20:00:15 <ahf> #startmeeting anti-censorship checkin 2019/03/21
20:00:15 <MeetBot> Meeting started Thu Mar 21 20:00:15 2019 UTC.  The chair is ahf. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
20:00:15 <MeetBot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic.
20:00:19 <cohosh> hi o/
20:00:22 <ahf> hello hello o/
20:00:33 <ahf> our pad is at: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-censorship-2019-keep
20:00:51 <catalyst> o/
20:01:47 <kat5> hi
20:02:07 <ahf> o/
20:03:09 <ahf> hmm, we are missing the country stats bug in the roadmap i think
20:03:18 * ahf tries to add it
20:03:37 <ahf> or am i just missing it? it's bug #29734
20:03:47 <ahf> https://storm.torproject.org/grain/2mAgzq8bAK5RnQQGPMk6vr/b/sandstorm/libreboard is the roadmap link, sorry
20:04:13 <ahf> ahhh! it's in done, perfect
20:04:16 <ahf> i'm just blind
20:04:33 <ahf> perfect
20:04:43 <ahf> other than that, i think the snowflake parts looks right?
20:04:53 <cohosh> yup
20:04:58 <cohosh> i moved some stuff around earlier today
20:05:05 <ahf> awesome, thanks
20:05:18 <ahf> gettor roadmap i don't think there is any updates to as hiro is out this week
20:05:27 <ahf> do we have changes to the bridgedb roadmap?
20:06:06 <kat5> I closed a ticket and it should be removed from the rodmap.
20:06:15 <kat5> #25430
20:06:21 <catalyst> maybe i need to check in with sysrqb about bridgedb release stuff
20:06:24 <ahf> ah, cool
20:06:29 <cohosh> thanks kat5
20:06:37 <kat5> We concluded that moat fixes that issue.
20:06:48 <kat5> I don't think I can edit the roadmap.
20:07:01 <ahf> let me see if i can
20:08:09 <ahf> woh, it's moved to done now on the roadmap i think
20:08:11 <ahf> thanks kat5
20:08:35 <sysrqb> catalyst: when is the current planned next-release?
20:09:05 <catalyst> sysrqb: i'm not sure i understand what all the timing constraints are
20:09:09 <ahf> and catalyst is hacking on #28925 on the PT roadmap
20:09:12 <ahf> very nice
20:09:25 <ahf> otherwise i think they are in sync
20:09:34 <sysrqb> catalyst: okay, we can discuss later
20:09:41 <catalyst> sysrqb: thanks
20:09:58 <cohosh> catalyst: sysrqb: i don't think there are any time constraints or planned release dates fwiw
20:10:11 <cohosh> just that it would be something good to have
20:10:28 <cohosh> and it's in with the s19 stuff
20:10:42 <sysrqb> okay, that was my understanding, but i can help with this if there is a deadline/timeline for it
20:11:32 <ahf> should we go to the announcement list or do we have more roadmappy things?
20:11:59 <ahf> uhm, wait, i might be doing this in the wrong order. we should probably look at the "Help with" first
20:12:03 <cohosh> oh i had a q about the roadmap
20:12:11 <ahf> yep?
20:12:27 <cohosh> we have #25593 on there
20:12:44 <ahf> yeah, the very open one
20:12:44 <cohosh> but i think this is tied to stuff dcf is working on with looking at alternatives for domain fronting
20:13:01 <ahf> yeah, but also related to maybe having more than one instance of the broker, i think?
20:13:10 <cohosh> ah okay
20:13:11 <ahf> like, just to avoid that the entire system is down if one service is down, no?
20:13:22 <cohosh> i was trying to remember what we were discussing about it in brussels
20:13:27 <cohosh> yeah i think you are right
20:13:32 <ahf> i read it more as "high availability" than something DoS-related actually
20:13:56 <cohosh> the ticket itself doesn't mention that so perhaps i will update it
20:14:02 <dcf1> yes I put different broker access methods in a different category than DoS resistance
20:14:13 <cohosh> okay thanks!
20:14:18 <ahf> yeah, we should maybe also give it a better summary line (i think the DoS line confuses us)
20:14:27 <ahf> i've more than once been confused about that bug too
20:14:36 <cohosh> the link to the github issue mentions the wrong thing then
20:14:54 <dcf1> By DoS I'm thinking things like SYN flood, packet flood, memory exhaustion, etc.
20:15:14 <kat5> I documented it as DoS, so if you're going to change it, more of a description would be good.
20:15:17 <cohosh> ahh interesting. that is probably more important than multiple brokers for now
20:15:23 <dcf1> Not things like just blocking the IP address, for which we have domain fronting and other potential workarounds.
20:15:29 <cohosh> if we are going for MVP
20:15:31 <kat5> That's what I figured it was.
20:15:38 <ahf> maybe we should create another ticket for the "high availability" part of it?
20:16:05 <dcf1> ahf: I mean, I would put redundancy in yet a third category.
20:16:08 <cohosh> what dcf1 is describing I think fits with the term DoS
20:16:33 <ahf> dcf1: agreed
20:16:40 <ahf> yeah
20:16:54 <ahf> so it wouldn't make sense to rename/modify anything with this ticket
20:16:59 <dcf1> yes, these are all really different aspects of "availability" though, if you think about it.
20:17:08 <ahf> yeah
20:17:11 <cohosh> lol true
20:17:52 <cohosh> all our tickets are availability of Tor in a general sense XD
20:18:04 <ahf> haha, true
20:18:10 <ahf> it all boils down to that
20:18:18 <cohosh> okay it's on my roadmap so i'll expand on the description and take a look at it this week, but it is very open-ended
20:19:01 <ahf> dcf1: is there any concrete concerns you have right now around ticket #25593 ?
20:22:42 <dcf1> no
20:22:46 <ahf> oki
20:22:53 <ahf> should we move to "help with" sections on the pad?
20:23:12 <dcf1> I think it was a very general, roadmappy ticket from early development. Nothing specific.
20:23:37 <ahf> oki, makes sense
20:23:58 <dcf1> We could close it and replace it with something less vague, I'm not attached to that ticket at all.
20:24:01 <ahf> i see cohosh has a question around gitlab and what we do with merging, i think that is related to what i was gonna hear about on announcements too, so i'm gonna remove it from the announcements list
20:24:12 <dcf1> ok
20:24:34 <ahf> so linus helped me getting everything setup on the machine that is going to run gitlab now
20:24:51 <ahf> so now the next step is that i try to get it running using debian's "salsa" ansible cookbooks
20:25:14 <ahf> i suspect there will be some issues on the way (especially with the LDAP integration since i have no idea how that works)
20:25:28 * dcf1 expresses appreciation towards ahf for this work on setting up a server
20:25:47 <ahf> i think we should continue to do work with trac+git.torproject.org as long as the gitlab instance isn't there
20:25:50 <ahf> dcf1: thanks!
20:26:06 <cohosh> yes thank you ahf!
20:26:15 <ahf> but, maybe we should make sure that we are more people that can merge?
20:26:54 <cohosh> sounds good to me
20:26:57 <ahf> in the network-team we recently have talked a lot about how to "merge" code in a "sane way", and i (think) what we do right now is that: the person who reviews the code cannot merge it, which means the merger will do a sort-of second review of the code too
20:27:36 <ahf> which i think seems smart, but the network team have had some concerns around it because the volume of code going in there is also bigger than what we do and also it's written in C so every single line might make something blow up
20:28:03 <ahf> i don't know if we should do the same here? so when for example i've reviewed cohosh's changes to the geoip code, then i pass it onto dcf1 who merges it?
20:28:17 <dcf1> two things from my end: 1. I can open a ticket to ask for ahf and cohosh to be able to merge to tpo snowflake.git; 2. I can handle merges until then or until gitlab is set up.
20:28:17 <ahf> and if dcf have a patch then either cohosh or i review it and the other person merges it?
20:28:38 <cohosh> ahf: this is difficult with not many people
20:28:49 <ahf> cohosh: i agree!
20:29:00 <ahf> maybe just the reviewer says OK and merges?
20:29:09 <ahf> then we could go with dcf1's (1) suggestion?
20:29:25 <ahf> that requires a signed ticket to the git sysadmins i think on trac
20:30:22 <dcf1> yeah I've done that before, I'm looking for a past instance to use as a template lol
20:30:31 <ahf> :-D
20:30:38 <ahf> i've never done it before, i think i have just seen them happen
20:30:49 <ahf> maybe irl can help if you cannot find the template
20:30:57 <cohosh> i think arma1 just recently created one for me about the s19 stuff
20:31:00 * cohosh looks for it
20:31:07 <ahf> cool!
20:31:32 <cohosh> #29679
20:32:05 <dcf1> all right, I'll file one of those tickets. Do we need access to others besides ahf and cohosh?
20:32:28 <ahf> i think that set seems right for now
20:32:45 <cohosh> yup
20:33:42 <ahf> cool, so we go with "whoever reviews it, merges it" for now?
20:33:47 <ahf> if the code looks reasonable that is
20:33:56 <kat5> yolo!
20:34:00 <kat5> ;-)
20:34:03 <cohosh> lol
20:34:14 <cohosh> sounds good to me
20:34:15 <ahf> kat5: totally, haha
20:34:16 <dcf1> That rule works for me.
20:34:25 <ahf> ... and nobody has said anything about whether you can review your own code!
20:34:28 * ahf giggles
20:35:01 <ahf> cool, that was good to get that solved
20:35:11 <ahf> then we have two reviews: #29297 and #21304
20:35:18 <dcf1> I'm fine too if the author merges after merge_ready, but also I don't mind asking someone else to do merges of my code.
20:35:36 <dcf1> I'm looking at #21304.
20:35:39 <ahf> i haven't had a chance to look at #29297 yet, but was hoping to be able to get around it tomorrow morning
20:35:46 <cohosh> dcf1: thanks!
20:35:50 <ahf> great, that sounds like we have one person at least on each
20:36:59 <ahf> cool, i don't see any other help items on the pad - the one about marionette is from last week
20:37:42 <ahf> announcements: we only have one. pili sent an email about "Google Season of Docs" which is like Summer of Code, but for technical writing/documentation
20:38:07 <ahf> do we have something related to the anti-censorship team there that would be interesting to get done here from a student who is into technical writing?
20:38:36 <kat5> FYI, I am done at end of May.
20:38:41 <ahf> they get paid in the same way as GSoC student does i believe so it should probably also be seen as a way to maybe find cool new people who could get excited about something related to anti-censorship
20:38:48 <ahf> kat5: ah, so soon :-(
20:39:17 <kat5> Which should include wrapping up the sponsor 19 final report and then maybe one or two other small things if we have any.
20:39:36 <ahf> kat5: cool, so end-of-may i assume here?
20:39:57 <kat5> Huh? Yes, I'm done at end of May.
20:40:01 * Samdney is watching ....
20:40:15 <ahf> oh, sorry, you wrote that, i read it as it just said "May"
20:40:38 <cohosh> does this include localization of things?
20:40:53 <ahf> cohosh: i don't think so, but i'm actually not sure
20:41:21 <ahf> i think tor already have some group we work together with on localization that we can get help from if we need to
20:41:34 <kat5> I don't think tech writing usually includes translation.
20:41:35 <ahf> i think the browser team and the website/ux team knows more about that
20:41:48 <cohosh> okay cool, thanks. i wasn't sure how general it was
20:42:12 <ahf> i'm not 100% sure about all of this, i have it on my todo to figure out what the scope of it is
20:42:26 <cohosh> what about that bridge guide for NGOs thing that i think was on kat5's list? that seems potentially very useful
20:42:57 <dcf1> good call
20:43:35 <kat5> What I didn't get from pili's email was whether this would be combined with other Tor work. Or whether, say, the community team would ask for one person and she wants us to ask for another.
20:43:46 <ahf> yep, i think that could be in the scope for it. i think maybe it could make sense for us to look at what user-targetting/org-targetting documentation we have in TPO for tor-related stuff and see if there is something missing for PT's/bridges/snowflake/etc. too
20:43:49 <kat5> What I'm thinking is that we'd have to have enough work for whatever the term is.
20:43:55 <pili> hi :)
20:44:02 <ahf> pili: o/
20:44:11 <pili> I would want to ask for as many ideas as we can get
20:44:22 <pili> and then how many people we get depends on how many we are prepared to mentor
20:44:27 <kat5> Also, I may still get to at least starting that ngo bridge doc with any luck.
20:44:40 <ahf> pili: is it like gsoc with one/two mentors per student and one project per student?
20:44:54 <pili> yup, I believe so
20:45:10 <pili> I actually think they may not be students though, but actual technical writers
20:45:18 <pili> not sure how that works though
20:45:37 <ahf> oh, i think i added the student-part, yeah
20:45:38 <pili> as in, why a technical writer would go for this necessarily :)
20:45:59 <pili> but anyway, looking for plenty of ideas, that way they have more to choose from
20:46:00 <ahf> yeah, it doesn't mention students at all on the site, cool
20:46:03 <pili> we don't have to mentor all ideas
20:46:10 <kat5> I think it would be because they are looking for experience and want to get it in oss.
20:46:27 <pili> kat5: yeah, that's probably it :)
20:46:54 <kat5> IME, it's fairy common for tech writing to be a career change.
20:48:25 <Samdney> tech writing can be tricky :)
20:49:27 <ahf> pili: so if we spend the next week trying to get some ideas that would be OK? or what is your deadline'ish?
20:49:34 <pili> yup, that would be great
20:49:50 <pili> the program actually opens on 2nd April
20:49:53 <pili> for applications
20:50:09 <ahf> ah, and then we need to start submit project proposals?
20:50:34 <pili> yup
20:51:33 <ahf> cool!
20:52:32 <ahf> awesome, i don't think we have anything else here today. i wrote an email today to tor's HR to figure out what we do with the "tor project, inc" peer-to-peer feedback process that is coming up and what we should do with the very new anti-censorship team people, so hopefully we know more about that next week or something
20:52:44 <ahf> anybody else who have anything?
20:53:51 <kat5> nope
20:53:58 <ahf> coolio
20:54:01 <ahf> thanks all o/
20:54:04 <ahf> #endmeeting