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ORG-tech-vols IRC meeting log 2014 02 7

2014-02-07

Chat logs from our third IRC meeting

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(19:18:26) graphiclunarkid: Hey everyone - happy Friday! Kicking off the meeting in just under 15 minutes so grab a cup or glass of whatever you're drinking this evening and get ready to let everyone know what you've been up to :) 

(19:18:45) ***graphiclunarkid is on the coffee again... 

(19:25:31) graphiclunarkid: Making a start in five minutes... if anyone is around! 

(19:26:07) Alll: :) 

(19:26:38) graphiclunarkid: Yay - a person! Hey Alll :) 

(19:26:52) Alll: hi, could be a quick meeting if no one else is about~! 

(19:27:02) graphiclunarkid: Indeed! 

(19:27:35) graphiclunarkid: Always the risk of a Friday meeting - but since nobody replied to my list email on the subject... ;P 

(19:27:56) Alll: yeah, sure some more will turn up 

(19:28:43) graphiclunarkid: If not we can talk about the website mock-ups and the workflow for getting them online somehow. (If I've guessed right that Alll === Alex?) 

(19:28:45) Alll: guess it's harder to log on from the pub :O 

(19:28:54) Alll: yeah, Alex was already taken 

(19:29:04) graphiclunarkid: Figures 

(19:29:06) Alll: cool 

(19:29:21) graphiclunarkid: Yeah - bit more difficult to IRC from a phone in a noisy pub.... but sooo much more Friday! 

(19:29:28) Alll: One day I'll think of a really cool nick... 

(19:30:02) ***graphiclunarkid wonders if _46bit, _guy, hellais_ JonRibbens, plett or RevK are ducking into the meeting tonight. 

(19:30:37) graphiclunarkid: Alll: I had to go for something obscure in the end. Few figure out the connection! 

(19:30:48) dantheta1 [~Thunderbi@dsl-217-155-42-217.zen.co.uk] entered the room. 

(19:30:59) Alll: I've no idea! 

(19:31:01) graphiclunarkid: Hey dantheta1, good to see you. 

(19:31:08) graphiclunarkid: Alll: It's an anagram. 

(19:31:10) dantheta1: Hey - sorry I'm a couple of minutes late 

(19:31:27) Alll: ah, wouldn't have seen that unless you'd pointed it out! 

(19:31:35) dantheta1: Too honest for my own good 

(19:31:38) graphiclunarkid: dantheta1: No bother. Just you, me and Alll here ATM I think. We were just gonna start discussing the workflow for developing the website. 

(19:32:14) dantheta1: That's cool. Have you heard from NetworkString at all? 

(19:32:35) graphiclunarkid: No - but I saw some tweets from him suggesting he's been busy moving house. 

(19:32:58) graphiclunarkid: So possibly not surprising work on the API has slowed! 

(19:33:15) dantheta1: Indeed! 

(19:33:48) graphiclunarkid: One thing I wanted to ask, actually, is how we get more eyes on the middleware code. I see there's an outstanding pull request from someone from a couple of weeks ago. 

(19:34:06) graphiclunarkid: I would just accept it - but I don't want to do so without someone reviewing the code first. 

(19:34:15) graphiclunarkid: It looks pretty non-controversial though. 

(19:34:40) dantheta1: Yep - that's the utf and innodb changes in the MySQL table structure. I'd say they're good to go. 

(19:34:57) graphiclunarkid: https://github.com/openrightsgroup/Blocking-Middleware/pull/2 

(19:35:11) graphiclunarkid: Oh cool, OK then. I'll merge them. 

(19:36:39) graphiclunarkid: Done :) 

(19:36:46) dantheta1: Cool! 

(19:37:45) graphiclunarkid: So what do we think about the process of getting Alll's rather marvellous designs for blocked.org.uk going? 

(19:38:01) graphiclunarkid: I was quite keen to use github 'cos it's handy, everyone can contribute, and it's what we're using already. 

(19:38:15) Alll: I'm good to go, but I've no idea who to get sign off from or that works 

(19:38:16) graphiclunarkid: However because it's a MODx site that seems to be less than idea. 

(19:38:19) graphiclunarkid: *ideal. 

(19:38:33) dantheta1: I have to admit I'd not heard of MODx before. 

(19:38:41) graphiclunarkid: So is there another way - I mean practically - of doing it? 

(19:38:55) Alll: I'll probably knock up the HTML for a page with all elements on and the CSS and commit this that way it'll act as a library of elements, 

(19:39:11) graphiclunarkid: OK that would work. 

(19:39:12) Alll: then we can pick from this to put it together 

(19:39:34) graphiclunarkid: Do you have a github account already? If so I will make you a contributor to the repository in question. 

(19:39:44) Alll: but it basically stores HTML with loads of custom commands for each page or block of text which all goes in a db 

(19:39:55) Alll: yes, have github acct, what do I need to do to join? 

(19:40:22) graphiclunarkid: Yeah, I don't know how one configures things such that we can use a VCS to collaborate, given its insistence on all that stuff. 

(19:40:30) graphiclunarkid: Alll: Tell me your username and I'll add you. 

(19:40:35) Alll: webal 

(19:41:07) Alll: I can't think of anyway apart from saving raw sql dumps to github, but I don't see that ending well... 

(19:42:23) graphiclunarkid: Indeed. 

(19:42:24) dantheta1: For drupal and wordpress, it's possible to export a single page's content and load it into another instance of WP/drupal; perhaps if MODx has an equivalent feature that could be used, and github could contain the individual page exports? 

(19:42:47) Alll: I'm checking the docs now, I'll let you know if I see anything 

(19:42:48) dantheta1: Still seems like it could be a bit laborious though. 

(19:42:52) graphiclunarkid: Alll: you should now have contributor access to an empty repo for blocked.org.uk 

(19:42:53) Alll: yeah! 

(19:43:10) graphiclunarkid: I spoke to a chap called Ian Parnel who is a MODx expert. 

(19:43:27) Alll: yeah looks like thats done it :) 

(19:43:42) Alll: is he volunteering? 

(19:43:44) graphiclunarkid: He seemed keen to join in with all this and he mailed us some info about which directories to put in github etc. 

(19:43:52) graphiclunarkid: Alll: Yeah, he's a volunteer. 

(19:44:00) Alll: cool :) 

(19:44:17) graphiclunarkid: Alll: Jim spotted him on the MODx showcase site, saw he lived in the same city as me, and suggestd I buy him a pint... 

(19:44:19) graphiclunarkid: *suggested 

(19:44:28) Alll: Is there any progress on sorting out a staging server or beta domain? 

(19:44:39) Alll: cunning move there! 

(19:44:44) graphiclunarkid: None. Don't know what's going on there. 

(19:45:05) graphiclunarkid: I will be in ORG's office next Monday and Tuesday though so hoping to chase up some of these things in person. 

(19:45:26) graphiclunarkid: dantheta1: Yeah, laborious is something I think we should avoid! 

(19:45:34) Alll: cool, I was planning to sort HTML next week, but after that I'll be at a a bit of a loss 

(19:45:46) graphiclunarkid: Alll: I think I sent you a copy of the info Ian sent to me. 

(19:45:56) graphiclunarkid: Maybe use that directory structure as a starting point? 

(19:46:03) graphiclunarkid: If it makes sense to do so. 

(19:46:04) Alll: yeah, I remember seeing that 

(19:46:10) Alll: will check now quickly 

(19:46:13) graphiclunarkid: Cool, ok. 

(19:46:36) graphiclunarkid: As far as a dummy domain goes I'm sure we can stand up something somewhere if ORG are dragging their feet too much. 

(19:46:49) vasilis [~nu@ooni-1.default.orgtech.uk0.bigv.io] entered the room. 

(19:47:06) graphiclunarkid: I have a VPS I can host it on, and if it's just straight HTML, I can set up a git post-receive hook so it'll check out the latest from master when you commit. 

(19:47:11) graphiclunarkid: Hey vasilis 

(19:47:20) vasilis: Hi 

(19:47:26) graphiclunarkid: We were just discussing the workflow for developing blocked.org.uk 

(19:47:31) Alll: yeah, happy to stick it on my hosting but could be a nightmare transferring it - or could be a piece of cake I've never used modx before 

(19:47:46) graphiclunarkid: Yeah - hence why I'm hoping this Ian chap can help! 

(19:47:50) Alll: VPS sounds good too 

(19:48:00) Alll: guess we'll wait and see what happens next eek 

(19:48:02) Alll: week 

(19:48:09) graphiclunarkid: Alll: Indeed. 

(19:48:53) graphiclunarkid: dantheta1: In the presumed temporary absence of NetworkString are there ways you can help improve the API side of things? 

(19:49:12) Alll: glk - could you send over the full email - I think the list of files was truncated 

(19:49:18) graphiclunarkid: dantheta1: I know we were talking about ripping out all that GPG stuff and replacing it with HMAC stuff. Fancy your chances? 

(19:49:25) graphiclunarkid: Alll: Yeah, will do. 

(19:49:29) dantheta1: Yep - I've got a branch on github with a work-in-progress that I was working on during the week. 

(19:50:21) dantheta1: The only thing I'm not sure about is whether it should fold into version 1.2 of the API, or whether to call it 1.3 

(19:51:17) dantheta1: but I think I've just answered that question. 

(19:51:47) dantheta1: I'll fix up the branch and update the wiki page with details of work-in-progress. 

(19:51:59) graphiclunarkid: dantheta1: Heh - no harm in bumping the version, especially to distinguish your changes. 

(19:52:22) dantheta1: I wasn't sure if anyone had started implementing 1.2 or not 

(19:52:36) dantheta1: Going by the github repo, probably not. 

(19:52:39) graphiclunarkid: dantheta1: Hmm. Not sure. 1.2 might end up a bit like IPv5 then! 

(19:52:50) dantheta1: so it should still be safe to make backwards-incompatible changes on 1.2 

(19:53:08) graphiclunarkid: That seems fair enough. 

(19:53:21) graphiclunarkid: Alll: Just mailed you the full list of modx tables from Ian. 

(19:53:41) Alll: thanks 

(19:53:48) graphiclunarkid: dantheta1: Would it help if you had contributor access to the repo on ORG's github or are you happy with your fork for now? 

(19:55:15) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: sorry I didn't get round to replying to you on the list. It's been a very busy week unfortunately. 

(19:56:10) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: with the use-case stuff, I meant that we should try to identify how many of the OONI use-cases are relevant to our project, and then we can link to them fro the "probes" section on the use-case page. 

(19:56:20) dantheta1: graphiclunarkid: I'm happy with my own fork for now, but when I've had a chance to compare notes with NetworkString or liamja it would certainly be useful. 

(19:56:37) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: That way, when we come to work on those use-cases, we'll know we should be looking into collaborating with the upstream OONI project as closely as possible. 

(19:56:46) graphiclunarkid: dantheta1: OK cool. Just let me know. 

(19:57:13) dantheta1: graphiclunarkid: Cheers! 

(19:57:32) vasilis: graphiclunarkid: I see.. but at the moment we need to run ooni-probe 

(19:57:45) graphiclunarkid: So does anyone here have an OONI probe running on an ADSL line yet? 

(19:57:47) vasilis: Unfortunately I don't have access at any UK DSL 

(19:57:48) graphiclunarkid: In the UK, I mean! 

(19:58:04) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: Heh - great minds think alike! 

(19:58:33) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: I haven't heard from RevK or plett this week but from last week it looked like they were making good progress. 

(19:58:37) plett: graphiclunarkid: Hi. I'm sort of here 

(19:59:01) graphiclunarkid: Once they have their infrastructure up and running hopefully that will give you a good base to develop from, vasilis 

(19:59:14) xarlekino [~xarlekino@149.255.100.107] entered the room. 

(19:59:24) plett: I won't type much though, as I've got a painful shoulder/arm and typing is awkward 

(19:59:52) graphiclunarkid: plett: That's fine. Hope you didn't injure yourself at FOSDEM! 

(20:00:18) vasilis: plett: You were at FOSDEM? 

(20:00:25) plett: graphiclunarkid: But yes, A&A are still in the process of getting lines ordered from the big ISPs, but haven't placed orders yet 

(20:00:37) plett: vasilis: Yes, I was 

(20:00:46) vasilis: I searched for RevK.. 

(20:01:00) plett: No, he wasn't there 

(20:01:01) graphiclunarkid: plett: vasilis: I was wondering whether you would have run into each other. I guess that answers my question ;) 

(20:01:19) plett: Possibly we did, I don't know what vasilis looks like :) 

(20:01:27) graphiclunarkid: :D 

(20:01:38) vasilis: Not sure.. 

(20:01:50) vasilis: It's bit chaotic at FOSDEM. 

(20:01:52) graphiclunarkid: plett: did A&A have a stall then? 

(20:02:03) plett: No, I was just there in a personal capacity 

(20:02:34) graphiclunarkid: plett: Ah ok, that's what I thought, but you just made me wonder. Anyway, why am I still typing at you when you have a sore shoulder?! 

(20:02:39) ***graphiclunarkid stops harassing plett 

(20:02:45) plett: I spent most of my time with people from Surrey LUG, or MongoDB and Redhat people 

(20:03:09) plett: But yes, bumped into a few A&A customers in Delerium :) 

(20:04:15) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: What's the next thing you're planning to do for the OONI probe that requires the UK DSL connection? Are you at a stage where general testing is necessary or is it for developing specific features? 

(20:04:41) vasilis: graphiclunarkid: It's part of the report for the blocked UK websites. 

(20:05:05) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: Oh, right. So you need to see what gets returned when a blocked site is visited? 

(20:05:21) vasilis: I guess (as discussed with Jim) this would give as a boost and make the project more "visible". 

(20:05:25) xarlekin1 [~xarlekino@149.255.100.107] entered the room. 

(20:06:14) graphiclunarkid: Hey xarlekino / xarlekin1 - welcome :) 

(20:06:55) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: I'll have a think about how we can get you access to a probe on a censored line. 

(20:06:57) vasilis: I have extracted a list of UK ccTLD from the alexa top million results. 

(20:07:18) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: I would offer one on my home connection but it's not censored - the ISP does no filteriing. 

(20:07:46) vasilis: Most routers support VPN and even SSH 

(20:08:45) vasilis: Maybe there is a service that offer VPN connectivity or similar from residential DSL lines. 

(20:11:05) graphiclunarkid: Yeah, we just have to find someone with a connection that is filtered! 

(20:11:16) graphiclunarkid: (Until the A&A probes are up and running) 

(20:11:48) graphiclunarkid: hellais_: Dunno if you're reading this, but if you are, thanks for commenting on the OONI-probe feature requests I raised. 

(20:12:48) graphiclunarkid: For this one: https://github.com/TheTorProject/ooni-probe/issues/270 hellais_ was recommending we use a TOR hidden service for management rather than a separate network interface. 

(20:13:08) graphiclunarkid: Not sure how that fits in with what plett and RevK had in mind when we discussed it two weeks ago? 

(20:13:52) plett: We can run tor on the VMs if needed 

(20:14:09) graphiclunarkid: plett: OK. I'm tempted to suggest this one can be closed, then. 

(20:14:10) plett: But there will be a "back door" from the VMs on to an A&A network 

(20:14:37) graphiclunarkid: plett: Cool. That'll probably give us everything we need then, I guess. 

(20:14:49) graphiclunarkid: I think the other feature request has more traction: https://github.com/TheTorProject/ooni-probe/issues/269 

(20:15:22) graphiclunarkid: If it gets implemented then we might be able to reduce the complexity of the installation at A&A somewhat. Probably a longer-term goal though? 

(20:15:47) vasilis: Well ooniprobe uses tor by default :) 

(20:16:14) plett: Personally I'd prefer a back door onto an A&A network - it's going to have one anyway for us to maintain it 

(20:16:51) vasilis: plett: What exactly do you mean with "back door"? 

(20:17:41) plett: Either a second interface onto our network as well as the DSL connection, or a port forward that would let us ssh to the VM involved from an A&A IP 

(20:17:52) vasilis: graphiclunarkid: We can maintain are own version of the config file for ooniprobe. 

(20:18:44) vasilis: plett: I thought you were doing this already on the VPS servers provided to ORG. 

(20:20:13) plett: vasilis: Sure. How do you get to the VMs? 

(20:20:42) vasilis: plett: via ssh 

(20:21:51) plett: vasilis: Over the DSLs being installed? 

(20:22:34) vasilis: plett: Sorry you need to give more details, where are the DSLs installed? 

(20:22:46) plett: One sec, I'm on the phone 

(20:22:56) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: Are you talking about ORG's VPSs at bitfolk, where we're running the OONI back-end? 

(20:23:07) vasilis: graphiclunarkid: Yes 

(20:24:03) graphiclunarkid: Ah right. I think Plett is talking about some VMs running at Andrews and Arnold. They're planning to install a number of DSL lines at their office, one for each of the main ISPs in the UK, and route these to VMs running OONI probes. 

(20:24:27) graphiclunarkid: These will be used for testing URLs. The "back door" to which plett was referring will allow admin access to those VMs. 

(20:24:36) vasilis: We shouldn't bother with how we 'll administer ooni-probes as we don't have an army of them at the moment, this shouldn't be an issue IMHO. 

(20:24:45) graphiclunarkid: i.e. access to the VM via A&A's network rather than via the DSL lines. 

(20:25:34) vasilis: I would prefer to make things as simple as possible but I'm not the maintainer of the DSL lines. 

(20:25:54) plett: No, we are. And this is not even slightly complicated :) 

(20:26:08) graphiclunarkid: vasilis: You're right, it's not too important. The access needs to be there but we're not talking about automatic administration of lots of probes. There will be no more than half a dozen. 

[[Category: Censorship Monitoring Project]]