly status reports for June 2014
-----------------------------------------
The wave of regular monthly reports from Tor project members for the
month of June continued, with submissions from Georg KoppenÂ[12],
LunarÂ[13], Noel David Torres TaÃoÂ[14], Matt PaganÂ[15], Colin C.Â[16],
Arlo BreaultÂ[17], and George KadianakisÂ[18].
Mike Perry reported on behalf of the Tor Browser teamÂ[19].
[12]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-July/000576.html
[13]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-July/000577.html
[14]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-July/000578.html
[15]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-July/000579.html
[16]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-July/000580.html
[17]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-July/000583.html
[18]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-July/000585.html
[19]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-July/000584.html
Miscellaneous news
------------------
An Austrian Tor exit node operator interpretedÂ[20] their conviction in
a first ruling as judging them âguilty of complicity, because he enabled
others to transmit content of an illegal nature through the serviceâ.
Moritz Bartl from Torservers.netÂ[21] commentedÂ[22]: âWe strongly
believe that it can be easily challenged.Â[â] We will definitely try and
find some legal expert in Austria and see what we can do to fight this.â
[20]:Âhttps://network23.org/blackoutaustria/2014/07/01/to-whom-it-may-concern-english-version/
[21]:Âhttps://www.torservers.net/
[22]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-July/033613.html
Linus Nordberg is expanding the idea of public, append-only, untrusted
log à la Certificate TransparencyÂ[23] to the Tor consensus. Linus
submitted a new draft proposal to the tor-dev mailing list for
reviewsÂ[24].
[23]:Âhttp://www.certificate-transparency.org/
[24]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-July/007092.html
Miguel Freitas reportedÂ[25] that twisterÂ[26]Ââ a fully decentralized
P2P microblogging platformÂâ was now able to run over Tor. As Miguel
wrote, ârunning twister on top of Tor was a long time goal,Â[â] the Tor
support allows a far more interesting threat modelâ.
[25]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2014-July/033580.html
[26]:Âhttp://twister.net.co/
Google Summer of Code students have sent a new round of reports after
the mid-term: Israel Leiva on the GetTor revampÂ[27], Amogh Pradeep on
Orbot and Orfox improvementsÂ[28], Mikhail Belous on the multicore tor
daemonÂ[29], Daniel Martà on incremental updates to consensus
documentsÂ[30], Sreenatha Bhatlapenumarthi on the Tor Weather
rewriteÂ[31], Quinn Jarrell on the pluggable transport combinerÂ[32],
Noah Rahman on Stegotorus enhancementsÂ[33], Marc Juarez on website
fingerprinting defensesÂ[34], Juha Nurmi on the ahmia.fi projectÂ[35],
and Zack Mullaly on the HTTPS Everywhere secure ruleset update
mechanismÂ[36].
[27]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-July/007074.html
[28]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-July/007083.html
[29]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-July/007086.html
[30]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-July/007087.html
[31]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-July/007091.html
[32]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-July/007094.html
[33]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-July/007095.html
[34]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-July/000581.html
[35]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-July/000582.html
[36]:Âhttps://lists.eff.org/pipermail/https-everywhere/2014-July/002182.html
sajolida, tchou and Giorgio Maone from NoScript drafted a
specificationÂ[37] for a Firefox extension to download and verify Tails.
[37]:Âhttps://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-July/006288.html
Tor help desk roundup
---------------------
One way to volunteer for Tor is to run a mirrorÂ[38] of the Tor Project
website. InstructionsÂ[39] are available for anyone wanting to run a
mirror. Mirrors are useful for those who, for one reason or another,
cannot access or use the main Tor Project website. Volunteers who have
successfully set up a synced a mirror can report their mirror to the
tor-mirrors mailing listÂ[40] to get it included in the full mirrors
list.
[38]:Âhttps://www.torproject.org/getinvolved/mirrors.html
[39]:Âhttps://www.torproject.org/docs/running-a-mirror.html
[40]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-mirrors
Easy development tasks to get involved with
-------------------------------------------
ooniprobe is a tool for conducting network measurements that are useful
for detecting network interference. When ooniprobe starts it should
perform checks to verify that the config file is correctÂ[41]. If that
is not the case, it should fail gracefully at startup. The ticket
indicates where this check should be added to the ooniprobe
codebaseÂ[42]. If youâd like to do some easy Python hacking, be sure to
give this ticket a try.
[41]:Âhttps://bugs.torproject.org/11983
[42]:Âhttps://gitweb.torproject.org/ooni-probe.git
Upcoming events
---------------
July 11 16:00 UTC | Pluggable transports online meeting
| #tor-dev, irc.oftc.net
| https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-July/007114.html
|
July 15 | Researchers & Practitioners Meetup @ PETS
| Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| https://blog.torproject.org/events/researchers-practitioners-meetup-pets-amsterdam
|
July 15-19 | 14th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium
| Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| https://petsymposium.org/2014/
This issue of Tor Weekly News has been assembled by Lunar, harmony, Matt
Pagan, and Karsten Loesing.
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 pageÂ[43], write down your
name and subscribe to the team mailing listÂ[44] if you want to
get involved!
[43]:Âhttps://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/TorWeeklyNews
[44]:Âhttps://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news-team
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