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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="Usability"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  31) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Usability">Supporting Applications</a></h2>

volunteer.html    32) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  33) <li>We need more and better ways to intercept DNS requests so they don't "leak" their

en/volunteer.wml  34) request to a local observer while we're trying to be anonymous. (This
en/volunteer.wml  35) happens because the application does the DNS resolve before going to
en/volunteer.wml  36) the SOCKS proxy.)</li>

en/volunteer.wml  37) <li>Tsocks/dsocks items:

en/volunteer.wml  38) <ul>
en/volunteer.wml  39) <li>We should patch Dug Song's "dsocks" program to use Tor's
en/volunteer.wml  40) <i>mapaddress</i> commands from the controller interface, so we
en/volunteer.wml  41) don't waste a whole round-trip inside Tor doing the resolve before
en/volunteer.wml  42) connecting.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  43) <li>We need to make our <i>torify</i> script detect which of tsocks or
en/volunteer.wml  44) dsocks is installed, and call them appropriately. This probably means
en/volunteer.wml  45) unifying their interfaces, and might involve sharing code between them
en/volunteer.wml  46) or discarding one entirely.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  47) </ul>

en/volunteer.wml  48) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  49) <li>People running relays tell us they want to have one BandwidthRate

en/volunteer.wml  50) during some part of the day, and a different BandwidthRate at other
en/volunteer.wml  51) parts of the day. Rather than coding this inside Tor, we should have a
en/volunteer.wml  52) little script that speaks via the <a href="<page gui/index>">Tor
en/volunteer.wml  53) Controller Interface</a>, and does a setconf to change the bandwidth

en/volunteer.wml  54) rate. There is one for Unix and Mac already (it uses bash and cron),

en/volunteer.wml  55) but Windows users still need a solution.

en/volunteer.wml  56) </li>

volunteer.html    57) <li>Speaking of geolocation data, somebody should draw a map of the Earth

en/volunteer.wml  58) with a pin-point for each Tor relay. Bonus points if it updates as the

en/volunteer.wml  59) network grows and changes. Unfortunately, the easy ways to do this involve
en/volunteer.wml  60) sending all the data to Google and having them draw the map for you. How
en/volunteer.wml  61) much does this impact privacy, and do we have any other good options?</li>

volunteer.html    62) </ol>
volunteer.html    63) 

en/volunteer.wml  64) <a id="Advocacy"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  65) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Advocacy">Advocacy</a></h2>
en/volunteer.wml  66) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  67) <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  68) <li>Create a presentation that can be used for various user group meetings around the world</li>

en/volunteer.wml  69) <li>Create a video about the positive uses of Tor, what Tor is, or how
en/volunteer.wml  70) to use it.  Some have already

en/volunteer.wml  71) started on <a href="http://media.torproject.org/video/">Tor's Media

en/volunteer.wml  72) server</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  73) href="http://www.howcast.com/videos/90601-How-To-Circumvent-an-Internet-Proxy">Howcast</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  74) and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/freedom4internet">Youtube</a>.</li> 

en/volunteer.wml  75) <li>Create a poster, or a set of posters, around a theme,
en/volunteer.wml  76) such as "Tor for Freedom!"</li>

en/volunteer.wml  77) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml  78) 

en/volunteer.wml  79) <a id="Documentation"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  80) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Documentation">Documentation</a></h2>

volunteer.html    81) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  82) <li>Please help Matt Edman with the documentation and how-tos for his

en/volunteer.wml  83) Tor controller,

en/volunteer.wml  84) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a>.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  85) <li>Evaluate and document

en/volunteer.wml  86) <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/wiki/TheOnionRouter/TorifyHOWTO">our

en/volunteer.wml  87) list of programs</a> that can be configured to use Tor.</li>

volunteer.html    88) <li>We need better documentation for dynamically intercepting

en/volunteer.wml  89) connections and sending them through Tor. tsocks (Linux), dsocks (BSD),

en/volunteer.wml  90) and freecap (Windows) seem to be good candidates, as would better
en/volunteer.wml  91) use of our new TransPort feature.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  92) <li>We have a huge list of <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/SupportPrograms">potentially useful

volunteer.html    93) programs that interface to Tor</a>. Which ones are useful in which
volunteer.html    94) situations? Please help us test them out and document your results.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  95) <li>Help translate the web page and documentation into other
en/volunteer.wml  96) languages. See the <a href="<page translation>">translation

en/volunteer.wml  97) guidelines</a> if you want to help out. We especially need Arabic or
en/volunteer.wml  98) Farsi translations, for the many Tor users in censored areas.</li>

volunteer.html    99) </ol>
volunteer.html   100) 

en/volunteer.wml 101) <a id="Coding"></a>

en/volunteer.wml 102) <a id="Summer"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 103) <a id="Projects"></a>

en/volunteer.wml 104) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Projects">Good Coding Projects</a></h2>

en/volunteer.wml 105) 
en/volunteer.wml 106) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 107) You may find some of these projects to be good <a href="<page

en/volunteer.wml 108) gsoc>">Google Summer of Code 2010</a> ideas. We have labelled each idea

en/volunteer.wml 109) with how useful it would be to the overall Tor project (priority), how
en/volunteer.wml 110) much work we expect it would be (effort level), how much clue you should
en/volunteer.wml 111) start with (skill level), and which of our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 112) people>#Core">core developers</a> would be good mentors.
en/volunteer.wml 113) If one or more of these ideas looks promising to you, please <a
en/volunteer.wml 114) href="<page contact>">contact us</a> to discuss your plans rather than
en/volunteer.wml 115) sending blind applications. You may also want to propose your own project
en/volunteer.wml 116) idea which often results in the best applications.

en/volunteer.wml 117) </p>
en/volunteer.wml 118) 

en/volunteer.wml 119) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml 120) 

en/volunteer.wml 121) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 122) <b>Tor Browser Bundle for Linux/Mac OS X</b>

en/volunteer.wml 123) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 124) Priority: <i>High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 125) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 126) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 127) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 128) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 129) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 130) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven, Andrew, Jacob</i>

en/volunteer.wml 131) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 132) The Tor Browser Bundle incorporates Tor, Firefox, Polipo, and the Vidalia user
en/volunteer.wml 133) 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 134) installed operating system. It has therefore become one of the most
en/volunteer.wml 135) easy to use, and popular, ways to use Tor on Windows.
en/volunteer.wml 136) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 137) However, there is currently no working package for Linux and Mac OS

en/volunteer.wml 138) X, so this project would be to implement Tor Browser Bundle for these
en/volunteer.wml 139) platforms. This will involve modifications to Vidalia (C++), possibly
en/volunteer.wml 140) Firefox (C) then creating and testing the launcher on a range of

en/volunteer.wml 141) 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 142) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 143) Students should be familiar with application development on one or
en/volunteer.wml 144) preferably both of Linux and Mac OS X, and be comfortable with C/C++
en/volunteer.wml 145) and shell scripting.
en/volunteer.wml 146) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 147) Part of this project could be usability testing of Tor Browser Bundle,
en/volunteer.wml 148) ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml 149) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml 150) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml 151) structured process would be better.
en/volunteer.wml 152) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 153) 

en/volunteer.wml 154) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 155) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</b>

en/volunteer.wml 156) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 157) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 158) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 159) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 160) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 161) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 162) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 163) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml 164) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 165) It would be great to set up an automated system for tracking network
en/volunteer.wml 166) health over time, graphing it, etc. Part of this project would involve
en/volunteer.wml 167) inventing better metrics for assessing network health and growth. Is the
en/volunteer.wml 168) average uptime of the network increasing? How many relays are qualifying
en/volunteer.wml 169) for Guard status this month compared to last month? What's the turnover
en/volunteer.wml 170) in terms of new relays showing up and relays shutting off? Periodically
en/volunteer.wml 171) people collect brief snapshots, but where it gets really interesting is
en/volunteer.wml 172) when we start tracking data points over time.
en/volunteer.wml 173) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 174) Data could be collected from the Tor Network Scanners in <a
en/volunteer.wml 175) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>, from

en/volunteer.wml 176) the server descriptors that each relay publishes, and from other
en/volunteer.wml 177) sources. Results over time could be integrated into one of the <a
en/volunteer.wml 178) href="https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/">Tor Status</a> web pages, or be
en/volunteer.wml 179) kept separate. Speaking of the Tor Status pages, take a look at Roger's
en/volunteer.wml 180) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2008/msg00300.html">Tor
en/volunteer.wml 181) Status wish list</a>.
en/volunteer.wml 182) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 183) 
en/volunteer.wml 184) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 185) <b>Improving Tor's ability to resist censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml 186) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 187) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 188) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 189) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 190) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 191) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 192) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 193) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Steven</i>

en/volunteer.wml 194) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 195) The Tor 0.2.1.x series makes <a

en/volunteer.wml 196) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html">significant

en/volunteer.wml 197) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml 198) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its
en/volunteer.wml 199) anti-censorship design.  For example, current Tors can only listen on a
en/volunteer.wml 200) single address/port combination at a time.  There's

en/volunteer.wml 201) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a

en/volunteer.wml 202) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml 203) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more
en/volunteer.wml 204) work.  Another anti-censorship project (far more difficult) is to try
en/volunteer.wml 205) to make Tor more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify

en/volunteer.wml 206) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>

en/volunteer.wml 207) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol, and
en/volunteer.wml 208) seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could

en/volunteer.wml 209) <a href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like

en/volunteer.wml 210) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml 211) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml 212) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 213) This project involves a lot of research and design. One of the big
en/volunteer.wml 214) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml 215) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 216) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml 217) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 218) 
en/volunteer.wml 219) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 220) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>

en/volunteer.wml 221) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 222) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 223) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 224) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 225) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 226) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 227) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 228) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike, Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml 229) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 230) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml 231) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml 232) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml 233) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml 234) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml 235) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml 236) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml 237) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,
en/volunteer.wml 238) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml 239) as described in the
en/volunteer.wml 240) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml 241) Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml 242) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml 243) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml 244) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml 245) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too
en/volunteer.wml 246) much communications overhead between relays and directory
en/volunteer.wml 247) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml 248) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 249) 
en/volunteer.wml 250) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 251) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml 252) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 253) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 254) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 255) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 256) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 257) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 258) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 259) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin, Chris</i>

en/volunteer.wml 260) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 261) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml 262) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml 263) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:
en/volunteer.wml 264) 1) the ability to asynchronously
en/volunteer.wml 265) query name servers, find the system nameservers, and manage netbios
en/volunteer.wml 266) and dns queries.
en/volunteer.wml 267) 2) manage events and buffers
en/volunteer.wml 268) natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes, Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in
en/volunteer.wml 269) Windows it's whatever the config specifies). 3) some sort of GUI config
en/volunteer.wml 270) and reporting tool, bonus if it has a systray icon with right clickable
en/volunteer.wml 271) menu options. Double bonus if it's cross-platform compatible.

en/volunteer.wml 272) 4) allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml 273) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"

en/volunteer.wml 274) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 275) 

en/volunteer.wml 276) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 277) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface</b>

en/volunteer.wml 278) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 279) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 280) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 281) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 282) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 283) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 284) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 285) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 286) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 287) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml 288) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml 289) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml 290) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml 291) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml 292) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml 293) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml 294) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml 295) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 296) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml 297) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml 298) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml 299) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml 300) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 301) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml 302) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml 303) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml 304) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml 305) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml 306) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml 307) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml 308) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml 309) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 310) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml 311) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml 312) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml 313) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml 314) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml 315) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml 316) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml 317) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 318) 

en/volunteer.wml 319) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 320) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>

en/volunteer.wml 321) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 322) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 323) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 324) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 325) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 326) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 327) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 328) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml 329) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 330) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml 331) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml 332) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml 333) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml 334) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml 335) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 336) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml 337) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml 338) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml 339) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml 340) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml 341) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 342) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 343) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml 344) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 345) 
en/volunteer.wml 346) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 347) <b>Help with independent Tor client implementations</b>

en/volunteer.wml 348) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 349) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 350) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 351) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 352) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 353) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 354) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 355) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Nick</i>
en/volunteer.wml 356) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 357) We're currently working on Tor clients for Java, Android, and Maemo
en/volunteer.wml 358) environments.  The first step is to get a handle on the current state of
en/volunteer.wml 359) the project in which you are interested in helping; Tor for Java,
en/volunteer.wml 360) Android/Orbot, or Tor for Maemo. Check out the repository and
en/volunteer.wml 361) familiarlize yourself with the source code.  Further, support for requesting or even

en/volunteer.wml 362) providing Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 363) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 364) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java

en/volunteer.wml 365) code, including a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml 366) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml 367) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml 368) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml 369) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml 370) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 371) 
en/volunteer.wml 372) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 373) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 374) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 375) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 376) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 377) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 378) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 379) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 380) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 381) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 382) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml 383) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml 384) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml 385) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml 386) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml 387) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 388) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml 389) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 390) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml 391) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml 392) <a
en/volunteer.wml 393) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml 394) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 395) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml 396) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml 397) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml 398) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml 399) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml 400) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 401) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml 402) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 403) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.
en/volunteer.wml 404) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 405) 
en/volunteer.wml 406) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 407) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 408) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 409) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 410) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 411) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 412) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 413) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 414) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 415) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 416) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 417) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml 418) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml 419) features to consider include:
en/volunteer.wml 420) 1) Integration of the <a
en/volunteer.wml 421) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml 422) Python library</a>
en/volunteer.wml 423) for authenticated HTTPS downloads. 2) Adding a level of indirection
en/volunteer.wml 424) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an
en/volunteer.wml 425) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.
en/volunteer.wml 426) 3) Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted
en/volunteer.wml 427) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml 428) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml 429) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and
en/volunteer.wml 430) Python proficiency.
en/volunteer.wml 431) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 432) 
en/volunteer.wml 433) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 434) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml 435) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 436) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 437) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 438) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 439) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 440) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 441) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 442) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml 443) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 444) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml 445) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml 446) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml 447) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml 448) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml 449) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 450) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml 451) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml 452) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml 453) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml 454) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml 455) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 456) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml 457) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml 458) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml 459) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml 460) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml 461) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 462) 
en/volunteer.wml 463) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 464) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 465) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 466) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 467) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 468) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 469) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 470) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 471) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 472) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 473) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 474) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml 475) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml 476) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml 477) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml 478) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml 479) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml 480) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml 481) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml 482) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml 483) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml 484) from here."
en/volunteer.wml 485) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 486) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 487) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml 488) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml 489) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml 490) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml 491) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 492) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 493) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml 494) required.
en/volunteer.wml 495) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 496) 
en/volunteer.wml 497) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 498) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml 499) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 500) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 501) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 502) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 503) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 504) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 505) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 506) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 507) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 508) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml 509) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml 510) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml 511) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml 512) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml 513) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 514) 
en/volunteer.wml 515) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 516) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</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>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 525) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 526) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml 527) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml 528) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml 529) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml 530) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml 531) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml 532) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.
en/volunteer.wml 533) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 534) 

en/volunteer.wml 535) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 536) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml 537) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 538) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 539) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 540) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 541) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 542) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 543) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 544) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml 545) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 546) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml 547) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml 548) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml 549) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml 550) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml 551) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml 552) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml 553) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml 554) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml 555) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml 556) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml 557) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml 558) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml 559) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml 560) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml 561) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml 562) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml 563) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 564) 

en/volunteer.wml 565) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 566) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml 567) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 568) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a

en/volunteer.wml 569) href="<gitblob>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml 570) roadmap</a> for more ideas.

en/volunteer.wml 571) Some of the <a href="<gittree>doc/spec/proposals/">current proposals</a>

en/volunteer.wml 572) might also be short on developers.
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) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml 579) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml 580) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a

en/volunteer.wml 581) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined

en/volunteer.wml 582) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml 583) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml 584) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml 585) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml 586) ports — they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml 587) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 588) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml 589) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml 590) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml 591) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml 592) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml 593) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml 594) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml 595) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml 596) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 597) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml 598) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml 599) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml 600) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml 601) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml 602) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 603) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 604) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml 605) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml 606) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml 607) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts
en/volunteer.wml 608) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml 609) best idea
en/volunteer.wml 610) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml 611) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml 612) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml 613) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 614) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml 615) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml 616) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 617) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 618) 
en/volunteer.wml 619) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 620) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml 621) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 622) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml 623) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml 624) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml 625) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml 626) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml 627) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml 628) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml 629) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml 630) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml 631) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml 632) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml 633) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml 634) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 635) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml 636) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml 637) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml 638) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml 639) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 640) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml 641) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml 642) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml 643) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 644) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 645) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml 646) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml 647) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml 648) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml 649) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml 650) with others prior to implementation.
en/volunteer.wml 651) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 652) 

en/volunteer.wml 653) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 654) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for builds</b>

en/volunteer.wml 655) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 656) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml 657) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml 658) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml 659) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 660) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml 661) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml 662) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml 663) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 664) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml 665) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml 666) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml 667) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml 668) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml 669) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml 670) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml 671) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 672) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml 673) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml 674) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml 675) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 676) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 677) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 678) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml 679) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 680) 

en/volunteer.wml 681) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 682) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml 683) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 684) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 685) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 686) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 687) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 688) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 689) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 690) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml 691) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 692) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml 693) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml 694) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml 695) structured process would be better.
en/volunteer.wml 696) </li>

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

en/volunteer.wml 699) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 700) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html   701) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml 702) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml 703) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml 704) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml 705) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml 706) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml 707) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml 708) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml 709) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml 710) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml 711) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml 712) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml 713) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 714) 

en/volunteer.wml 715) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 716) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml 717) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml 718) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml 719) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 720) 

en/volunteer.wml 721) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml 722) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml 723) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml 724) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml 725) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml 726) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml 727) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml 728) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml 729) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 730) 

en/volunteer.wml 731) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml 732) 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 733) 

volunteer.html   734) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html   735) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml 736) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html   737) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml 738) 

volunteer.html   739) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html   740) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html   741) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html   742) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml 743) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml 744) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml 745) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml 746) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification

en/volunteer.wml 747) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml 748) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 749) 

volunteer.html   750) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html   751) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html   752) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 753) 
en/volunteer.wml 754) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml 755) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml 756) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml 757) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml 758) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml 759) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 760) 
en/volunteer.wml 761) <li>How can we make the <a
en/volunteer.wml 762) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>
en/volunteer.wml 763) easier to maintain, improve, and document?</li>

volunteer.html   764) </ol>
volunteer.html   765) 

en/volunteer.wml 766) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 767) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html   768) <ol>

volunteer.html   769) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html   770) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html   771) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html   772) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html   773) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html   774) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html   775) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html   776) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html   777) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html   778) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html   779) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html   780) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html   781) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html   782) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html   783) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html   784) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html   785) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html   786) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html   787) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html   788) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html   789) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html   790) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 791) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml 792) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml 793) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml 794) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml 795) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml 796) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml 797) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml 798) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml 799) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 800) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml 801) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml 802) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml 803) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml 804) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml 805) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 806) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml 807) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml 808) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml 809) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml 810) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml 811) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml 812) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml 813) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml 814) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml 815) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml 816) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml 817) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml 818) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml 819) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml 820) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html   821) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html   822) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html   823) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html   824) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html   825) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html   826) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html   827) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html   828) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html   829) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html   830) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 831) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml 832) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml 833) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml 834) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml 835) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml 836) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml 837) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 838) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html   839) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html   840) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html   841) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html   842) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html   843) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html   844) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html   845) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html   846) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html   847) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html   848) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html   849) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html   850) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html   851) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html   852) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html   853) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html   854) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html   855) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html   856) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 857) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml 858) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml 859) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml 860) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml 861) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml 862) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml 863) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml 864) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml 865) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml 866) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml 867) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html   868) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html   869) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html   870) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml 871) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html   872) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html   873) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html   874) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 875) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html   876) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html   877) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 878) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml 879) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml 880) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml 881) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml 882) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml 883) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml 884) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml 885) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml 886) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml 887) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml 888) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml 889) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml 890) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml 891) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml 892) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 893) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 894) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 895) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 896) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 897) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 898) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 899) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 900) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 901) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 902) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 903) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 904) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 905) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 906) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 907) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 908) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 909) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 910) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 911) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 912) </li>

volunteer.html   913) </ol>
volunteer.html   914) 

en/volunteer.wml 915) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 916) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 917) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 918) </p>

volunteer.html   919) 

en/volunteer.wml 920)   </div><!-- #main -->

volunteer.html   921) 

en/volunteer.wml 922) #include <foot.wmi>