Introducing the Localization Lab's Community-led Training Series

The Community-led training series leverages the expertise of our contributors, providing an opportunity for our volunteers both to learn and to share their skills. The idea for the series was born out of conversations with contributors about different ways to structure our monthly meetups, and how to best engage members of the community at large.

The first training in our series is an Introduction to Weblate, a web-based translation management platform, which was facilitated by Loic Dachary from SecureDrop with a guest appearance from the Weblate developer, Michal Čihař.

We are hoping that the training topics will be as varied and diverse as the community itself -- the suggested themes don’t have to be limited to localization. So far, our contributors have shown interest in the following training ideas:

• How to write a good feature request/bug report in Git.

• How to use a dictation plugin as a localization assist.

• How to use filters in Transifex to make your work easier.

• How to run a Tor relay.

• How to use Docker Images securely.

If you have a skill you would like to share or a topic you would like to learn more about, reach out to us at info@localizationlab.org. Thanks to our amazing contributors we are able to share a video of the Weblate training. Take a look and let us know what you think!

Contributor Insights into Breton

By Andrea Brás

“Contributor Insights…” is a series of interviews leveraging the experience of Localization Lab contributors in order to provide more insight into the needs, threats, and challenges faced by users living and working in different parts of the world.

Breton is a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Brittany, France and despite seeing its numbers dwindle from 1 million in 1950 to a little more than 200,000, Breton speakers are pushing to ensure their language grows. Bilingual “diwan” schools are offering Breton immersion education across Brittany and some estimates show that the number of children learning Breton is on the rise; however, like many minority languages, Breton must constantly fight for a place at the table.

Localization Lab spoke with a Breton language localizer who is working to offer open source tools to his community and, in the process, claim space online for other Breton speakers.

In your opinion, how do individuals in your community and in France generally view Breton?

This is a very complicated issue. During France’s Third Republic, Breton was banned entirely from schools, and there are many stories of children who were beaten by their teachers for using the language. My own father was beaten when he spoke Breton at school. This oppressive policy against minority language speakers lead to many people feeling ashamed to speak Breton — for some, this feeling still exists. Before WWII, there were so many of us and now there are only about 200,000 speakers. That means our speaking population has been cut down from around 1.5 million at the beginning of the 1900’s to the numbers we have today. So even though the government is working to support Breton now, it often feels like it is not doing enough.

How do you go about choosing tools to work on? Are there specific tools that are particularly important for the needs of your community?

I think it is important to work on tools that promote the Breton language for young people. Right now I am working on localizing video game software which targets teenagers. I want them to see the language in the games they play, so they can learn new words and expressions while having fun.

I am personally interested in projects like Tor and No Script because I think it is very important for everyone to protect themselves online. If Google Chrome were to offer me the opportunity to work on a project with them, I would turn it down. I prefer open source software.

How has your community come to a consensus on technology terms that don’t exist in Breton? What are the challenges with creating new terminology?

The Breton language has a public office which updates new terminology in a dictionary they have created. However, there is another “purist” dictionary by an organization called Preder which prefers to stay away from modern terms and instead looks to Old Breton and Middle Breton (sometimes even Old and Middle Welsh and Cornish) in order to have the most “celtic” source of words for their dictionary.

There is an interesting debate between both schools of thought which can be quite challenging to navigate. The public office allows for international loan words and others that have been “Bretonized” in their dictionary, whereas the Preder group feels that permitting those types of words promotes so-called “bad” Breton.

An example of this is the word “sandwich”. For the public office dictionary, the word “sandwich” is acceptable while the Preder dictionary prefers the term “bara pok ha pok” (literally translated as bread kiss and kiss).

There is a lot of conflict between these two approaches to Breton. Some people feel that incorporating loan words from other languages is not real Breton while others feel that purists, like Preder, are making things more complicated. An expression that people use when referring to this is, “Brezhoneg chimik eo” (it’s chemical Breton) which is a derogatory way for people to refer to purists, implying that they use a type of “chemistry” to invent complicated words.

When you translate do you use a “purist” approach or a more flexible approach?

I personally prefer the more flexible approach because the words are more understandable for everyone. I have participated in translations, like the translation of Firefox, that used a more purist approach but the meaning of some of the words was not always clear to me — and I am a translator! I think that if it’s difficult for me, regular people who use the tools will also be confused.

This is a big problem because if people become confused by the translation, they will probably switch to using the tool in French and that would defeat the purpose of translating it in the first place.

Looking specifically at localization of technology, what are some of the biggest challenges that you face when localizing into Breton?

All Breton speakers can speak French because the Breton community was forced to learn French; however, not all Breton speakers can read in Breton. This poses a big problem when localizing software because a lot of Breton speakers are illiterate in their own language. For this reason, many people don’t want to use software in their own language. It’s difficult to say who is at fault whether it be the government, households, schools etc…

What is the one piece of advice that you would give to speakers of a minority language as they try to build community and make more content available in their language?

Behind all of the translations we are doing is a Facebook group that is dedicated to discussions around localization and translation. It is almost 100% in Breton and it aims to help the Breton-speaking community produce high-quality localizations for software. When someone has difficulty translating something into Breton, they can ask the community for advice. The group is very interesting because it is made up of people who prefer the purist approach and others who have a more flexible philosophy about the language. Some of our members even belong to the public office. There are some other groups out there that have these conversations without an element of respect. For us, respecting one another is key.

If you had to tell people why it is important to localize tools into Breton, what would you say?

For me, it is really important to make an effort to translate software into a lot of different minority languages. If we don’t work on these projects, we won’t challenge ourselves to grow as a language. We won’t challenge ourselves to build new vocabulary. By taking on these localization projects, it’s also a way to reappropriate the software for our own communities.

Some people ask me, “Why are you translating into Breton?”. Maybe they wouldn’t ask me this if I was a French translator because they would see the value immediately. But if Breton is still spoken now, it’s because a lot of people decided to create language associations to promote its use. They saw that the French government wasn’t doing enough to support minority languages, so they decided to interview the older generation of Breton speakers, to create and translate literature, like Jean de le Fontaine. The Breton language is surviving because a lot of speakers worked hard to preserve it and, nowadays, it is important for us to translate software if we want our language to survive.

Localization Lab Community Updates: July 23, 2018

Staff Updates

Erinm will be on vacation from the 23rd of July through the 5th of August. If you have any urgent questions, please direct them to Andrea (acb555 in Mattermost, andrea@localizationlab.org via email) and she will assist you.

Community Events

Introducing our new community-led training series!

Session 1: Intro to Weblate

Join us on August 16th @ 13:00 UTC on Jitsi Meet for an Introduction to Weblate training session facilitated by @dachary. If you want to contribute to projects that are already working with Weblate (like SecureDrop) or you are just curious to learn more, drop by and find out how this translation platform works!  

Project Needs

OpenKeychain

OpenKeychain will be releasing version 5.2 of the application by 27th of July. There are several languages that just need a little push to reach 100% translation including the following:

Dutch (nl), German (de), Dutch (Belgium) (nl_BE), Ukrainian (uk), Spanish (es), Portuguese (Brazil) (pt_BR), Japanese (ja), Chinese (zh), Basque (eu), Serbian (sr), Swedish (sv), Galician (gl), Italian (it)

Let us know if you are interested in providing review for any of the above languages.

Dutch Review

Both Briar Project and Ooni Probe have been translated into Dutch and now require review. If you are available to help with review of either project, please let us know so that we can provide you the necessary permissions and put you in touch with the original translator.

Localization Lab Community Updates: July 10, 2018

Community Events

Localization Lab Community Meeting

Mark your calendars! We will be hosting another community meeting this Thursday, July 12th at 13:00 UTC and would love to hear from new and returning voices in the community. The meeting will be held on Jitsi Meet.

This is an opportunity to ask questions, bring up concerns, make suggestions and propose projects that you think will move the Localization Lab community forward. It is also an opportunity to interact with fellow contributors and put voices to usernames.

Please feel free to suggest topics for discussion in the open notes document.

Even if you are not able to attend, feel free to add topics and questions that you would like us to cover in the meeting.

SecureDrop Community Meeting

From the SecureDrop Forum:

The SecureDrop Community meeting is the best way to get a quick overview of what happened in the past month. It also is the time for everyone to connect, ask for help and announce their intention to do something new.

Information

• When: 23rd July 2018

  • Presentations 6:00pm-6:30pm Paris/Berlin time

  • Extended optional and unstructured discussions: 6:30pm-7:00pm Paris/Berlin time

• Location: https://meet.jit.si/LiquidWerewolvesHexPrecisely

Project Updates

Surveillance Self-Defense Guides

At a recent Localization Sprint, Khmer and Bahasa Indonesia-speaking groups localized the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Surveillance Self-Defense guides for Signal Android and Signal iOS in addition to localizing updates to Signal Android, iOS and Desktop.

Want to take a look at the draft guides? There are available to view below. Feel free to provide feedback so that we can incorporate it prior to finalizing the guides once we are able to include localized screenshots!

How-to: Use Signal on iOS [Bahasa Indonesia] [Khmer]

How-to: Use Signal on Android [Bahasa Indonesia] [Khmer]

Project Needs

Courier

Thank you to all of the volunteers that contributed to the Courier project over the past month. As a result of everyone’s efforts, Courier has been translated into 22 languages, with only a couple that still require review (Japanese, Hindi, Tamil).

Courier is now looking for feedback on which news feeds to include in the default feed lists of the localized Courier applications. Have suggestions for feeds that should be included in the default list of news RSS feeds in the following languages? Share them with us!

Arabic, Azerbaijani, Breton, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian (Bokmål), Persian, Portuguese (Brazil), Tamil, Telugu, Turkish, Ukrainian

If you speak German, Norwegian (Bokmål), Italian, Hungarian or French there are feed lists available that we would like feedback on that we can pass through Transifex message or via email. Please let us know if you are interested in reviewing the list.

Localization Lab Community Updates: June 12, 2018

* LocLab community meeting, Upcoming Courier and SecureDrop translation & review deadlines, help us draft a process for creating style guides.

Upcoming Events

LocLab Community Meeting

Mark your calendars! We will be hosting another community meeting this Friday, June 15th at 14:00 UTC and would love to hear from new and returning voices in the community. The meeting will be held on Jitsi Meet.

This is an opportunity to ask questions, bring up concerns, make suggestions and propose projects that you think will move the Localization Lab community forward. It is also an opportunity to interact with fellow contributors and put voices to usernames.

Please feel free to suggest topics for discussion in the open notes document.

Even if you are not able to attend, feel free to add topics and questions that you would like us to cover in the meeting.

Project Updates

Courier

Courier, the app formerly known as SecureReader, is a mobile news reader for Android that allows you to securely read, store and share news. Courier is ideal for users in regions where the network is slow, being monitored or manipulated and for users who prefer to use public networks as little as possible.

A new version of Courier will be deployed in the coming months with significant updates. Localization Lab is actively coordinating the translation and review of several languages, however anyone who would like to see Courier available in a particular language is welcome to contribute translations & review prior to the 30th of June in order to have them included in the next release of Courier.

You can access Translator Guidelines and play with a recent test APK which has several full and partial translations available.

Please contact erinm if you would like help finding individuals to collaborate with you on a particular language. A big thank you to everyone who has worked on translation and review of the project thus far.

SecureDrop

SecureDrop dropped new strings yesterday! What does that mean? You have until the 18th of June to provide feedback on the strings and make any recommendations for changes before a string freeze takes effect through the 25th of June when translation and review for the next release of SecureDrop are due.

Translations available in prior SecureDrop releases will need translation and review of the few new strings, so if you contributed to either translation or review, please take a look at the new content when you have a moment.

Finnish, Polish, Romanian and Vietnamese translations of SecureDrop are almost 100% finished! If you would like to see SecureDrop available for organizations working in any of those languages, let us know if you can contribute to translation or review.

You can keep up with the SecureDrop localization schedule on the SecureDrop forum. 

Working Groups

Drafting a Style Guide

We are looking for more individuals who are interested in trying out a test approach to building language team style guides using existing Mozilla style guides as a base. In addition to testing and developing the approach to building style guides using framaGit, we are also looking for more input on key content you want to see in a Style Guide for your language team and how you would prefer to access the end product.

If you are interested in joining the conversation and contributing, you can contact erinm or contribute to the thread in the SecureDrop forum.

Localization Lab Community Updates: June 05, 2018

Staff Announcement

We are very excited to introduce Andrea Chong Bras to the community as our new Localization Associate! The Localization Lab community has grown exponentially over the past several years and we are pleased to have Andrea join us to assist with community management and outreach so that we can better understand volunteer needs and priorities and continue to strengthen our community networks.

Andrea has worked in education and translation projects for the past 10 years and speaks Spanish and Portuguese. She also has experience in workshop facilitation and community management for community-based initiatives across different sectors. Most recently, Andrea has been localizing projects with Localization Lab and is very excited to have a bigger role in the Localization Lab community. 

Please join us in welcoming Andrea to her new role in the Localization Lab community!

You can find Andrea on Mattermost (@acb555) and get in touch by email (andrea@localizationlab.org).

Upcoming Events

LocLab Community Meeting

Mark your calendars! We will be hosting another community meeting this Friday, June 15th at 14:00 UTC and would love to hear from new and returning voices in the community. The meeting will be held on Jitsi Meet.

This is an opportunity to ask questions, bring up concerns, make suggestions and propose projects that you think will move the Localization Lab community forward. It is also an opportunity to interact with fellow contributors and put voices to usernames.

Please feel free to suggest topics for discussion in the open notes document.

Even if you are not able to attend, feel free to add topics and questions that you would like us to cover in the meeting.

Project Updates

Psiphon 3

A new version of Psiphon 3 for Android and Windows has been deployed with the recently finished Afaan Oromoo and Tigrinya translations! Psiphon 3 is now available in Tigrinya, Amharic and Afaan Oromoo to support Ethiopian users.

Are you connected to networks in Ethiopia? Do you speak Tigrinya, Afaan Oromoo or Amharic? Share the news, download the application and give us your feedback!

Platform Updates

Transifex Filter Updates

Transifex has updated their (recently updated) web editor search filters, allowing users to search for multiple tags at once and offering suggestions when searching for a tag. You can also now filter strings by developer notes, instructions and issue status.

Project owners take note: Being able to search by issue status will now allow you to filter strings based on whether they have an open issue, a closed issue or no issue. This will allow you to respond to contributor issues more effectively.

You can view all of the available filters in the updated Transifex documentation.

May Translation & Review Contributions

In May we welcomed 30 new contributors to projects in the Localization Lab Hub. These new volunteers are contributing to projects in Dutch, Greek, Norwegian (Bokmål), Persian, Italian, Gujarati, Hindi, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Gujarati, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Georgian, Galician, Spanish, German, Catalan, French.

Over the course of the month roughly 410,023 words were translated, 265,556 words were edited and 9,318 were reviewed across Localization Lab supported projects in the Transifex hub.

Call for Applicants: FIFAfrica17 Localization Sprint

Localization Lab is coming to the 2017 Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (#FIFAfrica17)!

Date: September 26th & 27th, 2017
Time: 08:00 - 17:30
Venue: Sunnyside Park Hotel, Princess Of Wales Terrace, Parktown, Johannesburg, Gauteng

FIFAfrica brings together a diverse set of stakeholders to discuss the future and advancement of Internet freedom in Africa over the course of several days. This year's event is taking place from the 26th to 29th of September in Johannesburg and Localization Lab will be there hosting a Localization Sprint to adapt digital security and circumvention technology into local languages!

This workshop is the perfect opportunity to advance adoption of Internet freedom tools in Africa through translation of technologies and creation of key resources to support the education, training and adaptation of digital security and circumvention tools going forward. At the Localization Sprint participants will address the linguistic biasses in existing technology and discuss adaptation of technology and resources to meet the needs of local communities. The two-day workshop will include collaborative translation and review of select digital security and circumvention tools into local languages with special focus placed on the standardization of digital security terminology and technical language.

If you are attending FIFAfrica and are interested in participating, apply here.

Registration deadline: September 22nd, 2017

Summary: Tor Project AMA

Thank you to all who attended and contributed to the Localization Lab’s inaugural Mattermost Ask Me Anything with the Tor Project! The event was a great success thanks to your insightful questions and the broad range of talent that the Tor Project brought to the discussion!

Want to see more AMAs with Localization Lab supported projects? Let us know who you would like to see an AMA for or if you are a project that would like to participate.

Tor Project Attendees

@arma: Roger Dingledine, the original Tor person
@tomrittervg: Tom Ritter, long-time Tor volunteer and currently working for Mozilla on Tor Browser Patch Uplift and supporting Tor Browser
@arthuredelstein: Arthur, Tor Browser developer
@mcs: Mark Smith, tor Browser developer
@phoul: Colin Childs, Tor Support and Localization Coordinator
@flexlibris: Alison, Tor Community Team Lead

Key Takeaways & Questions

Tor Resources you may have forgotten about:

“Getting up to speed on Tor's past, present, and future”
The ultimate Tor resource that will point you to all of the documentation and information Tor has available for users and contributors, including the Legal FAQ, Tor blog, Tor bugtracker, Tor mailing list etc.

Tor Introductory Brochure
A printable brochure intended for skeptics and individuals unfamiliar with Tor. The brochure is currently available in 11 languages, but the team would love to have it available in more. Follow the link for translation instructions.

Contact Tor:

IRC: You can find the Tor team on irc.oftc.net in one of the following channels depending on your topic:
#tor: For general Tor questions and support. For users of Tor.
#tor-project: Discussion related to events, outreach and translation.
#tor-dev: For those interested in Tor development.

Some Discussion Outcomes:

• The Tor team will consider including up-to-date translations in nightly builds.

  • You can follow progress here.

  • You can also contact us or contribute to the discussion in the Localization Lab Mattermost channel if you have comments or concerns about including translations in nightly builds

• Tor Project may consider translating the Tor user manual into languages for which there are no current Tor translations.

• Bundling languages into the Tor Browser (like Firefox) is a possibility. It does not appear to require significant resources.

  • You can follow progress through related tickets: Ticket 17400, Ticket 21245, and Ticket 20628

• The Tor Project and Psiphon are both interested in initiating discussions on how to improve user feedback. If you are interested in helping push forward these discussions, please contact us.

• There is interest from Localization Lab and the Tor Project in how to build narratives for different communities surrounding using Tor. If you are interested in contributing to further discussion, please contact us.

Selected Questions:

*Note that this is only a selection of the questions asked during the AMA. A manicured version of all of the AMA questions is available on our site (We highly recommend - it's a good read!) and the full unabridged conversation is available on our Mattermost channel. Questions and Answers below have in most cases been paraphrased.

General:
 

What is the Tor support portal and how will it be structured?

phoul: “The Tor Project has historically provided support through mailing lists, irc, and we also had a proper help-desk open for a period of time. Unfortunately, this help-desk became overloaded with support requests, which made us decide to put the effort into writing a proper support portal. Currently the community team is writing content for this portal, and working on the initial stages of design.

...the support portal is largely intended to be a resource for users. We will have a way for users to provide feedback, however a direct support function through the portal may not be a feature. We would likely have users contact an email address as a last resort, rather than having an interface on the portal for chat or similar.”

How can I get more involved in the Tor community?

The first steps to getting more involved in the Tor community include joining the Tor mailing list and stopping in at the weekly Tor community meeting which takes place (nearly) every Wednesday on IRC. Connect to the #tor-project channel on irc.oftc.net for more information.

Are there any more Tor AMAs coming up?

Tune into the #tor-project channel on irc.oftc.net for information on an /r/Tor ama that is under discussion

Localization and User Feedback:
 

What is the best way to contact the Tor Team about localization issues?

The best way to contact the Tor team about localization issues is by emailing the Localization Coordinator, Colin Childs (aka @phoul). Colin is also available for direct message in our Mattermost channel.

Why isn’t the Tor website translated?

The Tor team is currently in the process of updating the Tor website and creating a Tor support portal which will serve as a resource for Tor users (as opposed to the Q&A format of the Tor StackExchange) Once the website and the support portal are finished, they will be made available for translation.

Are there any languages that you constantly struggle to have updated translations for, but are in large demand?

phoul: “For languages, I dont think there is anything we are constantly in demand of and do not have. We are very lucky to have such a wide translator coverage on Transifex.”

Are there current plans to make usability updates to Tor?

Yes, and you can get involved by joining the Tor UX team which meets once a week on IRC.

In Tor development, how important is user feedback from around the globe, and more closed societies in particular? And how can individual users safely help provide the data and feedback you need to make the Tor Network work more effectively in their communities?

flexlibris: “user feedback is hugely important, especially from places where we don't have strong community representation yet.”

You can provide feedback by communicating with the Tor team on IRC (irc.oftc.net at #tor, #tor-project, and #tor-dev) and by writing good tickets using the Tor Project’s bug tracker.

If you are from a closed society or a region facing severe censorship, it would be helpful for you to join the Tor community team to give ongoing feedback to Tor developers and help build Tor communities in your region.

Tor Censorship:
 

How is Tor being blocked in Egypt and elsewhere?

The Tor network is made up of about 7000 relays, run by volunteers around the world. If you can reach those relays, the Tor network aims to provide you security and privacy, but also alo you to circumvent censorship.

Simple censorship tools block the Tor website to keep you from downloading the Tor Browser and accessing the Tor network. If you already have the Tor Browser downloaded, this approach will not block your access to the Tor network.
More complex censorship tools try to block your access to the Tor network by blocking your connections to the 7,000 Tor relays. This can be done by blocking a list of all of the 7,000 relay addresses or by trying to block the Tor protocol and anyone who speaks it.

Even more dedicated censors do "deep packet inspection" (DPI), which recognizes Internet traffic by protocol and requires changing what the Tor network protocols look like. This is where "pluggable transports" come into play. Pluggable transports basically add another layer of encryption on top of your Tor traffic to disguise it and make it more difficult to block. The most common pluggable transport is currently “obfs4.”

While Egypt's censorship situation seems to change by the week, according to the OONI Project, DPI is being used.

How can I get around censorship of Tor in Egypt and elsewhere?

When relays are being blocked by address, Tor bridges can be used to access the Tor network. Bridges are like Tor relays, however they are not listed publically, so they are harder to block.

When opening the Tor Browser, you can choose to use one of the default bridges included in the Tor Browser or you can add custom bridges. Visit bridges.torproject.org to access bridge addresses which can be added as custom bridges in the Tor Browser.

Apparently, the default obfs4 bridges available in the Tor Browser still work in Egypt.

Can Tor bridges be blocked?

The default bridges in Tor Browser can be blocked (roughly 30 addresses). This does not often happen however. Most often only the Tor website is blocked, and then less often, “Vanilla” Tor (Tor without bridges).

If “Vanilla” Tor is blocked, first try to use the default bridges provided in the Tor Browser. If those don't work, visit bridges.torproject.org, get a few bridge addresses, and put them into the Tor Browser.

In Egypt, is censorship of the Tor website and network being done in a centralized manner or on the ISP level?
The seems the only thing universally blocked in Egypt is the Tor website. Otherwise it appears that censorship of the Tor network varies based on network and time period. Some users are able to access Vanilla Tor, while some are not.

It is possible that censorship is happening on the ISP level by government order, with each ISP using different censorship tools.

How hard would it be for Egypt to use the same DPI tools to start blocking obsf4-encrypted traffic?

arma: “actually, very few of the dpi tools can block obfs4. it's designed to be hard to recognize any headers in. so most of the censors around the world don't know how to recognize obfs4 traffic.”

Tor browser supports snowflake now. Will there be any new PT protocol like obfs5? obfs4 bridges might be blocked some day in country like China and meek is slow and expensive.

arma: “Snowflake is a great upcoming pluggable transport option. The snowflake developers seem to have slowed down though, so I don't know what their future plans are. It needs some more work to be more usable.

There are some known deficiencies in obfs4, and people have designs for an improved version. But right now nobody is developing it. There are some other groups out there, like brandon wiley, who are developing their own thing that we hope will be an improvement.”

Could Tor make it easier to use Tor Browser with circumvention tools like goagent and shadowsocks?

arma: “the tor browser people are wary of making it look like we 'endorse' one of these random third-party things

that said, i think looking at the usability side of things, and what can be changed in tor browser to make it easier for people to do it themselves, sounds really smart.”

Is it useful to run an entry node inside a country where Tor censorship occurs?

arma: “that's a complicated one. yes, in that more relays are good for building the capacity of the tor network. yes, in that maybe surveillance is only done at the country's borders, so it would be safer to use an entry node inside. no, in that maybe the surveillance is done throughout the country, in which case you're not buying yourself anything. in many countries, if they block the tor protocol well enough, running a relay inside that country will basically not work, since that relay can't reach enough other relays.

for example, a while ago mexico was blocking connections to the tor directory authorities. those are 9 or so relays that together tell the tor users what relays are available. that meant if you used a bridge, you were fine. but if you were a normal relay, and you tried to publish to the directory authorities so you'd be added to the network... your relay would be censored.”

Tor Project AMA!

This Friday, June 23rd at 15:00 UTC Localization Lab will be hosting an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session with members of the Tor Project!

Dig deep and compile all of those questions you've been saving about how the Tor network works, what is happening when it doesn't work (thinking about recent events in Egypt), how you can get more involved in the project... And don't forget to bring any localization-related questions that you have to the table. This AMA is open to technical and less-technical alike, so don't feel like your questions may be too advanced or too simple. If time doesn't allow answering questions that are complex, there is always space to continue these discussions outside of the AMA.

The AMA will take place in the new Localization Lab Mattermost channel. The channel is being hosted by the Internet Freedom Festival, so if you have already registered with their Mattermost community, you simply need to join our channel.

Joining the Localization Lab Mattermost Channel:

1. Select the following link:
   https://community.internetfreedomfestival.org/signup_email?id=71jwiewte7bb9rqq85s3d8to5w

2. You will be required to provide and email address, a username and password. Select "Create Account."

3. Once you have created your account, you will be able to access a list of channels in the left-hand task bar. Select "More..." and scroll down to find the "Localization Lab" channel. Select "Join."

4. Take a look at the Internet Freedom Festival Code of Conduct. These guidelines will apply within the IFF channels and the Localization Lab channels to ensure that we have positive and inclusive communication.

5. Lastly, feel free to introduce yourself to everyone in the Localization Lab channel and in the IFF Square.