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Roger Dingledine authored 19 years ago

1) <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
2) "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
3) 
4) <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
5) <head>
6)   <title>Tor GUI Contest</title>
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11) </head>
12) 
13) <body>
14) 
15) <!-- TITLE BAR & NAVIGATION -->
16) 
17) <table class="banner" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
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37) 
38) <div class="center">
39) 
40) <div class="main-column">
41) 
42) <h2>Tor GUI Contest</h2>
43) <hr />
44) <p>DRAFT IN PROGRESS -- ALL OF THIS STUFF IS IN FLUX AND SHOULD BE
45) CONSIDERED WRONG.</p>
46) <hr />
47) <h3>Overview</h3>
48) 
49) <p>
50) Tor is a decentralized network of computers on the Internet that increases
51) privacy in Web browsing, instant messaging, and other applications. We
52) estimate there are some 20,000 Tor users currently, routing their traffic
53) through about 150 volunteer Tor servers on five continents. However, Tor's
54) current user interface approach --- running as a daemon in the background
55) --- does a poor job of communicating network status and security levels
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56) to the user. The Tor project, affiliated with the
57) <a href="http://www.eff.org/">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>, is
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58) running a UI contest to develop a vision of how Tor can
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59) work in a user's everyday anonymous browsing experience. Some of the
60) challenges include how to make alerts and error conditions visible on
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61) screen; how to let the user configure Tor to use or avoid certain routes
62) or nodes; how to learn about the current state of a Tor connection,
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63) including which servers it uses; and how to find out whether (and which)
64) applications are using Tor safely.
65) </p>
66) 
67) <hr />
68) <h3>Goals</h3>
69) 
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70) <p>Contestants will produce a work of <a
71) href="http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html">Free software</a>
72) that will
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73) provide a user interface to the Tor system by way of the <a
74) href="http://tor.eff.org/cvs/tor/doc/control-spec.txt">Tor Controller
75) Protocol</a>.</p>
76) 
77) <p>We are looking for a vision of how Tor can work in a user's everyday
78) anonymous browsing experience.</p>
79) 
80) <p>Successful entries will:</p>
81) <ul>
82) <li>Allow the user to fully configure Tor without directly editing
83) configuration files.</li>
84) <li>Learn about the current state of their Tor connection (including
85) which servers they are connected to, and how many of them), and find
86) out whether and how any of their applications are using it.</li>
87) <li>Make alerts and error conditions visible on screen.</li>
88) <li>Run on at least one of Windows, Linux, and OS/X, on a
89) not-unusually-configured consumer-level machine.</li>
90) </ul>
91) 
92) <p>In addition, entries may a) Provide detailed information about which
93) applications, ports, or packets are (or are not!) passing through Tor,
94) including accounting for both Tor- and non-Tor traffic; and b) Provide
95) additional statistics about the Tor connection.</p>
96) 
97) <p>Examples include:</p>
98) <ul>
99) <li>How much bandwidth am I using?</li>
100) <li>What servers do I know about on the network? Where are they? How
101) available are they?</li>
102) <li>Provide an interface for controlling Tor connections: "show me
103) the network from Africa by way of Asia". Think of the global satellite
104) map from the movie <i>Sneakers</i>.</li>
105) <li>Configure other running applications to use Tor (for example,
106) by modifying or working through the network stack, and/or by altering
107) application configurations).</li>
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108) <li>Provide an elegant installer for Tor, the GUI application, and
109) other supporting applications.</li>
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110) <li>Provide meaningful defaults for a good Tor experience.</li>
111) <li>Implement Privoxy-like functionality -- that is, not just paying
112) attention to transport anonymity on the level of Tor, but also paying
113) attention to the anonymity of the http headers, cookies, etc.</li>
114) </ul>
115) 
116) <hr />
117) <h3>Contest categories</h3>
118) 
119) <p>Three categories of interface will be awarded:</p>
120) <ul>
121) <li><b>Best usability</b> will be awarded to the application
122) that provides the most unobtrusive Tor experience while still covering
123) all criteria (working, perhaps, on the "no news is good news" theory).</li>
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124) <li><b>Most featureful interface</b> will be awarded to the application that
125) provides usable, clear access to the most aspects of the Tor system,
126) covering many or most of the goals above.</li>
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127) <li><b>Most flexible</b> will be awarded to the best system that runs smoothly
128) on all three of Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X; extra points will be awarded
129) for additional systems.</li>
130) </ul>
131) 
132) <p>We may decide to award other awards as the entries deserve.</p>
133) 
134) <hr />
135) <h3>Judging criteria</h3>
136) 
137) <p>Awards will be granted on the basis of (in rough preference order):</p>
138) 
139) <ul>
140) <li>Usability (<a
141) href="http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/ContestFAQ#DefineUsable">what
142) does this mean?</a>)</li>
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143) <li>Informativeness: can the user learn what they need to know, both in terms
144) of using the network and also in terms of security decisions?</li>
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145) <li>Total user experience</li>
146) <li>Aesthetics</li>
147) <li>Responsiveness</li>
148) <li>Stability and robustness</li>
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149) <li>Internationalization (multiple language support)</li>