Review torconnect region list (set by mozilla)
In "about:torconnect" we show a region selector for finding bridges via Moat. The user can choose their specific region, rather than Moat automatically guessing their region based on their IP address.
Currently this list of regions comes from mozilla, in a list of region codes that they maintain. See also the fluent file for the english names for all the regions. I think the full list of codes was last updated in 2015 to use some GENC list. Otherwise there have only been renames since. But they aren't really used much in firefox, other than displaying languages and some form filling stuff. I was told by a mozilla developer that the list is not exhaustive of any unicode standard, and they only really expect to add a code if they add a language for the region.
As a result, mozilla's list doesn't necessarily line up with what we want for Moat. It is not exhaustive of all regions, but at the same time it may cover more regions than is useful. In principle a user could select a specific region, when a larger region actually controls the internet. Does Moat handle these smaller region codes, or would the user be better off guessing the larger region?
Obviously region lists can be kind of arbitrary and wrapped up in geopolitics, and I guess only a few of the choices actually have an effect on Moat.
Remaining questions:
- Can we rely on the mozilla list to contain all the regions we need for Moat to be effective?
- Can we rely on mozilla to maintain this list?
- Do we want more control over this list, or is the mozilla list good enough?
- Does the mozilla list risk splitting users between smaller regions when they should really select a larger region that Moat recognises? If "yes", should we limit the list in Tor Browser or should we handle it on the Moat server?
- Besides the "Frequently selected locations", do the other region codes actually influence the bridges returned by Moat?
- Does it make sense to let the user choose from a smaller list with known effects, and a final option of "Rest of World" to just grab the Moat default?
- Or, does it make sense to keep the list as large and exhaustive as possible so that the Moat server can react more dynamically than Tor Browser can? E.g. if it turns out that a smaller region requires specific bridges we don't have to wait for a Tor Browser update for the user to select them. I feel like this will always have limitations though since a region under a specific internet block isn't necessarily going to map to a unicode region code.
/cc @cohosh and @meskio as far as I could figure out, you work on the Moat stuff, so might be able to answer some of these. Feel free to CC someone else on the team who might know.