16:00:26 <meskio> #startmeeting tor anti-censorship meeting
16:00:26 <MeetBot> Meeting started Thu Aug 29 16:00:26 2024 UTC.  The chair is meskio. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
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16:00:30 <meskio> hello everybody!
16:00:32 <meskio> here is our meeting pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/r.9574e996bb9c0266213d38b91b56c469
16:00:34 <meskio> ask me in private to give you the link of the pad to be able to edit it if you don't have it
16:00:36 <meskio> I'll wait few minutes for everybody to add you've been working on and put items on the agenda
16:00:56 <shelikhoo> hi~
16:02:11 <onyinyang> hello i/
16:02:15 <onyinyang> um. . .o/
16:02:58 <meskio> u/
16:03:16 <meskio> I guess we can start
16:03:20 <onyinyang> lol
16:03:24 <meskio> we have a single discussion point in the agenda:
16:03:31 <meskio> what to do with moat bridges once we turn off BridgeDB?
16:03:51 <meskio> my plan is to switch BridgeDB off monday September 9th
16:04:03 <meskio> once we do that rdsys will stop distributing moat bridges
16:04:22 <meskio> I guess bridge operators will not see the difference for weeks, as users might stay using them
16:04:31 <meskio> but gradually they will stop being used
16:04:40 <meskio> should we hold those bridges for a while?
16:05:02 <meskio> should we reassign them to the settings distributor? (which is also used by the moat API in rdsys)
16:05:07 <meskio> should we assign them to lox?
16:05:21 <meskio> I think we should hold them for a bit, but not sure how long that bit should be
16:05:34 <meskio> but maybe is something we could monitor
16:05:39 <dcf1> I don't understand. Are the moat bridges now being used exclusively for moat, or were they also given to bridgedb requesters?
16:06:09 <meskio> moat bridges are used exclusivelly by moat (the request bridge button in Tor Browser)
16:06:25 <meskio> when we make the switch the request bridge button in Tor Browser will get settings bridges
16:06:34 <meskio> and those moat bridges will not be distributed anymore
16:06:37 <meskio> does it make sense?
16:06:51 <dcf1> Okay. So the existing moat bridges will have no new users, only the users they have already.
16:07:02 <meskio> exactly
16:07:14 <dcf1> But you are talking about, in the future, reassigning them to some other pool where they will get new users.
16:07:36 <meskio> I'll check that rdsys doesn't assign new bridges to that distributor once we do the deployment
16:07:46 <meskio> yes, I'm asking if in the future we should reassign them
16:08:17 <shelikhoo> I think we could reassign them in the future
16:08:48 <meskio> I can monitor metrics to see how usage goes down
16:08:49 <shelikhoo> let's say hold them in reserve for 30 days, and then let these bridges find a new home
16:08:53 <meskio> and we can see in the future
16:09:50 <shelikhoo> this is a balance of making sure the user do not lost their recently got bridge to a more attacked distribution method, and make bridge useful over all
16:10:34 <shelikhoo> although I am unsure whether we could do this based on changing the config
16:10:38 <meskio> yes, maybe we can decide on how long seeing how many users are still using them
16:10:58 <cohosh> this is a bit of a side-track, but the request bridge button will also no longer server a captcha with the change right?
16:11:36 <meskio> it will serve a captcha, because Tor Browser hasn't updated yet, but the captcha is a dummy one
16:11:43 <meskio> and any answer will be accepted as valid
16:12:27 <meskio> shelikhoo: not just with the config, but rdsys does store assignments in a json, I can modify that json...
16:12:42 <shelikhoo> yes... that's nice
16:13:05 <shelikhoo> it would be possible if we wants to do it
16:13:24 <meskio> cohosh: the catpcha: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/blob/main/pkg/presentation/distributors/moat/captcha.jpg?ref_type=heads
16:13:48 <meskio> and the discussion about it: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/rdsys/-/issues/182
16:13:56 <cohosh> oh nice, thanks
16:15:50 <meskio> I'll keep an eye to see how much the usage of moat bridges decline, so we can make a decision in the future on when to move them
16:16:06 <shelikhoo> yes, nice!
16:16:11 <meskio> I guess it might make sense to move them to the settings distributor, as not moving burned bridges to lox
16:16:17 <meskio> but we can also change our mind
16:16:58 <meskio> my plan is to communicate that to tor-relays once the switch is done
16:17:05 <meskio> so operators are not surprised by it
16:18:15 <meskio> anything more on this topic? or any other discussion topic?
16:18:37 <shelikhoo> eof on all topics
16:18:57 <meskio> should we pick our next paper to read?
16:19:17 <meskio> we were talking that maybe SpotProxy paper is worth reading: https://censorbib.nymity.ch/#Kon2024b
16:19:25 <meskio> as we might want to use that project or ideas in the future
16:19:28 <meskio> what do you think?
16:19:57 <shelikhoo> yes. let's add it to our reading to do list
16:20:59 <onyinyang> sounds good
16:21:18 <meskio> cool, we have a paper, in two weeks? september 12?
16:21:24 <cohosh> sounds great :)
16:22:09 <meskio> cool, anthing else for today?
16:22:28 <shelikhoo> eof
16:23:15 <meskio> then, I'll close the meeting
16:23:18 <meskio> #end-meeting
16:23:29 <meskio> #endmeeting