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volunteer.html     4) 

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

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) <a id="Usability"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  28) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Usability">Supporting Applications</a></h2>

volunteer.html    29) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  30) <li>We need more and better ways to intercept DNS requests so they don't "leak" their

en/volunteer.wml  31) request to a local observer while we're trying to be anonymous. (This
en/volunteer.wml  32) happens because the application does the DNS resolve before going to
en/volunteer.wml  33) the SOCKS proxy.)</li>

en/volunteer.wml  34) <li>Tsocks/dsocks items:

en/volunteer.wml  35) <ul>
en/volunteer.wml  36) <li>We should patch Dug Song's "dsocks" program to use Tor's
en/volunteer.wml  37) <i>mapaddress</i> commands from the controller interface, so we
en/volunteer.wml  38) don't waste a whole round-trip inside Tor doing the resolve before
en/volunteer.wml  39) connecting.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  40) <li>We need to make our <i>torify</i> script detect which of tsocks or
en/volunteer.wml  41) dsocks is installed, and call them appropriately. This probably means
en/volunteer.wml  42) unifying their interfaces, and might involve sharing code between them
en/volunteer.wml  43) or discarding one entirely.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  44) </ul>

en/volunteer.wml  45) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  46) <li>People running relays tell us they want to have one BandwidthRate

en/volunteer.wml  47) during some part of the day, and a different BandwidthRate at other
en/volunteer.wml  48) parts of the day. Rather than coding this inside Tor, we should have a
en/volunteer.wml  49) little script that speaks via the <a href="<page gui/index>">Tor
en/volunteer.wml  50) Controller Interface</a>, and does a setconf to change the bandwidth

en/volunteer.wml  51) rate. There is one for Unix and Mac already (it uses bash and cron),

en/volunteer.wml  52) but Windows users still need a solution.

en/volunteer.wml  53) </li>

volunteer.html    54) <li>Speaking of geolocation data, somebody should draw a map of the Earth

en/volunteer.wml  55) with a pin-point for each Tor relay. Bonus points if it updates as the

en/volunteer.wml  56) network grows and changes. Unfortunately, the easy ways to do this involve
en/volunteer.wml  57) sending all the data to Google and having them draw the map for you. How
en/volunteer.wml  58) much does this impact privacy, and do we have any other good options?</li>

volunteer.html    59) </ol>
volunteer.html    60) 

en/volunteer.wml  61) <a id="Advocacy"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  62) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Advocacy">Advocacy</a></h2>
en/volunteer.wml  63) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  64) <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  65) <li>Create a presentation that can be used for various user group meetings around the world</li>
en/volunteer.wml  66) <li>Create a video about your positive uses of Tor.  Some have already started on Seesmic.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  67) <li>Create a poster, or a set of posters, around a theme, such as "Tor for Freedom!"</li>
en/volunteer.wml  68) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml  69) 

en/volunteer.wml  70) <a id="Documentation"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  71) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Documentation">Documentation</a></h2>

volunteer.html    72) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  73) <li>Please help Matt Edman with the documentation and how-tos for his

en/volunteer.wml  74) Tor controller,

en/volunteer.wml  75) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a>.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  76) <li>Evaluate and document

en/volunteer.wml  77) <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/wiki/TheOnionRouter/TorifyHOWTO">our

en/volunteer.wml  78) list of programs</a> that can be configured to use Tor.</li>

volunteer.html    79) <li>We need better documentation for dynamically intercepting

en/volunteer.wml  80) connections and sending them through Tor. tsocks (Linux), dsocks (BSD),

en/volunteer.wml  81) and freecap (Windows) seem to be good candidates, as would better
en/volunteer.wml  82) use of our new TransPort feature.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  83) <li>We have a huge list of <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/SupportPrograms">potentially useful

volunteer.html    84) programs that interface to Tor</a>. Which ones are useful in which
volunteer.html    85) situations? Please help us test them out and document your results.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  86) <li>Help translate the web page and documentation into other
en/volunteer.wml  87) languages. See the <a href="<page translation>">translation

en/volunteer.wml  88) guidelines</a> if you want to help out. We especially need Arabic or
en/volunteer.wml  89) Farsi translations, for the many Tor users in censored areas.</li>

volunteer.html    90) </ol>
volunteer.html    91) 

en/volunteer.wml  92) <a id="Coding"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  93) <a id="Summer"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  94) <a id="Projects"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  95) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Projects">Good Coding Projects</a></h2>

en/volunteer.wml  96) 
en/volunteer.wml  97) <p>

en/volunteer.wml  98) You may find some of these projects to be good <a href="<page

en/volunteer.wml  99) gsoc>">Google Summer of Code 2010</a> ideas. We have labelled each idea

en/volunteer.wml 100) with how useful it would be to the overall Tor project (priority), how
en/volunteer.wml 101) much work we expect it would be (effort level), how much clue you should
en/volunteer.wml 102) start with (skill level), and which of our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 103) people>#Core">core developers</a> would be good mentors.
en/volunteer.wml 104) If one or more of these ideas looks promising to you, please <a
en/volunteer.wml 105) href="<page contact>">contact us</a> to discuss your plans rather than
en/volunteer.wml 106) sending blind applications. You may also want to propose your own project
en/volunteer.wml 107) idea which often results in the best applications.

en/volunteer.wml 108) </p>
en/volunteer.wml 109) 

en/volunteer.wml 110) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml 111) 

en/volunteer.wml 112) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 113) <b>Tor Browser Bundle for Linux/Mac OS X</b>

en/volunteer.wml 114) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 115) Priority: <i>High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 116) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 117) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 118) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 119) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 120) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 121) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven, Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml 122) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 123) The Tor Browser Bundle incorporates Tor, Firefox, Polipo, and the Vidalia user
en/volunteer.wml 124) interface (and optionally the <a href="http://pidgin.im/">Pidgin</a> Instant Messaging client). Components are pre-configured to operate in a secure way, and it has very few dependencies on the

en/volunteer.wml 125) installed operating system. It has therefore become one of the most
en/volunteer.wml 126) easy to use, and popular, ways to use Tor on Windows.
en/volunteer.wml 127) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 128) However, there is currently no working package for Linux and Mac OS

en/volunteer.wml 129) X, so this project would be to implement Tor Browser Bundle for these
en/volunteer.wml 130) platforms. This will involve modifications to Vidalia (C++), possibly
en/volunteer.wml 131) Firefox (C) then creating and testing the launcher on a range of

en/volunteer.wml 132) operating system versions and configurations to verify portability.  Some work on this was completed as part of the Google Summer of Code 2009.  

en/volunteer.wml 133) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 134) Students should be familiar with application development on one or
en/volunteer.wml 135) preferably both of Linux and Mac OS X, and be comfortable with C/C++
en/volunteer.wml 136) and shell scripting.
en/volunteer.wml 137) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 138) Part of this project could be usability testing of Tor Browser Bundle,
en/volunteer.wml 139) ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml 140) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml 141) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml 142) structured process would be better.
en/volunteer.wml 143) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 144) 

en/volunteer.wml 145) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 146) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</b>

en/volunteer.wml 147) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 148) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 149) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 150) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 151) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 152) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 153) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 154) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml 155) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 156) It would be great to set up an automated system for tracking network
en/volunteer.wml 157) health over time, graphing it, etc. Part of this project would involve
en/volunteer.wml 158) inventing better metrics for assessing network health and growth. Is the
en/volunteer.wml 159) average uptime of the network increasing? How many relays are qualifying
en/volunteer.wml 160) for Guard status this month compared to last month? What's the turnover
en/volunteer.wml 161) in terms of new relays showing up and relays shutting off? Periodically
en/volunteer.wml 162) people collect brief snapshots, but where it gets really interesting is
en/volunteer.wml 163) when we start tracking data points over time.
en/volunteer.wml 164) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 165) Data could be collected from the Tor Network Scanners in <a
en/volunteer.wml 166) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>, from

en/volunteer.wml 167) the server descriptors that each relay publishes, and from other
en/volunteer.wml 168) sources. Results over time could be integrated into one of the <a
en/volunteer.wml 169) href="https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/">Tor Status</a> web pages, or be
en/volunteer.wml 170) kept separate. Speaking of the Tor Status pages, take a look at Roger's
en/volunteer.wml 171) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2008/msg00300.html">Tor
en/volunteer.wml 172) Status wish list</a>.
en/volunteer.wml 173) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 174) 
en/volunteer.wml 175) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 176) <b>Improving Tor's ability to resist censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml 177) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 178) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 179) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 180) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 181) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 182) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 183) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 184) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Steven</i>

en/volunteer.wml 185) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 186) The Tor 0.2.0.x series makes <a
en/volunteer.wml 187) href="<svnsandbox>doc/design-paper/blocking.html">significant
en/volunteer.wml 188) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml 189) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its
en/volunteer.wml 190) anti-censorship design.  For example, current Tors can only listen on a
en/volunteer.wml 191) single address/port combination at a time.  There's
en/volunteer.wml 192) <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a
en/volunteer.wml 193) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml 194) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more
en/volunteer.wml 195) work.  Another anti-censorship project (far more difficult) is to try
en/volunteer.wml 196) to make Tor more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify
en/volunteer.wml 197) <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>
en/volunteer.wml 198) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol, and
en/volunteer.wml 199) seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could
en/volunteer.wml 200) <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like
en/volunteer.wml 201) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml 202) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml 203) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 204) This project involves a lot of research and design. One of the big
en/volunteer.wml 205) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml 206) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 207) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml 208) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 209) 
en/volunteer.wml 210) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 211) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>

en/volunteer.wml 212) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 213) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 214) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 215) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 216) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 217) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 218) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 219) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike, Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml 220) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 221) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml 222) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml 223) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml 224) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml 225) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml 226) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml 227) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml 228) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,
en/volunteer.wml 229) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml 230) as described in the
en/volunteer.wml 231) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml 232) Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml 233) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml 234) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml 235) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml 236) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too
en/volunteer.wml 237) much communications overhead between relays and directory
en/volunteer.wml 238) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml 239) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 240) 
en/volunteer.wml 241) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 242) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml 243) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 244) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 245) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 246) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 247) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 248) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 249) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 250) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>

en/volunteer.wml 251) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 252) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml 253) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml 254) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:
en/volunteer.wml 255) 1) the ability to asynchronously
en/volunteer.wml 256) query name servers, find the system nameservers, and manage netbios
en/volunteer.wml 257) and dns queries.
en/volunteer.wml 258) 2) manage events and buffers
en/volunteer.wml 259) natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes, Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in
en/volunteer.wml 260) Windows it's whatever the config specifies). 3) some sort of GUI config
en/volunteer.wml 261) and reporting tool, bonus if it has a systray icon with right clickable
en/volunteer.wml 262) menu options. Double bonus if it's cross-platform compatible.

en/volunteer.wml 263) 4) allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml 264) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"

en/volunteer.wml 265) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 266) 
en/volunteer.wml 267) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 268) <b>Implement a torrent-based scheme for downloading Thandy packages</b>

en/volunteer.wml 269) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 270) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 271) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 272) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 273) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 274) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 275) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 276) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin, Nick</i>
en/volunteer.wml 277) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 278) <a

en/volunteer.wml 279) href="https://git.torproject.org/checkout/thandy/master/specs/thandy-spec.txt">Thandy</a>

en/volunteer.wml 280) is a relatively new software to allow assisted updates of Tor and related
en/volunteer.wml 281) software. Currently, there are very few users, but we expect Thandy to be
en/volunteer.wml 282) used by almost every Tor user in the future. To avoid crashing servers on
en/volunteer.wml 283) the day of a Tor update, we need new ways to distribute new packages
en/volunteer.wml 284) efficiently, and using libtorrent seems to be a possible solution. If you
en/volunteer.wml 285) think of other good ideas, great - please do let us know!<br />
en/volunteer.wml 286) We also need to investigate how to include our mirrors better. If possible,
en/volunteer.wml 287) there should be an easy way for them to help distributing the packages.

en/volunteer.wml 288) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 289) 

en/volunteer.wml 290) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 291) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface</b>

en/volunteer.wml 292) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 293) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 294) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 295) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 296) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 297) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 298) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 299) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 300) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 301) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml 302) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml 303) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml 304) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml 305) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml 306) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml 307) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml 308) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml 309) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 310) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml 311) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml 312) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml 313) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml 314) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 315) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml 316) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml 317) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml 318) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml 319) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml 320) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml 321) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml 322) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml 323) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 324) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml 325) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml 326) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml 327) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml 328) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml 329) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml 330) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml 331) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 332) 

en/volunteer.wml 333) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 334) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>

en/volunteer.wml 335) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 336) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 337) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 338) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 339) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 340) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 341) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 342) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml 343) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 344) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml 345) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml 346) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml 347) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml 348) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml 349) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 350) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml 351) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml 352) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml 353) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml 354) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml 355) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 356) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 357) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml 358) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 359) 
en/volunteer.wml 360) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 361) <b>Help revive an independent Tor client implementation</b>
en/volunteer.wml 362) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 363) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 364) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 365) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 366) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 367) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 368) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 369) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Nick</i>
en/volunteer.wml 370) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 371) Reanimate one of the approaches to implement a Tor client in Java,
en/volunteer.wml 372) e.g. the <a href="http://onioncoffee.sourceforge.net/">OnionCoffee
en/volunteer.wml 373) project</a>, and make it run on <a
en/volunteer.wml 374) href="http://code.google.com/android/">Android</a>. The first step
en/volunteer.wml 375) would be to port the existing code and execute it in an Android
en/volunteer.wml 376) environment. Next, the code should be updated to support the newer Tor
en/volunteer.wml 377) protocol versions like the <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/dir-spec.txt">v3
en/volunteer.wml 378) directory protocol</a>. Further, support for requesting or even
en/volunteer.wml 379) providing Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 380) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 381) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java
en/volunteer.wml 382) code, including
en/volunteer.wml 383) a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,
en/volunteer.wml 384) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml 385) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml 386) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml 387) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml 388) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 389) 
en/volunteer.wml 390) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 391) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 392) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 393) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 394) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 395) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 396) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 397) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 398) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 399) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 400) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml 401) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml 402) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml 403) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml 404) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml 405) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 406) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml 407) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 408) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml 409) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml 410) <a
en/volunteer.wml 411) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml 412) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 413) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml 414) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml 415) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml 416) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml 417) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml 418) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 419) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml 420) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 421) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.
en/volunteer.wml 422) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 423) 
en/volunteer.wml 424) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 425) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 426) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 427) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 428) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 429) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 430) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 431) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 432) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 433) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 434) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 435) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml 436) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml 437) features to consider include:
en/volunteer.wml 438) 1) Integration of the <a
en/volunteer.wml 439) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml 440) Python library</a>
en/volunteer.wml 441) for authenticated HTTPS downloads. 2) Adding a level of indirection
en/volunteer.wml 442) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an
en/volunteer.wml 443) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.
en/volunteer.wml 444) 3) Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted
en/volunteer.wml 445) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml 446) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml 447) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and
en/volunteer.wml 448) Python proficiency.
en/volunteer.wml 449) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 450) 
en/volunteer.wml 451) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 452) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml 453) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 454) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 455) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 456) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 457) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 458) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 459) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 460) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml 461) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 462) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml 463) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml 464) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml 465) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml 466) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml 467) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 468) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml 469) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml 470) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml 471) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml 472) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml 473) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 474) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml 475) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml 476) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml 477) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml 478) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml 479) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 480) 
en/volunteer.wml 481) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 482) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 483) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 484) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 485) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 486) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 487) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 488) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 489) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 490) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 491) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 492) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml 493) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml 494) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml 495) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml 496) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml 497) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml 498) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml 499) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml 500) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml 501) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml 502) from here."
en/volunteer.wml 503) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 504) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 505) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml 506) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml 507) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml 508) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml 509) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 510) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 511) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml 512) required.
en/volunteer.wml 513) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 514) 
en/volunteer.wml 515) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 516) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml 517) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 518) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 519) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 520) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 521) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 522) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 523) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 524) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 525) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 526) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml 527) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml 528) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml 529) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml 530) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml 531) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 532) 
en/volunteer.wml 533) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 534) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</b>
en/volunteer.wml 535) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 536) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 537) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 538) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 539) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 540) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 541) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 542) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 543) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 544) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml 545) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml 546) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml 547) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml 548) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml 549) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml 550) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.
en/volunteer.wml 551) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 552) 

en/volunteer.wml 553) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 554) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml 555) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 556) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 557) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 558) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 559) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 560) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 561) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 562) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml 563) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 564) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml 565) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml 566) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml 567) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml 568) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml 569) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml 570) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml 571) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml 572) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml 573) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml 574) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml 575) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml 576) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml 577) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml 578) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml 579) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml 580) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml 581) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 582) 

en/volunteer.wml 583) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 584) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml 585) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 586) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a
en/volunteer.wml 587) href="<svnsandbox>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development
en/volunteer.wml 588) roadmap</a> for more ideas.
en/volunteer.wml 589) Some of the <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/">current proposals</a>
en/volunteer.wml 590) might also be short on developers.
en/volunteer.wml 591) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 592) 
en/volunteer.wml 593) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 594) <b>Better Debian/Ubuntu Packaging for Tor+Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 595) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 596) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml 597) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml 598) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a
en/volunteer.wml 599) <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined
en/volunteer.wml 600) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml 601) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml 602) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml 603) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml 604) ports &mdash; they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml 605) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 606) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml 607) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml 608) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml 609) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml 610) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml 611) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml 612) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml 613) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml 614) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 615) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml 616) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml 617) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml 618) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml 619) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml 620) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 621) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 622) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml 623) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml 624) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml 625) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts
en/volunteer.wml 626) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml 627) best idea
en/volunteer.wml 628) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml 629) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml 630) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml 631) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 632) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml 633) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml 634) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 635) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 636) 
en/volunteer.wml 637) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 638) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml 639) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 640) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml 641) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml 642) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml 643) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml 644) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml 645) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml 646) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml 647) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml 648) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml 649) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml 650) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml 651) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml 652) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 653) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml 654) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml 655) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml 656) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml 657) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 658) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml 659) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml 660) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml 661) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 662) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 663) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml 664) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml 665) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml 666) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml 667) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml 668) with others prior to implementation.
en/volunteer.wml 669) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 670) 

en/volunteer.wml 671) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 672) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for builds</b>

en/volunteer.wml 673) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 674) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml 675) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml 676) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml 677) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 678) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml 679) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml 680) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml 681) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 682) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml 683) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml 684) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml 685) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml 686) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml 687) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml 688) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml 689) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 690) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml 691) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml 692) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml 693) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 694) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 695) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 696) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml 697) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 698) 

en/volunteer.wml 699) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 700) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml 701) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 702) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 703) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 704) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 705) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 706) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 707) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 708) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml 709) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 710) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml 711) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml 712) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml 713) structured process would be better.
en/volunteer.wml 714) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 715) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml 716) 

en/volunteer.wml 717) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 718) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html   719) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml 720) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml 721) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml 722) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml 723) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml 724) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml 725) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml 726) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml 727) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml 728) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml 729) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml 730) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml 731) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 732) 

en/volunteer.wml 733) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 734) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml 735) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml 736) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml 737) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 738) 

en/volunteer.wml 739) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml 740) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml 741) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml 742) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml 743) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml 744) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml 745) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml 746) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml 747) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 748) 

en/volunteer.wml 749) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml 750) 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 751) 

volunteer.html   752) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html   753) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml 754) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html   755) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml 756) 

volunteer.html   757) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html   758) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html   759) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html   760) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml 761) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml 762) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml 763) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml 764) href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification
en/volunteer.wml 765) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml 766) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 767) 

volunteer.html   768) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html   769) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html   770) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 771) 
en/volunteer.wml 772) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml 773) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml 774) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml 775) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml 776) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml 777) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 778) 
en/volunteer.wml 779) <li>How can we make the <a
en/volunteer.wml 780) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>
en/volunteer.wml 781) easier to maintain, improve, and document?</li>

volunteer.html   782) </ol>
volunteer.html   783) 

en/volunteer.wml 784) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 785) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html   786) <ol>

volunteer.html   787) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html   788) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html   789) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html   790) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html   791) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html   792) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html   793) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html   794) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html   795) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html   796) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html   797) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html   798) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html   799) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html   800) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html   801) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html   802) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html   803) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html   804) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html   805) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html   806) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html   807) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html   808) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 809) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml 810) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml 811) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml 812) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml 813) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml 814) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml 815) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml 816) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml 817) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 818) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml 819) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml 820) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml 821) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml 822) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml 823) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 824) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml 825) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml 826) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml 827) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml 828) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml 829) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml 830) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml 831) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml 832) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml 833) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml 834) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml 835) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml 836) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml 837) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml 838) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html   839) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html   840) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html   841) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html   842) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html   843) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html   844) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html   845) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html   846) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html   847) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html   848) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 849) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml 850) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml 851) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml 852) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml 853) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml 854) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml 855) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 856) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html   857) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html   858) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html   859) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html   860) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html   861) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html   862) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html   863) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html   864) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html   865) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html   866) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html   867) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html   868) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html   869) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html   870) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html   871) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html   872) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html   873) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html   874) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 875) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml 876) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml 877) href="<svnsandbox>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml 878) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml 879) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml 880) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml 881) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml 882) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml 883) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml 884) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml 885) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html   886) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html   887) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html   888) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml 889) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html   890) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html   891) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html   892) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 893) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html   894) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html   895) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 896) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml 897) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml 898) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml 899) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml 900) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml 901) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml 902) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml 903) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml 904) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml 905) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml 906) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml 907) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml 908) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml 909) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml 910) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 911) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 912) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 913) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 914) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 915) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 916) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 917) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 918) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 919) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 920) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 921) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 922) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 923) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 924) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 925) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 926) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 927) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 928) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 929) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 930) </li>

volunteer.html   931) </ol>
volunteer.html   932) 

en/volunteer.wml 933) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 934) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 935) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 936) </p>

volunteer.html   937) 

en/volunteer.wml 938)   </div><!-- #main -->

volunteer.html   939) 

en/volunteer.wml 940) #include <foot.wmi>