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volunteer.html      4) 

en/volunteer.wml    5) #include "head.wmi" TITLE="Tor: Volunteer" CHARSET="UTF-8"

volunteer.html      6) 
volunteer.html      7) <div class="main-column">
volunteer.html      8) 
volunteer.html      9) <!-- PUT CONTENT AFTER THIS TAG -->

en/volunteer.wml   10) <h2>A few things everyone can do now:</h2>

volunteer.html     11) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml   12) <li>Please consider <a href="<page docs/tor-doc-relay>">running
en/volunteer.wml   13) a relay</a> to help the Tor network grow.</li>
en/volunteer.wml   14) <li>Tell your friends! Get them to run relays. Get them to run hidden

volunteer.html     15) services. Get them to tell their friends.</li>

en/volunteer.wml   16) <li>If you like Tor's goals, please <a href="<page donate>">take a moment
en/volunteer.wml   17) to donate to support further Tor development</a>. We're also looking
en/volunteer.wml   18) for more sponsors &mdash; if you know any companies, NGOs, agencies,
en/volunteer.wml   19) or other organizations that want anonymity / privacy / communications
en/volunteer.wml   20) security, let them know about us.</li>
en/volunteer.wml   21) <li>We're looking for more <a href="<page torusers>">good examples of Tor
en/volunteer.wml   22) users and Tor use cases</a>. If you use Tor for a scenario or purpose not
en/volunteer.wml   23) yet described on that page, and you're comfortable sharing it with us,
en/volunteer.wml   24) we'd love to hear from you.</li>

volunteer.html     25) </ol>
volunteer.html     26) 

en/volunteer.wml   27) <p>Tor has <a href="<page open-positions>">two open positions</a>.
en/volunteer.wml   28) Please <a href="<page contact>">contact us</a> if you are qualified!</p>

en/volunteer.wml   29) 

en/volunteer.wml   30) <a id="Documentation"></a>
en/volunteer.wml   31) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Documentation">Documentation</a></h2>

volunteer.html     32) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml   33) <li>Help translate the web page and documentation into other
en/volunteer.wml   34) languages. See the <a href="<page translation>">translation
en/volunteer.wml   35) guidelines</a> if you want to help out. We especially need Arabic or
en/volunteer.wml   36) Farsi translations, for the many Tor users in censored areas.</li>
en/volunteer.wml   37) <li>Evaluate and document
en/volunteer.wml   38) <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/wiki/TheOnionRouter/TorifyHOWTO">our
en/volunteer.wml   39) list of programs</a> that can be configured to use Tor.</li>
en/volunteer.wml   40) <li>We have a huge list of <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/SupportPrograms">potentially useful
en/volunteer.wml   41) programs that interface to Tor</a>. Which ones are useful in which
en/volunteer.wml   42) situations? Please help us test them out and document your results.</li>

volunteer.html     43) </ol>
volunteer.html     44) 

en/volunteer.wml   45) <a id="Advocacy"></a>

en/volunteer.wml   46) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Advocacy">Advocacy</a></h2>
en/volunteer.wml   47) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml   48) <li>Create a <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/CommunityLogos">community logo</a> under a Creative Commons license that all can use and modify</li>

en/volunteer.wml   49) <li>Create a presentation that can be used for various user group meetings around the world</li>

en/volunteer.wml   50) <li>Create a video about the positive uses of Tor, what Tor is, or how
en/volunteer.wml   51) to use it.  Some have already

en/volunteer.wml   52) started on <a href="http://media.torproject.org/video/">Tor's Media

en/volunteer.wml   53) server</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml   54) href="http://www.howcast.com/videos/90601-How-To-Circumvent-an-Internet-Proxy">Howcast</a>,
en/volunteer.wml   55) and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/freedom4internet">Youtube</a>.</li> 

en/volunteer.wml   56) <li>Create a poster, or a set of posters, around a theme,
en/volunteer.wml   57) such as "Tor for Freedom!"</li>

en/volunteer.wml   58) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml   59) 

en/volunteer.wml   60) <a id="Coding"></a>

en/volunteer.wml   61) <a id="Summer"></a>
en/volunteer.wml   62) <a id="Projects"></a>

en/volunteer.wml   63) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Projects">Good Coding Projects</a></h2>

en/volunteer.wml   64) 
en/volunteer.wml   65) <p>

en/volunteer.wml   66) You may find some of these projects to be good <a href="<page

en/volunteer.wml   67) gsoc>">Google Summer of Code 2010</a> ideas. We have labelled each idea

en/volunteer.wml   68) with how useful it would be to the overall Tor project (priority), how
en/volunteer.wml   69) much work we expect it would be (effort level), how much clue you should
en/volunteer.wml   70) start with (skill level), and which of our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml   71) people>#Core">core developers</a> would be good mentors.
en/volunteer.wml   72) If one or more of these ideas looks promising to you, please <a
en/volunteer.wml   73) href="<page contact>">contact us</a> to discuss your plans rather than
en/volunteer.wml   74) sending blind applications. You may also want to propose your own project

en/volunteer.wml   75) idea — which often results in the best applications.

en/volunteer.wml   76) </p>
en/volunteer.wml   77) 

en/volunteer.wml   78) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml   79) 

en/volunteer.wml   80) <li>

en/volunteer.wml   81) <b>Tor Browser Bundle for Linux/Mac OS X</b>

en/volunteer.wml   82) <br />

en/volunteer.wml   83) Priority: <i>High</i>

en/volunteer.wml   84) <br />

en/volunteer.wml   85) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml   86) <br />
en/volunteer.wml   87) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml   88) <br />

en/volunteer.wml   89) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven, Erinn, Jacob, Andrew</i>

en/volunteer.wml   90) <br />

en/volunteer.wml   91) The Tor Browser Bundle incorporates Tor, Firefox, Polipo, and the Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml   92) user interface (and optionally the <a href="http://pidgin.im/">Pidgin</a>
en/volunteer.wml   93) Instant Messaging client). Components are pre-configured to operate in a
en/volunteer.wml   94) secure way, and it has very few dependencies on the installed operating
en/volunteer.wml   95) system. It has therefore become one of the most easy to use, and popular,
en/volunteer.wml   96) ways to use Tor on Windows.

en/volunteer.wml   97) <br />

en/volunteer.wml   98) However, there is currently no released package for Linux and Mac OS
en/volunteer.wml   99) X, so this project would be to implement Tor Browser Bundle for OS X and
en/volunteer.wml  100) continue work on the Tor Browser Bundle for Linux. This will involve modifications to Vidalia (C++), possibly

en/volunteer.wml  101) Firefox (C) then creating and testing the launcher on a range of

en/volunteer.wml  102) operating system versions and configurations to verify portability.
en/volunteer.wml  103) Some work on this was completed as part of the Google Summer of Code
en/volunteer.wml  104) 2009. Another part of this project is to identify all of the traces left
en/volunteer.wml  105) behind by using a Tor Browser Bundle on Mac OS X or Linux.  Developing
en/volunteer.wml  106) ways to stop, counter, or remove these traces is a final step.

en/volunteer.wml  107) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  108) Students should be familiar with application development on one or
en/volunteer.wml  109) preferably both of Linux and Mac OS X, and be comfortable with C/C++
en/volunteer.wml  110) and shell scripting.
en/volunteer.wml  111) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  112) Part of this project could be usability testing of Tor Browser Bundle,

en/volunteer.wml  113) ideally amongst our target demographic.  That would help a lot in knowing
en/volunteer.wml  114) what needs to be done in terms of bug fixes or new features. We get this
en/volunteer.wml  115) informally at the moment, but a more structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml  116) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  117) 

en/volunteer.wml  118) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  119) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</b>

en/volunteer.wml  120) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  121) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  122) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  123) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  124) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  125) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  126) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  127) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml  128) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  129) It would be great to set up an automated system for tracking network
en/volunteer.wml  130) health over time, graphing it, etc. Part of this project would involve
en/volunteer.wml  131) inventing better metrics for assessing network health and growth. Is the
en/volunteer.wml  132) average uptime of the network increasing? How many relays are qualifying
en/volunteer.wml  133) for Guard status this month compared to last month? What's the turnover
en/volunteer.wml  134) in terms of new relays showing up and relays shutting off? Periodically
en/volunteer.wml  135) people collect brief snapshots, but where it gets really interesting is
en/volunteer.wml  136) when we start tracking data points over time.
en/volunteer.wml  137) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  138) Data could be collected from the Tor Network Scanners in <a
en/volunteer.wml  139) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>, from

en/volunteer.wml  140) the server descriptors that each relay publishes, and from other
en/volunteer.wml  141) sources. Results over time could be integrated into one of the <a
en/volunteer.wml  142) href="https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/">Tor Status</a> web pages, or be
en/volunteer.wml  143) kept separate. Speaking of the Tor Status pages, take a look at Roger's
en/volunteer.wml  144) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2008/msg00300.html">Tor
en/volunteer.wml  145) Status wish list</a>.
en/volunteer.wml  146) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  147) 

en/volunteer.wml  148) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  149) <b>Rewrite TorDNSEL, this time with a spec!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  150) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  151) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  152) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  153) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  154) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  155) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  156) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  157) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike, Roger, Sebastian</i>
en/volunteer.wml  158) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  159) The <a href="<page tordnsel/index>">Tor DNS Exit List</a> is a Haskell
en/volunteer.wml  160) program that serves three purposes. First, it provides an rbl-style DNS
en/volunteer.wml  161) interface for people to look up whether a given IP address is (or has
en/volunteer.wml  162) recently been) a Tor exit relay. Second, it actively builds circuits over
en/volunteer.wml  163) the Tor network and connects back to itself, to learn the actual exit
en/volunteer.wml  164) IP address of each relay &mdash; some Tor relays exit from a different
en/volunteer.wml  165) address than they advertise in their descriptor. Third, it exports a <a
en/volunteer.wml  166) href="http://exitlist.torproject.org/exitAddresses">set of conclusions</a>
en/volunteer.wml  167) so that <a href="https://check.torproject.org/">check.torproject.org</a>
en/volunteer.wml  168) can guess for you whether your browser is configured to point to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml  169) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  170) This project would make use of <a
en/volunteer.wml  171) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  172) a set of Python scripts to interact with Tor; the project would be
en/volunteer.wml  173) to figure out how our Tor Exit Checker should actually work, and then
en/volunteer.wml  174) build it &mdash; probably in Python since Torflow is in Python. The main
en/volunteer.wml  175) goal is to reduce false positives as much as possible, by making sure
en/volunteer.wml  176) that it learns about new relays as soon as possible, making sure that
en/volunteer.wml  177) the testing phase concludes quickly, and making sure the answers get
en/volunteer.wml  178) passed to the Check script quickly. As a bonus, we should standardize
en/volunteer.wml  179) (specify) the format of the exitAddresses file, and rewrite the <a
en/volunteer.wml  180) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/check/trunk/cgi-bin/TorBulkExitList.py">Tor
en/volunteer.wml  181) Bulk Exit List</a> script to use that file rather than its current
en/volunteer.wml  182) horrible DNS hacks.
en/volunteer.wml  183) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  184) You can fetch the <a href="git://git.torproject.org/git/tordnsel">latest
en/volunteer.wml  185) tordnsel</a> via git.
en/volunteer.wml  186) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  187) 

en/volunteer.wml  188) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  189) <b>Improving Tor's ability to resist censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml  190) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  191) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  192) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  193) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  194) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  195) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  196) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  197) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Steven</i>

en/volunteer.wml  198) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  199) The Tor 0.2.1.x series makes <a

en/volunteer.wml  200) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html">significant

en/volunteer.wml  201) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml  202) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its
en/volunteer.wml  203) anti-censorship design.  For example, current Tors can only listen on a
en/volunteer.wml  204) single address/port combination at a time.  There's

en/volunteer.wml  205) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a

en/volunteer.wml  206) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml  207) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more

en/volunteer.wml  208) work.
en/volunteer.wml  209) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  210) Another area that needs work is our <a
en/volunteer.wml  211) href="http://gitweb.torproject.org//bridgedb.git?a=tree">bridgedb</a>
en/volunteer.wml  212) service. See e.g. <a
en/volunteer.wml  213) href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Dec-2009/msg00000.html">Roger's
en/volunteer.wml  214) or-dev post</a> from December for details &mdash; lots of design work
en/volunteer.wml  215) remains.

en/volunteer.wml  216) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  217) This project involves a lot of research and design. One of the big
en/volunteer.wml  218) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml  219) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  220) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml  221) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  222) 

en/volunteer.wml  223) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  224) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>

en/volunteer.wml  225) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  226) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  227) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  228) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  229) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  230) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  231) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  232) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike, Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml  233) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  234) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml  235) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml  236) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml  237) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml  238) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml  239) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml  240) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml  241) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,
en/volunteer.wml  242) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml  243) as described in the
en/volunteer.wml  244) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml  245) Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml  246) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml  247) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml  248) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml  249) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too
en/volunteer.wml  250) much communications overhead between relays and directory
en/volunteer.wml  251) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml  252) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  253) 
en/volunteer.wml  254) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  255) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml  256) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  257) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  258) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  259) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  260) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  261) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  262) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  263) Likely Mentors: <i>Chris</i>

en/volunteer.wml  264) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  265) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml  266) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml  267) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:

en/volunteer.wml  268) <ol><li> the ability to asynchronously query name servers, find the
en/volunteer.wml  269) system nameservers, and manage netbios and dns queries.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  270) <li> manage events and buffers natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes,
en/volunteer.wml  271) Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in Windows it's whatever the config
en/volunteer.wml  272) specifies).</li>
en/volunteer.wml  273) <li> some sort of GUI config and reporting tool, bonus if it has a
en/volunteer.wml  274) systray icon with right clickable menu options. Double bonus if it's
en/volunteer.wml  275) cross-platform compatible.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  276) <li> allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml  277) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"</li>
en/volunteer.wml  278) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml  279) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  280) 

en/volunteer.wml  281) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  282) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface for Vidalia</b>

en/volunteer.wml  283) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  284) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  285) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  286) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  287) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  288) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  289) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  290) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml  291) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  292) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml  293) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml  294) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml  295) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml  296) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml  297) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml  298) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml  299) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml  300) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  301) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml  302) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml  303) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml  304) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml  305) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  306) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml  307) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml  308) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml  309) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml  310) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml  311) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml  312) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml  313) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml  314) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  315) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml  316) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml  317) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml  318) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml  319) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml  320) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml  321) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml  322) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  323) 

en/volunteer.wml  324) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  325) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>

en/volunteer.wml  326) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  327) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  328) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  329) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  330) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  331) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  332) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  333) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Erinn</i>

en/volunteer.wml  334) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  335) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml  336) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml  337) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml  338) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml  339) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml  340) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  341) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml  342) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml  343) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml  344) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml  345) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml  346) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  347) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml  348) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml  349) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  350) 
en/volunteer.wml  351) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  352) <b>Help with independent Tor client implementations</b>

en/volunteer.wml  353) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  354) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  355) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  356) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  357) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  358) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  359) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  360) Likely Mentors: <i>Bruce, Nathan</i>

en/volunteer.wml  361) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  362) Others are currently working on Tor clients for Java, Android, and Maemo

en/volunteer.wml  363) environments.  The first step is to get a handle on the current state of

en/volunteer.wml  364) the project in which you are interested in helping; <a

en/volunteer.wml  365) href="http://github.com/brl/JTor">Tor for Java</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  366) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/">Android/Orbot</a>
en/volunteer.wml  367) , or Tor for Maemo. Check out the repository and familiarlize yourself
en/volunteer.wml  368) with the source code.  Further, support for requesting or even providing
en/volunteer.wml  369) Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.

en/volunteer.wml  370) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  371) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java

en/volunteer.wml  372) code, including a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml  373) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml  374) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml  375) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml  376) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml  377) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  378) 

en/volunteer.wml  379) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  380) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml  381) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  382) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  383) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  384) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  385) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  386) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  387) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  388) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  389) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml  390) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml  391) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml  392) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml  393) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml  394) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  395) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml  396) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  397) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml  398) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml  399) <a
en/volunteer.wml  400) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml  401) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  402) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml  403) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml  404) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml  405) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml  406) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml  407) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  408) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml  409) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  410) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.

en/volunteer.wml  411) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  412) 

en/volunteer.wml  413) <!-- <li>

en/volunteer.wml  414) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml  415) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  416) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  417) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  418) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  419) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  420) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  421) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  422) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  423) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  424) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml  425) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml  426) features to consider include:

en/volunteer.wml  427) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml  428) <li> Integration of the <a

en/volunteer.wml  429) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml  430) Python library</a>

en/volunteer.wml  431) for authenticated HTTPS downloads.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  432) <li> Adding a level of indirection

en/volunteer.wml  433) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an

en/volunteer.wml  434) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  435) <li> Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted

en/volunteer.wml  436) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml  437) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml  438) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and

en/volunteer.wml  439) Python proficiency.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  440) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml  441) </li> -->

en/volunteer.wml  442) 
en/volunteer.wml  443) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  444) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml  445) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  446) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  447) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  448) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  449) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  450) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  451) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  452) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml  453) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  454) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml  455) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml  456) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml  457) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml  458) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml  459) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  460) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml  461) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml  462) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml  463) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml  464) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml  465) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  466) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml  467) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml  468) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml  469) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml  470) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml  471) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  472) 
en/volunteer.wml  473) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  474) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml  475) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  476) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  477) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  478) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  479) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  480) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  481) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  482) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml  483) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  484) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml  485) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml  486) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml  487) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml  488) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml  489) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml  490) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml  491) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml  492) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml  493) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml  494) from here."
en/volunteer.wml  495) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  496) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  497) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml  498) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml  499) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml  500) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml  501) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  502) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  503) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml  504) required.
en/volunteer.wml  505) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  506) 
en/volunteer.wml  507) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  508) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml  509) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  510) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  511) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  512) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  513) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  514) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  515) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  516) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  517) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  518) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml  519) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml  520) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml  521) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml  522) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml  523) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  524) 

en/volunteer.wml  525) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  526) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</b>
en/volunteer.wml  527) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  528) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml  529) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  530) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  531) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  532) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  533) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  534) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  535) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  536) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml  537) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml  538) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml  539) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml  540) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml  541) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml  542) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.

en/volunteer.wml  543) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  544) 

en/volunteer.wml  545) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  546) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml  547) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  548) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  549) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  550) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  551) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  552) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  553) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  554) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml  555) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  556) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml  557) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml  558) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml  559) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml  560) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml  561) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml  562) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml  563) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml  564) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml  565) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml  566) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml  567) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml  568) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml  569) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml  570) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml  571) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml  572) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml  573) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  574) 

en/volunteer.wml  575) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  576) <b>Better Debian/Ubuntu Packaging for Tor+Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml  577) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  578) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  579) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  580) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  581) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  582) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  583) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  584) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn, Peter</i>
en/volunteer.wml  585) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  586) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml  587) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml  588) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a

en/volunteer.wml  589) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined

en/volunteer.wml  590) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml  591) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml  592) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml  593) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml  594) ports — they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml  595) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  596) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml  597) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml  598) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml  599) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml  600) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml  601) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml  602) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml  603) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml  604) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  605) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml  606) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml  607) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml  608) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml  609) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml  610) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  611) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  612) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml  613) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml  614) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml  615) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts
en/volunteer.wml  616) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml  617) best idea
en/volunteer.wml  618) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml  619) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml  620) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml  621) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  622) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml  623) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml  624) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml  625) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  626) 

en/volunteer.wml  627) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  628) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml  629) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  630) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml  631) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml  632) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml  633) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml  634) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml  635) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml  636) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml  637) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml  638) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml  639) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml  640) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml  641) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml  642) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  643) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml  644) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml  645) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml  646) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml  647) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  648) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml  649) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml  650) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml  651) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  652) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  653) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml  654) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml  655) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml  656) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml  657) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml  658) with others prior to implementation.

en/volunteer.wml  659) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  660) 

en/volunteer.wml  661) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  662) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for builds</b>

en/volunteer.wml  663) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  664) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  665) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  666) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  667) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  668) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  669) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  670) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn</i>
en/volunteer.wml  671) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  672) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml  673) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml  674) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml  675) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  676) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml  677) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml  678) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml  679) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  680) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml  681) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml  682) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml  683) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml  684) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml  685) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml  686) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml  687) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  688) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml  689) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml  690) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml  691) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml  692) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  693) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml  694) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml  695) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  696) 

en/volunteer.wml  697) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  698) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml  699) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  700) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  701) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  702) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  703) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  704) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  705) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  706) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml  707) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  708) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml  709) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml  710) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml  711) structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml  712) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  713) 
en/volunteer.wml  714) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  715) <b>An authenticating IRC proxy</b>
en/volunteer.wml  716) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  717) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  718) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  719) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  720) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  721) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  722) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  723) Likely Mentors: <i>Sebastian, Weasel, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml  724) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  725) The world needs an authenticating irc proxy. As we're periodically
en/volunteer.wml  726) reminded from the Penny Arcade web comic, "Internet user + anonymity =
en/volunteer.wml  727) jerk". With respect to websites we're actually doing ok, since websites
en/volunteer.wml  728) can make their users log in and use other application-level authentication
en/volunteer.wml  729) approaches. But IRC servers are much worse off, because most IRC server
en/volunteer.wml  730) code is poorly written: hard to maintain, and harder to modify. Many
en/volunteer.wml  731) IRC networks now block connections from Tor, and we're basically down to
en/volunteer.wml  732) two holdouts (OFTC and Freenode). This state of affairs means that a lot
en/volunteer.wml  733) of people around the world are thinking "I told you so" about anonymity
en/volunteer.wml  734) online, when in fact the problem is simply lack of technology to make the
en/volunteer.wml  735) problem manageable. We need some way to let the IRC networks distinguish
en/volunteer.wml  736) which users have developed a reputation as not being jerks, so they can
en/volunteer.wml  737) treat the two groups separately. There are some really cool research
en/volunteer.wml  738) designs like <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~nymble/">Nymble</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  739) which aim to let websites blacklist users without needing to learn who
en/volunteer.wml  740) they are.  But Nymble is designed around web interactions. We need to
en/volunteer.wml  741) build the glue around the IRC protocol that would let us plug in a project
en/volunteer.wml  742) like Nymble (or a simpler one to start, as a proof-of-concept). One way
en/volunteer.wml  743) to do that would be to build an IRC proxy that knows how to hear from
en/volunteer.wml  744) IRC clients, knows how to talk to IRC servers, and has an additional
en/volunteer.wml  745) layer that requires the users to authenticate.
en/volunteer.wml  746) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  747) 

en/volunteer.wml  748) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  749) <b>Make torsocks/dsocks work on OS X</b>
en/volunteer.wml  750) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  751) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  752) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  753) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  754) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  755) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  756) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  757) Likely Mentors: <i>?</i>
en/volunteer.wml  758) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  759) <a href="http://code.google.com/p/torsocks/">Torsocks</a> and <a
en/volunteer.wml  760) href="http://code.google.com/p/dsocks/">dsocks</a> are wrappers that will
en/volunteer.wml  761) run applications, intercept their outgoing network connections, and push
en/volunteer.wml  762) those connections through Tor. The goal is to handle applications that
en/volunteer.wml  763) don't support proxies (or don't supporting them well). To get it right,
en/volunteer.wml  764) they need to intercept many system calls. The syscalls you need to
en/volunteer.wml  765) intercept on Linux differ dramatically from those on BSD. So Torsocks
en/volunteer.wml  766) works fine on Linux, dsocks works ok on BSD (though it may be less
en/volunteer.wml  767) maintained and thus might miss more syscalls), and nothing works well
en/volunteer.wml  768) on both. First, we should patch dsocks to use Tor's <i>mapaddress</i>
en/volunteer.wml  769) commands from the controller interface, so we don't waste a whole
en/volunteer.wml  770) round-trip inside Tor doing the resolve before connecting. Second,
en/volunteer.wml  771) we should make our <i>torify</i> script detect which of torsocks or
en/volunteer.wml  772) dsocks is installed, and call them appropriately. This probably means
en/volunteer.wml  773) unifying their interfaces, and might involve sharing code between them
en/volunteer.wml  774) or discarding one entirely.
en/volunteer.wml  775) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  776) 

en/volunteer.wml  777) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  778) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  779) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  780) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a
en/volunteer.wml  781) href="<gitblob>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml  782) roadmap</a> for more ideas, or just try out Tor, Vidalia, and Torbutton,
en/volunteer.wml  783) and find out what you think needs fixing.

en/volunteer.wml  784) Some of the <a href="<gittree>doc/spec/proposals">current proposals</a>
en/volunteer.wml  785) might also be short on developers.
en/volunteer.wml  786) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  787) 

en/volunteer.wml  788) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml  789) 

en/volunteer.wml  790) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  791) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html    792) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  793) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml  794) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml  795) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml  796) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml  797) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml  798) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml  799) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml  800) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml  801) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml  802) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml  803) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml  804) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  805) 

en/volunteer.wml  806) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml  807) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml  808) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml  809) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml  810) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  811) 

en/volunteer.wml  812) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml  813) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml  814) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml  815) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml  816) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml  817) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml  818) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml  819) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml  820) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  821) 

en/volunteer.wml  822) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml  823) via OpenSSL. It has been lightly tested and is possibly very buggy.  We're looking for more rigorous testing, performance analysis, and optimally, code fixes to openssl and Tor if needed.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  824) 

volunteer.html    825) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html    826) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml  827) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html    828) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml  829) 

volunteer.html    830) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html    831) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html    832) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html    833) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml  834) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml  835) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml  836) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml  837) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification

en/volunteer.wml  838) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml  839) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  840) 

volunteer.html    841) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html    842) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html    843) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  844) 
en/volunteer.wml  845) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml  846) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml  847) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml  848) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml  849) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml  850) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  851) 

en/volunteer.wml  852) <li>How can we make the various LiveCD/USB systems easier
en/volunteer.wml  853) to maintain, improve, and document?  Some examples are <a

en/volunteer.wml  854) href="http://amnesia.boum.org/">amnesia LiveCD/USB</a> and the <a

en/volunteer.wml  855) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>

en/volunteer.wml  856) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  857) 
en/volunteer.wml  858) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  859) Another anti-censorship project is to try to make Tor
en/volunteer.wml  860) more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify <a
en/volunteer.wml  861) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>
en/volunteer.wml  862) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol,
en/volunteer.wml  863) and seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could <a
en/volunteer.wml  864) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like
en/volunteer.wml  865) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml  866) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml  867) To start, check out Shane Pope's <a
en/volunteer.wml  868) href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37735/index.html">thesis and prototype</a>.
en/volunteer.wml  869) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  870) 

volunteer.html    871) </ol>
volunteer.html    872) 

en/volunteer.wml  873) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  874) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html    875) <ol>

volunteer.html    876) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html    877) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html    878) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html    879) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html    880) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html    881) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html    882) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html    883) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html    884) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html    885) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html    886) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html    887) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html    888) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html    889) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html    890) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html    891) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html    892) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html    893) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html    894) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html    895) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html    896) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html    897) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  898) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml  899) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml  900) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml  901) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml  902) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml  903) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml  904) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml  905) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml  906) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  907) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml  908) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml  909) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml  910) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml  911) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml  912) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  913) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml  914) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml  915) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml  916) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml  917) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml  918) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml  919) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml  920) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml  921) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml  922) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml  923) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml  924) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml  925) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml  926) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml  927) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html    928) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html    929) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html    930) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html    931) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html    932) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html    933) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html    934) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html    935) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html    936) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html    937) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  938) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml  939) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml  940) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml  941) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml  942) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml  943) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml  944) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  945) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html    946) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html    947) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html    948) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html    949) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html    950) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html    951) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html    952) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html    953) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html    954) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html    955) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html    956) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html    957) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html    958) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html    959) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html    960) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html    961) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html    962) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html    963) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  964) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml  965) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml  966) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml  967) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml  968) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml  969) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml  970) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml  971) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml  972) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml  973) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml  974) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html    975) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html    976) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html    977) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml  978) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html    979) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html    980) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html    981) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  982) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html    983) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html    984) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  985) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml  986) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml  987) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml  988) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml  989) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml  990) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml  991) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml  992) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml  993) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml  994) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml  995) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml  996) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml  997) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml  998) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml  999) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 1000) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 1001) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 1002) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 1003) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 1004) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 1005) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 1006) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 1007) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 1008) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 1009) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 1010) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 1011) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 1012) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 1013) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 1014) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 1015) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 1016) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 1017) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 1018) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 1019) </li>

volunteer.html   1020) </ol>
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en/volunteer.wml 1022) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 1023) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 1024) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 1025) </p>

volunteer.html   1026) 

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volunteer.html   1028)