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17 July 2016

Lucky Green Leaves Tor, to Shut Tonga Bridge

A sends:

Tor's initial response to approaching bridge infrastructure shutdown, from the private tor-intenal list:

http://pastebin.com/w5WFMBXg

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    Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 11:15:29 +0200
    From: Sebastian Hahn <sebastian@torproject.org>
    To: tor-internal@lists.torproject.org, 
    Karsten Loesing <karsten@torproject.org>, 
    Nick Mathewson <nickm@torproject.org>, 
    Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>
    Subject: [tor-internal] Tonga is going away permanently Aug 31
    X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.3124)
     
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    [-- PGP output follows (current time: Sat 16 Jul 2016 09:37:19 AM UTC) --]
    gpg: Signature made Sat 16 Jul 2016 09:15:30 AM UTC
    gpg:                using RSA key A96C6FDD140C961B
    gpg: Can't check signature: public key not found
    [-- End of PGP output --]
     
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    Hey,
     
    Lucky announced[0] that he is quitting all his Tor involvement including
    operation of Tonga and several relays. The relays should not cause any
    problems, but we need to deploy a new bridge auth asap, make sure it can
    transfer descriptors as the current one does etc.
     
    We need a supremely trusted operator for this, as they see sensitive
    data that they shouldn't lose, as well as someone who is able to provide
    a very high-availability system because bridge auth works quite
    differently compared to the dirauth system.
     
    Nevertheless, this will cause severe disruption for the bridge ecosystem
    as our users typically take a long time to update their version of Tor.
    We should strive to have this set up very soon and included in a Tor
    release well before Aug 31, and yet it will still cause disruptions.
     
    The above is just my take on the whole thing and I'm somewhat shocked by
    the development.
     
    Sebastian
     
    [0]: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19690
     
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    _______________________________________________
    tor-internal mailing list

https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/19690

#19690 assigned task

Tonga (Bridge Authority) Permanent Shutdown Notice

Reported by: shamrock
Owned by: isis

Priority: Very High
Milestone: Tor: 0.2.8.x-final

Component: Core
Tor/DirAuth Version: Tor: 0.2.8.5-rc

Description

Dear friends,

Given recent events, it is no longer appropriate for me to materially contribute to the Tor Project either financially, as I have so generously throughout the years, nor by providing computing resources. This decision does not come lightly; I probably ran one of the first five nodes in the system and my involvement with Tor predates it being called "Tor" by many years.

Nonetheless, I feel that I have no reasonable choice left within the bounds of ethics, but to announce the discontinuation of all Tor-related services hosted on every system under my control.

Most notably, this includes the Tor node "Tonga", the "Bridge Authority", which I recognize is rather pivotal to the network

Tonga will be permanently shut down and all associated crytographic keys destroyed on 2016-08-31. This should give the Tor developers ample time to stand up a substitute. I will terminate the chron job we set up so many years ago at that time that copies over the descriptors.

In addition to Tonga, I will shut down a number of fast Tor relays, but the directory authorities should detect that shutdown quickly and no separate notice is needed here.

I wish the Tor Project nothing but the best moving forward through those difficult times,

--Lucky