tor

Tor 0.2.1.17-rc marks the fourth -- and hopefully last -- release
candidate for the 0.2.1.x series. It lays the groundwork for further
client performance improvements, and also fixes a big bug with directory
authorities that were causing them to assign Guard and Stable flags
poorly.

The Windows bundles also finally include the geoip database that we
thought we'd been shipping since 0.2.0.x (oops), and the OS X bundles
should actually install Torbutton rather than giving you a cryptic
failure message (oops).

This is a release candidate! That means that we don't know of any
remaining show-stopping bugs, and 0.2.1.18 will be the new stable if
there are no problems. Please test it, and tell us about any problems
that you find.

https://www.torproject.org/download

Changes in version 0.2.1.17-rc - 2009-07-02
Major features: read more »

• Clients now use the bandwidth values in the consensus, rather than
  

I've been fielding some calls from the press about Tor and Iran. Someone quoted me as saying "double the clients from Iran over the past few days". We wondered, what are the real numbers? What does our network see from Iran? Is port 443 or https:// really blocked? Here's what we've discovered in the past day of working with the new metrics we've developed to be safe to collect without compromising anyone's anonymity. read more »

Tor 0.2.0.30 is released. A better formatted version of this report can be found at gmane.org

Tor 0.2.0.30 switches to a more efficient directory distribution design,
adds features to make connections to the Tor network harder to block,
allows Tor to act as a DNS proxy, adds separate rate limiting for relayed
traffic to make it easier for clients to become relays, fixes a variety
of potential anonymity problems, and includes the usual huge pile of
other features and bug fixes.

https://www.torproject.org/download.html

Changes in version 0.2.0.30 - 2008-07-15
o New v3 directory design:
- Tor now uses a new way to learn about and distribute information
about the network: the directory authorities vote on a common
network status document rather than each publishing their own
opinion. Now clients and caches download only one networkstatus
document to bootstrap, rather than downloading one for each
authority. Clients only download router descriptors listed in
the consensus. Implements proposal 101; see doc/spec/dir-spec.txt
for details.
- Set up moria1, tor26, and dizum as v3 directory authorities
in addition to being v2 authorities. Also add three new ones:
ides (run by Mike Perry), gabelmoo (run by Karsten Loesing), and
dannenberg (run by CCC).
- Switch to multi-level keys for directory authorities: now their
long-term identity key can be kept offline, and they periodically
generate a new signing key. Clients fetch the "key certificates"
to keep up to date on the right keys. Add a standalone tool
"tor-gencert" to generate key certificates. Implements proposal 103.
- Add a new V3AuthUseLegacyKey config option to make it easier for
v3 authorities to change their identity keys if another bug like
Debian's OpenSSL RNG flaw appears. read more »

Releases:

Torbutton 1.2.0rc5 (released July 6) provides improved addon compatibility, better preservation of Firefox preferences that we touch, fixing issues with Tor toggle breaking for some option combos, and an improved 'Restore Defaults' button. This version also features Firefox 3 cookie jar support, and support for storing cookie jars in memory.
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jul-2008/msg00026.html

Vidalia 0.1.6 (released July 8) fixes a bug introduced in 0.1.3 that could cause excessive CPU usage or crashing on some platforms; continues to prepare Vidalia's strings for easier translation; adds a Romanian GUI and installer translation; and updated the Farsi, Finnish, French, German, and Swedish translations.
http://trac.vidalia-project.net/browser/vidalia/tags/vidalia-0.1.6/CHANG...

Tor 0.2.0.29-rc (released July 8) fixes two big bugs with using bridges, fixes more hidden-service performance bugs, and fixes a bunch of smaller bugs.
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jul-2008/msg00038.html

Torbutton 1.2.0rc6 (released July 12) features fixes for a nasty history loss bug, an exception during Tor toggle, javascript being disabled in some tabs, better pref handling, and more.
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jul-2008/msg00049.html

Tor 0.2.0.30 (released July 15) is the first stable release of the 0.2.0.x branch. The previous stable branch (0.1.2.x) went stable in April of 2007. We are still waiting for Torbutton and Vidalia to stabilize before announcing the Windows and OS X packages on the or-announce announcements
list. We expect to do that in August.

Tor Browser Bundle 1.1.1 (released July 20) updates Vidalia to release 0.1.6, updates Pidgin Portable to 2.4.3, updates Pidgin OTR plugin to 3.2, updates Tor to 0.2.1.2-alpha, updates Torbutton to 1.2.0rc6, and sets TZ=UTC environment variable in RelativeLink (needed by Torbutton).
https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torbrowser/trunk/README read more »

Torbutton 1.2.0rc1 (released June 1), the first release candidate for the next stable series of the security-enhanced Torbutton Firefox extension, features functional support for Firefox 3. However, this support has not been extensively tested. In particular, timezone masking does not work at all. The workaround is to manually set the environment variable 'TZ' to 'UTC' before starting Firefox. This works on both Linux and Windows:
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jun-2008/msg00044.html

Tor 0.2.0.27-rc (released June 3) adds a few features we left out of the earlier release candidates. In particular, we now include an IP-to-country GeoIP database, so controllers can easily look up what country a given relay is in, and so bridge relays can give us some sanitized summaries about which countries are making use of bridges. (See proposal 126-geoip-fetching.txt for details.)
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jun-2008/msg00055.html

Torbutton 1.2.0rc2 (released June 8) features a fix for an annoying bug on MacOS, and adds much clamored for options to start Firefox in a specific Tor state:
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jun-2008/msg00103.html

Tor 0.2.0.28-rc (released June 13) fixes an anonymity-related bug, fixes a hidden-service performance bug, and fixes a bunch of smaller bugs.
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jun-2008/msg00165.html

Tor 0.2.1.1-alpha (released June 13) fixes a lot of memory fragmentation problems that were making the Tor process bloat especially on Linux; makes our TLS handshake blend in better; sends "bootstrap phase" status events to the controller, so it can keep the user informed of progress (and problems) fetching directory information and establishing circuits; and adds a variety of smaller features. http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jun-2008/msg00185.html

Vidalia 0.1.4 (released June 13) adds a bootstrap progress bar, UPnP support, a new set of freely licensed GUI icons, and fixes a few bugs. read more »

Incognito is an open source LiveDistro assisting you to securely and anonymously use the Internet almost anywhere you go. Incognito can be used from either a CD or a USB drive and has several Internet applications (Web browser, IRC client, Mail client, Instant messenger, etc.) pre-configured with security in mind, and all Internet traffic will be anonymized.

At the core of this anonymity is the Tor™ software and network. In recognition of the transparency, open source base, continued development, and improvement of the Incognito software, The Tor Project is proud to list Incognito as a licensee of the Tor brands.

Incognito has the right to use the Tor name and the Tor onion logo™ as needed. The high quality graphics will improve the user experience. The usage of the Tor brand will only further reinforce that Incognito is a legitimate solution using the Tor software.

We welcome the further cooperation and collaboration between Incognito and The
Tor Project.

Tor 0.2.0.26-rc (released May 13) fixes a major security vulnerability caused by a bug in Debian's OpenSSL packages. All users running any 0.2.0.x version should upgrade, whether they're running Debian or not.
http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/May-2008/msg00048.html

Vidalia 0.1.3 (released May 25) adds a hidden service configuration UI designed and implemented by Domenik Bork, as well as a few other bugfixes.
http://trac.vidalia-project.net/browser/vidalia/tags/vidalia-0.1.3/CHANG...

The Tor Browser Bundle 1.0.2 (released May 3) and 1.0.3 (released May 16) include upgraded versions of Tor, Vidalia, Torbutton, and Firefox.

We added three new part-time developers in May. We hired Matt Edman as a part-time employee at the beginning of May, to work on Vidalia maintenance, bugfixes, and new features. We also are funding Karsten Loesing to work on making hidden service rendezvous and interaction faster, and Peter Palfrader to work on lowering the overhead of directory requests, especially during bootstrap, which should directly improve the experience for Tor users on modems or cell phones.

Google has agreed to give us some funding to work on auto-update for Windows. Our plan is for Vidalia to look at the majority-signed network status consensus to decide when to update and to what version (Tor already lists what versions are considered safe, in each network status document). We should actually do the update via Tor if possible, for additional privacy, and we need to make sure to check package signatures to ensure package validity. Last, we need to give the user an interface for these updates, including letting her opt to migrate from one major Tor version to the next.

We continued enhancements to the Chinese and Russian Tor website translations. Vidalia also added a Turkish translation.

From the Vidalia 0.1.3 ChangeLog: read more »

Google is funding a project to create an auto-update feature in Vidalia. This auto-update feature will provide a better user experience for Tor users. The goal is to create a system where Vidalia can detect when a new release is available, fetch the package, verify authenticity, and assist the user in upgrading the Vidalia/Tor package. The auto-update feature preserves the user's privacy and anonymity. Over the next six months we'll develop the auto-update system for general release around November 15, 2008.

We're excited to work with Google on this project and look forward to the collaboration.

Jacob Appelbaum joins us to help out with:

• developing a translation portal. This should help us find translators
  and make their updates easier.
• coordinating the Tor translation team and getting parts that need
  translating, translated.
• helping to better document Tor for non-technical users.
• writing an auto-responder to use Google's gmail to deliver Tor to
  users who request it
• helping to get auto-updating for Tor and Vidalia working seamlessly
• maintaining the code that runs the tor exitlist
• generally advocating Tor

Matt Edman joins the Tor Project. Matt joins to help us enhance Tor's
interactions with Vidalia. Specifically, he's working on:

• integrating upnp libraries into vidalia to make it easier to setup servers
• displaying Tor's startup status more visually in Vidalia to help users
  understand what's going on as Tor starts
• assist with making translating Vidalia's interface and help files
  easier for translators
• helping to flesh out proposals in queue on or-dev
• helping to get auto-updating or Tor and Vidalia working seamlessly
• tackling the "matt" section of the TODO file.

Welcome Jacob and Matt!

Tor-0.2.0.26-rc replaces several V3 directory authority keys affected by a recent Debian OpenSSL bug.

This is a security-critical release.

Everybody running any version in the 0.2.0.x series should upgrade, whether
they are running Debian or not. Also, all servers running any version of Tor
whose keys were generated by Debian, Ubuntu, or any derived distribution may
have to replace their identity keys. See our security advisory for full details. As always, you can find Tor 0.2.0.26-rc on the downloads page.

Changes in version 0.2.0.26-rc - 2008-05-13
Major security fixes:

• Use new V3 directory authority keys on the tor26, gabelmoo, and moria1 V3 directory authorities. The old keys were generated with a vulnerable version of Debian's OpenSSL package, and must be considered compromised. Other authorities' keys were not generatedwith an affected version of OpenSSL.

Major bugfixes:

• List authority signatures as "unrecognized" based on DirServer lines, not on cert cache. Bugfix on 0.2.0.x.

Minor features:

• Add a new V3AuthUseLegacyKey option to make it easier for authorities to change their identity keys if they have to.