#25581: Inconsistent underscore config options (for vanguard options) -------------------------------------------------+------------------------- Reporter: atagar | Owner: nickm Type: defect | Status: | needs_review Priority: Medium | Milestone: Tor: | 0.3.3.x-final Component: Core Tor/Tor | Version: Severity: Minor | Resolution: Keywords: regression, 033-must, | Actual Points: 033-triage-20180326, 033-included-20180326 | Parent ID: | Points: Reviewer: asn | Sponsor: -------------------------------------------------+-------------------------
Comment (by arma): I'm having trouble reconciling the two stories I'm seeing of how we're planning to frame these new options from the user perspective. In story one, we've added these experimental internal options so that it's easier to experiment with vanguards and get closer to knowing what rotation parameters and so on we want to recommend. We plan to write some controller scripts to help us implement our ideas for how vanguards might work, which will help us to prove the concept to ourselves, and convince us that we want to implement vanguards as part of Tor for real. In this story, we make them double-underscore options to indicate that users really shouldn't mess with them unless they're part of the vanguard research work. Once we have some controller scripts that we think work, we would then invite developer-style users to try them too, to help us find bugs and make the idea better, so when we build it into Tor it will be the best possible design. In story two, we've added these expert-mode options so that users who think they know how vanguards should work can begin using them for their deployed onion services. We plan to write some controller scripts so that users can begin using them for real-world situations, because while we don't yet know how one should tune vanguards, or even if there are parameters that will work in the real world, we plan to invite real users to start using them asap because not using them seems really scary. In this story, we want to make the torrc options like all the other torrc options (no underscores), because maybe there are users who need vanguards now yet their security situation precludes opening a control port, so those users should be given the means to cobble together a manual vanguard approach on their own. I worry that we are trying to tell both of these stories at the same time, and it's leading to conflicting plans. For example: are we planning to write up documentation, aimed at users, on how onion service operators should use the 0.3.3 vanguard torrc options to become safer? (That plan would be in line with story two.) If so, I think the EntryNodes comparison is not quite right, because we don't have any documentation telling users how they should set EntryNodes to be safer, and in fact we work hard to tell users that they will only hurt themselves by setting it. (Or am I wrong and we do have those docs somewhere?) In summary, I think we need to agree on what story we're intending to tell, and then whether to under underscores will hopefully be clear from there. -- Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/25581#comment:12> Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/> The Tor Project: anonymity online
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