BridgeDB should have QR codes for bridge lines
Perhaps this will make entering fingerprints easier for some people. Perhaps someday Orbot will support scanning them. Users have been reporting a lot of problems when they have to type in fingerprints by hand.
It's two lines of python:
import qrencode
qrcode = qrencode.encode('86e78dd3720c78da8683182ef96c64b162cd660c').resize([150,150])Activity
I want some sort of feedback that this is a useful thing to add, and that there is currently a known use-case where displaying these is going to make sense to a user, before I add a new library requirement to BridgeDB.
Trac:
Keywords: N/A deleted, bridgedb-https added
Type: defect to enhancement
Status: new to needs_informationTicket #12639 (moved) was a duplicate of this one and perhaps contains a bit of relevant information. This ticket should be considered the canonical bug for this feature request, however.
Trac:
Keywords: bridgedb-dist deleted, bridgedb-ui added
Increasing priority, now that Orbot supports QR codes - https://twitter.com/guardianproject/status/489049679263703040
Trac:
Username: chingucha
Priority: minor to normal
Status: needs_information to newSo… here is what the new BridgeDB API for this currently looks like, after you've clicked a little
Show QRCodebutton (if you have JS enabled):
(It's prettier with JS enabled, as you get the little popuppish modal thing. If JS is disabled, it's still functional, of course, you just get a
data:URI which just shows the QR code. No screenshot for that one.)This is what is looks like before clicking the button:
Problems:
I looked at Orbot's code, and it seems like, for some reason, it's not registering the
intent.ACTION_VIEWmentioned on L590 ofOrbot.javain the currentmasterbranch (09bdd8fd29a7c4086f9f95ab214e0bc77166a6f7):else if (action.equals(Intent.ACTION_VIEW)) { String urlString = intent.getDataString(); if (urlString != null) { if (urlString.toLowerCase().startsWith("bridge://")) { String newBridgeValue = urlString.substring(9); //remove the bridge protocol piece newBridgeValue = URLDecoder.decode(newBridgeValue); //decode the value here showAlert("Bridges Updated","Restart Orbot to use this bridge: " + newBridgeValue,false);So Problem !#1 is that the above code doesn't work for some reason. I had three friends with Android devices (though I believe they all had the same QRCode reader app) test the above QRCode, and Orbot never picked up on the
intent.FWIW, the QRCode above contains the following:
'bridge%3A//scramblesuit%20135.229.149.58%3A29461%20a93fb6cf0709b8e732f300ff237f8cd51e5b6a7f%20password%3DABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567%0Abridge%3A//scramblesuit%2059.126.7.235%3A59153%20eedc85ac9c946f1fda61bc9d99ee6f8a39df4fb9%20password%3DABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567%0Abridge%3A//scramblesuit%20112.196.251.191%3A47029%20ae6d596901e49324317d48b21dfbc51cb7b4bd40%20password%3DABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567which is just
bridge://scramblesuit 135.229.149.58:29461 a93fb6cf0709b8e732f300ff237f8cd51e5b6a7f password=ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567 bridge://scramblesuit 59.126.7.235:59153 eedc85ac9c946f1fda61bc9d99ee6f8a39df4fb9 password=ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567 bridge://scramblesuit 112.196.251.191:47029 ae6d596901e49324317d48b21dfbc51cb7b4bd40 password=ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567in URL-encoded form.
The other thing I tried was to just encode the plain bridge lines into a QRCode (i.e. without the
'bridge://'scheme), and ask them to copy+paste it. This worked, but was obviously very painful because it took like 10 rather complicated UI steps (and is probably different for each QRCode app).Another problem is that I'm not sure how Orbot intends to receive multiple bridge lines, because the above code doesn't handle that case.
Trac:
Status: needs_information to needs_reviewOkay, this is merged to
developfor0.2.4. The code lives in myfix/11345-qrcodes_r2branch. Currently, there is a boolean flag to pass to thebridgedb.qrcodes.generateQR()function which will decide whether or not to make "Orbot-style" QRCodes which have the"bridge://"schema prefix:diff --git a/lib/bridgedb/qrcodes.py b/lib/bridgedb/qrcodes.py index a76cf8f..8016262 100644 --- a/lib/bridgedb/qrcodes.py +++ b/lib/bridgedb/qrcodes.py @@ -25,13 +25,15 @@ except ImportError: "work. On Debian-based systems, this should be in the " "python-qrcode package.")) -def generateQR(bridgelines, imageFormat=u'JPEG'): + +def generateQR(bridgelines, imageFormat=u'JPEG', bridgeSchema=False): """Generate a QRCode for the client's bridge lines. :param str bridgelines: The Bridge Lines which we are distributing to the client. + :param bool bridgeSchema: If ``True``, prepend ``'bridge://'`` to the + beginning of each bridge line before QR encoding. :rtype: str or ``None`` - :returns: The generated QRCode, as a string. """ logging.debug("Attempting to encode bridge lines into a QRCode...") @@ -43,16 +45,26 @@ def generateQR(bridgelines, imageFormat=u'JPEG'): logging.info("Not creating QRCode for bridgelines; no qrcode module.") try: + if bridgeSchema: + # See https://bugs.torproject.org/12639 for why bridge:// is used. + # (Hopefully, Orbot will pick up the ACTION_VIEW intent.) + schema = 'bridge://' + prefixed = [] + for line in bridgelines.strip().split('\n'): + prefixed.append(schema + line) + bridgelines = '\n'.join(prefixed) + + logging.debug("QR encoding bridge lines: %s" % bridgelines) qr = qrcode.QRCode()(See commit 66ef631c51176777da212ab02f7a0d47dff00579.) However, the current default is to not add the prefix because it doesn't seem to help Orbot pick up the
intent.ACTION_VIEW, and it definitely makes copy+pasting the text from the QRCode much harder to do manually. Also, having the schema prefix would mean that TorLauncher in Tails would have to do extra processing to get rid of it (if, in the future, we were to support holding up QRCodes to the webcam for TorLauncher to extract bridge lines).Trac:
Resolution: N/A to fixed
Status: needs_review to closedI just merged
fix/11345-qrcodes_r2again, with two very minor fixes for a typo and to more efficiently return after a certain error is hit (neither of these change functionality) (see 6293394fba0f6dbf00223435d15b301cd7fb712b and 99f3b3f978dbacdfdf45bca8d7a6339e03d94af1) and a commit for unittests (129dc997439dfb4c218c482b1838078c51e41f00).Trac:
Keywords: N/A deleted, bridgedb-0.2.5 addedGlad to see this was implemented and release. I know it was a lot of work!
Orbot does indeed support ACTION_VIEW and bridge:// encoded URLs. I am not sure why it wasn't working for you. Perhaps because you are generating three bridge:// lines and not just one long link? Android only except one URI in a QRCode.
If you encode the bridge lines with the \n as a whole URL encoded string, Orbot will decode that properly: https://gitweb.torproject.org/orbot.git/tree/src/org/torproject/android/Orbot.java#n597
Looking at the code above, it looks like you are encoding the bridge:// into bridge%3A// which isn't correct.
It should be:
I think the
bridge:URI will work a lot better if it fits into the standard definitions of the bits of a "hierarchical URI", i.e.scheme://user:password@host:port/path?key=value&another=trueMost systems provide parsers that make it trivial to get the pieces of URI, for example
android.net.Uriorjava.net.URI. So maybe for bridges it would be something like:bridge://user:password@135.229.149.58:29461/scramblesuit?hash=a93fb6cf0709b8e732f300ff237f8cd51e5b6a7fSo
useris user,passwordis password,hostis the IP addres,portis the port,pathis the bridge type, and everything else is in the query string as key/value pairs.mentioned in issue #12639 (moved)
mentioned in issue #14684 (moved)
