Tag: tor

The Patch that converts a Firefox to a Tor Browser

Have you ever wondered was makes the Tor Browser the Tor Browser? That is, what patch you would have to apply to Firefox in order to end up with a Tor Browser.

The answer is not really easy to get. I expected to do something like git clone tor-browser ; git diff firefox-upstream or so. But for an odd reason, the Tor Browser people do not import the pristine Firefox version to their repository. As a side note, the build instructions are a bit arcane. I was hoping for such an important tool to be built easily. But it requires root access and a wild container technology. Weird. In fact, this is preventing me from flatpaking the Tor Browser right now. But I’m working on it.

Long story story, to get the diff, do something like:

wget releases.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/60.2.1esr/source/firefox-60.2.1esr.source.tar.xz
git clone  https://git.torproject.org/tor-browser.git
cd tor-browser
git checkout --orphan firefox
tar --extract --strip-components=1 --file ../firefox-60.2.1esr.source.tar.xz 
git add .
git commit -m 'firefox upstream import'

git diff firefox...tor-browser-60.2.1esr-8.5-1-build1

Of course, you need to adjust the Firefox and the Tor Browser version in the future. I have imported the upstream firefox code into this repository so that you can make diffs as you like. Unfortunately, the Github Web interface does not show diffs of unrelated branches.

(Almost) talking at the 34C3 in Leipzig, Germany

This season’s CCCongress, the 34C3, (well, the 2017 one) moved from Hamburg to Leipzig. That was planned, in the sense that everybody knew before the event moved to Hamburg, that the location will only be available for a few years.

My own CCCongress experience in the new location is limited, because I could not roam around as much as I wanted to. But I did notice that it was much easier to get lost in Hamburg than in the new venue. I liked getting lost, though.

We had a talk on anonymisation networks (slides, video) scheduled with three people, but my experience with making a show with several people on stage is not so good. So we had a one man show which I think is good enough. Plus, I had private commitments that prevented me from attending the CCCongress as much as I would have wanted to.

I could attend a few talks myself, but I’ll watch most of them later. CCCongress is getting less about the talks but about meeting people you haven’t seen in a while. And it’s great to have such a nice event to cater for the desire to catch up with fellow hackers, exchange ideas and visions.

That said, I’ll happily come back next year, hopefully with a bit more time and preparation to get the most of the visit. Although it hasn’t been announced yet, I would be surprised if it does not take place there again. So you might as well book your accommodation already 😉

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This work by Muelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.