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Sponsor30

Sponsor 30

Project Title: Empowering Communities in the Global South to Bypass Censorship

Project Period: September 20, 2019 - November 30, 2021

Meetings: Once a month at 1800 UTC in #tor-meeting, irc.oftc.net. They are announced in the tor project mailing list.

Project Goals/Activities

Objective 1: Support censorship circumvention through the improvement of network measurement methodologies aimed at detecting the blocking of circumvention tools 

Objective 2: Ensure users in target countries have access to the best Tor bridge options for circumventing censorship 

Objective 3: Improve Tor Browser and bridges.torproject.org experience for human rights defenders under censorship

Teams involved:

  • ooni
  • anti-censorship
  • ux
  • applications
  • network
  • metrics
  • community

Project Tracking

TicketQuery(sponsor=Sponsor30-must,format=progress)

Tickets by objective and activity

Objective 1 is worked by OONI and managed in their repositories.

Objective O2: Ensure users in target countries have access to the best Tor bridge options for circumventing censorship.

O2.1 - Create an evaluation framework and collect data to better monitor and evaluate current bridge selection and distribution processes.
A1 - Create an evaluation framework for bridge distribution and selection methods.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o21a1,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A2 - Evaluate distribution and selection methods for human rights defenders in target regions.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o21a2,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A3 - Identify which bridge selection and distribution methods are most used in targeted regions.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o21a3,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

O2.2 - Improve user experience and user interface of bridges.torproject.org.
A1 - Evaluate the user experience of our bridge download site, bridges.torproject.org, and provide a report with the top problems encountered by human rights defenders on the ground.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o22a1,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A2 - Identify solutions for user problems reported above and implement them to make the portal easier to understand and use successfully.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o22a2,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A3 - Localize bridges.torproject.org. Tailor additional localization strategies based on community feedback, requests, and data collected during the project timeframe.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o22a3,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

O2.3 - Develop new and/or improve existing bridge selection and distribution strategies.
A1 - Develop new and/or improve existing bridge selection and distribution strategies based on data collected about successful, effective methods per evaluation during O1.1.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o23a1,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A2 - Develop methods to present bridges to users based on their location, potentially incorporating relevant censorship data published by OONI.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o23a2,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A3 - Improve ability for bridgedb/authority to test bridges that only expose a pluggable transport.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o23a3,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A4 - Update bridgeDB/gettor to give region-specific recommendations for PT and bridges.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o23a4,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

O2.4 - Boost security by increasing the number of bridges run by volunteers and collective entities through improvements to onboarding and better communications.
A1 - Improve documentation on how to set up a bridge server and different pluggable transport bridge servers.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o24a1,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A2 - Create scripts and configuration code for setting up a bridge on cloud providers to make it easier for operators to launch a new bridge.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o24a2,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A3 - Promote workshops on how to set up a bridge at relay operator meetups.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o24a3,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A4 - Improve documentation of bridgeDB--the code behind selecting and distributing bridges.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o24a4,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A5 - Increase stability and resilience of bridge authority and bridgeDB by exploring and implementing decentralizations of those services.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o24a5,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

Objective O3: Improve Tor Browser and bridges.torproject.org experience for human rights defenders under censorship.

O3.1 - Research different scenarios of how human rights defenders experience censorship.
A1 - Develop Tor user personas as a tool to understand users’ contexts and mental models.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o31a1,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A2 - Define which censorship scenarios we are going to address.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o31a2,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A3 - Use Tor user personas to define user flows that will empower human rights defenders to effectively circumvent censorship based on the scenarios identified above.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o31a3,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

O3.2 - Design the flow of how our users can bypass the scenarios of O3.1.
A1 - User flow part 1: User learns they are under censorship. Create mockups with different solutions on how to notify Tor Browser users about detected censorship.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s32-o32a1,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A2 - User flow part 2: Once censorship is acknowledged by the user, we then guide them on how to bypass the detected censorship. Create mockups with different solutions on how to better guide our users to bypass censorship.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s32-o32a2,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

O3.3 - Implement final design of user flows created on O3.2.
A1 - Implement final design of user flows part 1 and 2.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o33a1,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id

A2 - Test and refine solutions developed under O3.2 by including them on nightly releases so users in the Global South can give us feedback early in the release process.

TicketQuery(keywords~=s30-o33a2,sponsor=^Sponsor30,order=status,format=table,col=id