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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 need to <a

en/volunteer.wml   37) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TSocksPatches">apply

en/volunteer.wml   38) all our tsocks patches</a> and maintain a new fork. We'll host it if
en/volunteer.wml   39) you want.</li>
en/volunteer.wml   40) <li>We should patch Dug Song's "dsocks" program to use Tor's
en/volunteer.wml   41) <i>mapaddress</i> commands from the controller interface, so we
en/volunteer.wml   42) don't waste a whole round-trip inside Tor doing the resolve before
en/volunteer.wml   43) connecting.</li>
en/volunteer.wml   44) <li>We need to make our <i>torify</i> script detect which of tsocks or
en/volunteer.wml   45) dsocks is installed, and call them appropriately. This probably means
en/volunteer.wml   46) unifying their interfaces, and might involve sharing code between them
en/volunteer.wml   47) or discarding one entirely.</li>
en/volunteer.wml   48) </ul>

en/volunteer.wml   49) </li>

en/volunteer.wml   50) <li>People running relays tell us they want to have one BandwidthRate

en/volunteer.wml   51) during some part of the day, and a different BandwidthRate at other
en/volunteer.wml   52) parts of the day. Rather than coding this inside Tor, we should have a
en/volunteer.wml   53) little script that speaks via the <a href="<page gui/index>">Tor
en/volunteer.wml   54) Controller Interface</a>, and does a setconf to change the bandwidth

en/volunteer.wml   55) rate. There is one for Unix and Mac already (it uses bash and cron),

en/volunteer.wml   56) but Windows users still need a solution.

en/volunteer.wml   57) </li>

volunteer.html     58) <li>Speaking of geolocation data, somebody should draw a map of the Earth

en/volunteer.wml   59) with a pin-point for each Tor relay. Bonus points if it updates as the

en/volunteer.wml   60) network grows and changes. Unfortunately, the easy ways to do this involve
en/volunteer.wml   61) sending all the data to Google and having them draw the map for you. How
en/volunteer.wml   62) much does this impact privacy, and do we have any other good options?</li>

volunteer.html     63) </ol>
volunteer.html     64) 

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

volunteer.html     67) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml   68) <li>Please help Matt Edman with the documentation and how-tos for his

en/volunteer.wml   69) Tor controller,
en/volunteer.wml   70) <a href="http://vidalia-project.net/">Vidalia</a>.</li>

en/volunteer.wml   71) <li>Evaluate and document

en/volunteer.wml   72) <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/wiki/TheOnionRouter/TorifyHOWTO">our

en/volunteer.wml   73) list of programs</a> that can be configured to use Tor.</li>

volunteer.html     74) <li>We need better documentation for dynamically intercepting

en/volunteer.wml   75) connections and sending them through Tor. tsocks (Linux), dsocks (BSD),

en/volunteer.wml   76) and freecap (Windows) seem to be good candidates, as would better
en/volunteer.wml   77) use of our new TransPort feature.</li>

en/volunteer.wml   78) <li>We have a huge list of <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/SupportPrograms">potentially useful

volunteer.html     79) programs that interface to Tor</a>. Which ones are useful in which
volunteer.html     80) situations? Please help us test them out and document your results.</li>

en/volunteer.wml   81) <li>Help translate the web page and documentation into other
en/volunteer.wml   82) languages. See the <a href="<page translation>">translation

en/volunteer.wml   83) guidelines</a> if you want to help out. We especially need Arabic or
en/volunteer.wml   84) Farsi translations, for the many Tor users in censored areas.</li>

volunteer.html     85) </ol>
volunteer.html     86) 

en/volunteer.wml   87) <a id="Coding"></a>

en/volunteer.wml   88) <a id="Summer"></a>
en/volunteer.wml   89) <a id="Projects"></a>

en/volunteer.wml   90) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Projects">Good Coding Projects</a></h2>

en/volunteer.wml   91) 
en/volunteer.wml   92) <p>

en/volunteer.wml   93) You may find some of these projects to be good <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml   94) gsoc>">Google Summer of Code 2009</a> ideas. We have labelled each idea
en/volunteer.wml   95) with how useful it would be to the overall Tor project (priority), how
en/volunteer.wml   96) much work we expect it would be (effort level), how much clue you should
en/volunteer.wml   97) start with (skill level), and which of our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml   98) people>#Core">core developers</a> would be good mentors.
en/volunteer.wml   99) If one or more of these ideas looks promising to you, please <a
en/volunteer.wml  100) href="<page contact>">contact us</a> to discuss your plans rather than
en/volunteer.wml  101) sending blind applications. You may also want to propose your own project
en/volunteer.wml  102) idea which often results in the best applications.

en/volunteer.wml  103) </p>
en/volunteer.wml  104) 

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

en/volunteer.wml  107) <!-- Mike is already working on this.

en/volunteer.wml  108) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  109) <b>Tor Node Scanner improvements</b>

en/volunteer.wml  110) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  111) Similar to the SoaT exit scanner (or perhaps even during exit scanning),

en/volunteer.wml  112) statistics can be gathered about the reliability of nodes. Nodes that
en/volunteer.wml  113) fail too high a percentage of their circuits should not be given
en/volunteer.wml  114) Guard status. Perhaps they should have their reported bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml  115) penalized by some ratio as well, or just get marked as Invalid. In
en/volunteer.wml  116) addition, nodes that exhibit a very low average stream capacity but
en/volunteer.wml  117) advertise a very high node bandwidth can also be marked as Invalid.
en/volunteer.wml  118) Much of this statistics gathering is already done, it just needs to be
en/volunteer.wml  119) transformed into something that can be reported to the Directory
en/volunteer.wml  120) Authorities to blacklist/penalize nodes in such a way that clients
en/volunteer.wml  121) will listen.

en/volunteer.wml  122) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  123) In addition, these same statistics can be gathered about the traffic
en/volunteer.wml  124) through a node. Events can be added to the <a

en/volunteer.wml  125) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torctl/trunk/doc/howto.txt">Tor Control

en/volunteer.wml  126) Protocol</a> to
en/volunteer.wml  127) report if a circuit extend attempt through the node succeeds or fails, and
en/volunteer.wml  128) passive statistics can be gathered on both bandwidth and reliability
en/volunteer.wml  129) of other nodes via a node-based monitor using these events. Such a
en/volunteer.wml  130) scanner would also report information on oddly-behaving nodes to
en/volunteer.wml  131) the Directory Authorities, but a communication channel for this
en/volunteer.wml  132) currently does not exist and would need to be developed as well.
en/volunteer.wml  133) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  134) -->

en/volunteer.wml  135) 
en/volunteer.wml  136) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  137) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</b>

en/volunteer.wml  138) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  139) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  140) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  141) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  142) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  143) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  144) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  145) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml  146) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  147) It would be great to set up an automated system for tracking network
en/volunteer.wml  148) health over time, graphing it, etc. Part of this project would involve
en/volunteer.wml  149) inventing better metrics for assessing network health and growth. Is the
en/volunteer.wml  150) average uptime of the network increasing? How many relays are qualifying
en/volunteer.wml  151) for Guard status this month compared to last month? What's the turnover
en/volunteer.wml  152) in terms of new relays showing up and relays shutting off? Periodically
en/volunteer.wml  153) people collect brief snapshots, but where it gets really interesting is
en/volunteer.wml  154) when we start tracking data points over time.
en/volunteer.wml  155) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  156) Data could be collected from the Tor Network Scanners in <a
en/volunteer.wml  157) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>, from

en/volunteer.wml  158) the server descriptors that each relay publishes, and from other
en/volunteer.wml  159) sources. Results over time could be integrated into one of the <a
en/volunteer.wml  160) href="https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/">Tor Status</a> web pages, or be
en/volunteer.wml  161) kept separate. Speaking of the Tor Status pages, take a look at Roger's
en/volunteer.wml  162) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2008/msg00300.html">Tor
en/volunteer.wml  163) Status wish list</a>.
en/volunteer.wml  164) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  165) 

en/volunteer.wml  166) <!-- Is this still a useful project? If so, move it to another section.

en/volunteer.wml  167) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  168) <b>Better Debian/Ubuntu Packaging for Tor+Vidalia</b>

en/volunteer.wml  169) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  170) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml  171) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml  172) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a

en/volunteer.wml  173) <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined
en/volunteer.wml  174) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try

en/volunteer.wml  175) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing

en/volunteer.wml  176) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message

en/volunteer.wml  177) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening

en/volunteer.wml  178) ports — they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.

en/volunteer.wml  179) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  180) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml  181) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml  182) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml  183) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml  184) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml  185) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can

en/volunteer.wml  186) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml  187) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.

en/volunteer.wml  188) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  189) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml  190) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml  191) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and

en/volunteer.wml  192) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also

en/volunteer.wml  193) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml  194) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  195) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  196) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml  197) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml  198) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml  199) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts

en/volunteer.wml  200) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml  201) best idea

en/volunteer.wml  202) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml  203) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml  204) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml  205) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  206) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of

en/volunteer.wml  207) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml  208) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml  209) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  210) -->

en/volunteer.wml  211) 

en/volunteer.wml  212) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  213) <b>Improving Tor's ability to resist censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml  214) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  215) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  216) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  217) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  218) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  219) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  220) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  221) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick</i>
en/volunteer.wml  222) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  223) The Tor 0.2.0.x series makes <a
en/volunteer.wml  224) href="<svnsandbox>doc/design-paper/blocking.html">significant
en/volunteer.wml  225) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml  226) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its
en/volunteer.wml  227) anti-censorship design.  For example, current Tors can only listen on a
en/volunteer.wml  228) single address/port combination at a time.  There's
en/volunteer.wml  229) <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a
en/volunteer.wml  230) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml  231) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more
en/volunteer.wml  232) work.  Another anti-censorship project (far more difficult) is to try
en/volunteer.wml  233) to make Tor more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify
en/volunteer.wml  234) <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>
en/volunteer.wml  235) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol, and
en/volunteer.wml  236) seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could
en/volunteer.wml  237) <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like
en/volunteer.wml  238) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml  239) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml  240) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  241) This project involves a lot of research and design. One of the big
en/volunteer.wml  242) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml  243) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  244) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml  245) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  246) 

en/volunteer.wml  247) <!-- This should be mostly done.

en/volunteer.wml  248) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  249) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml  250) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  251) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml  252) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml  253) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml  254) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml  255) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml  256) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml  257) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml  258) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml  259) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml  260) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml  261) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml  262) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml  263) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  264) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml  265) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml  266) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml  267) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml  268) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  269) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml  270) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml  271) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml  272) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  273) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  274) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml  275) should also have a good understanding of common security

en/volunteer.wml  276) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml  277) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project

en/volunteer.wml  278) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml  279) with others prior to implementation.

en/volunteer.wml  280) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  281) -->

en/volunteer.wml  282) 

en/volunteer.wml  283) <!-- Matt already made good progress on this.

en/volunteer.wml  284) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  285) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml  286) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  287) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml  288) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml  289) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml  290) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml  291) poor graphics. Instead, we would like to leverage KDE's Marble widget
en/volunteer.wml  292) that gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml  293) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml  294) display additional information. We might also consider adding the ability
en/volunteer.wml  295) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml  296) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to foo.com to exit
en/volunteer.wml  297) from here."
en/volunteer.wml  298) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  299) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  300) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget

en/volunteer.wml  301) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml  302) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml  303) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml  304) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  305) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development

en/volunteer.wml  306) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml  307) required.
en/volunteer.wml  308) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  309) -->

en/volunteer.wml  310) 

en/volunteer.wml  311) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  312) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface</b>

en/volunteer.wml  313) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  314) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  315) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  316) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  317) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  318) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  319) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  320) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml  321) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  322) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml  323) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml  324) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml  325) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml  326) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml  327) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml  328) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml  329) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml  330) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  331) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml  332) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml  333) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml  334) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml  335) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  336) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml  337) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml  338) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml  339) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml  340) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml  341) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml  342) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml  343) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml  344) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  345) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml  346) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml  347) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml  348) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml  349) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml  350) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml  351) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml  352) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  353) 

en/volunteer.wml  354) <!-- Jake already did most of this.

en/volunteer.wml  355) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  356) <b>Improvements on our active browser configuration tester</b> -

en/volunteer.wml  357) <a href="https://check.torproject.org/">https://check.torproject.org/</a>

en/volunteer.wml  358) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  359) We currently have a functional web page to detect if Tor is working. It

en/volunteer.wml  360) has a few places where it falls short. It requires improvements with

en/volunteer.wml  361) regard to default languages and functionality. It currently only responds
en/volunteer.wml  362) in English. In addition, it is a hack of a perl script that should have
en/volunteer.wml  363) never seen the light of day. It should probably be rewritten in python

en/volunteer.wml  364) with multi-lingual support in mind. It currently uses the <a
en/volunteer.wml  365) href="http://exitlist.torproject.org/">Tor DNS exit list</a>
en/volunteer.wml  366) and should continue to do so in the future. It currently result in certain

en/volunteer.wml  367) false positives and these should be discovered, documented, and fixed
en/volunteer.wml  368) where possible. Anyone working on this project should be interested in

en/volunteer.wml  369) DNS, basic perl or preferably python programming skills, and will have

en/volunteer.wml  370) to interact minimally with Tor to test their code.

en/volunteer.wml  371) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  372) If you want to make the project more exciting
en/volunteer.wml  373) and involve more design and coding, take a look at <a
en/volunteer.wml  374) href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/131-verify-tor-usage.txt">proposal
en/volunteer.wml  375) 131-verify-tor-usage.txt</a>.

en/volunteer.wml  376) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  377) -->

en/volunteer.wml  378) 

en/volunteer.wml  379) <!-- If we decide to switch to the exit list in TorStatus, this is obsolete.

en/volunteer.wml  380) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  381) <b>Improvements on our DNS Exit List service</b> -

en/volunteer.wml  382) <a href="http://exitlist.torproject.org/">http://exitlist.torproject.org/</a>

en/volunteer.wml  383) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  384) The <a href="http://p56soo2ibjkx23xo.onion/">exitlist software</a>
en/volunteer.wml  385) is written by our fabulous anonymous

en/volunteer.wml  386) contributer Tup. It's a DNS server written in Haskell that supports part of our <a

en/volunteer.wml  387) href="<svnsandbox>doc/contrib/torel-design.txt">exitlist

en/volunteer.wml  388) design document</a>. Currently, it is functional and it is used by

en/volunteer.wml  389) check.torproject.org and other users. The issues that are outstanding
en/volunteer.wml  390) are mostly aesthetic. This wonderful service could use a much better
en/volunteer.wml  391) website using the common Tor theme. It would be best served with better
en/volunteer.wml  392) documentation for common services that use an RBL. It could use more
en/volunteer.wml  393) publicity. A person working on this project should be interested in DNS,
en/volunteer.wml  394) basic RBL configuration for popular services, and writing documentation.
en/volunteer.wml  395) The person would require minimal Tor interaction — testing their
en/volunteer.wml  396) own documentation at the very least. Furthermore, it would be useful

en/volunteer.wml  397) if they were interested in Haskell and wanted to implement more of the

en/volunteer.wml  398) torel-design.txt suggestions.
en/volunteer.wml  399) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  400) -->

en/volunteer.wml  401) 

en/volunteer.wml  402) <!-- Nobody wanted to keep this.

en/volunteer.wml  403) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  404) <b>Testing integration of Tor with web browsers for our end users</b>

en/volunteer.wml  405) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  406) The Tor project currently lacks a solid test suite to ensure that a
en/volunteer.wml  407) user has a properly and safely configured web browser. It should test for as

en/volunteer.wml  408) many known issues as possible. It should attempt to decloak the

en/volunteer.wml  409) user in any way possible. Two current webpages that track these

en/volunteer.wml  410) kinds of issues are run by Greg Fleischer and HD Moore. Greg keeps a nice <a

en/volunteer.wml  411) href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/tor/torbutton/">list of issues along
en/volunteer.wml  412) with their proof of concept code, bug issues, etc</a>. HD Moore runs

en/volunteer.wml  413) the <a href="http://www.decloak.net/">metasploit

en/volunteer.wml  414) decloak website</a>. A person interested in defending Tor could start

en/volunteer.wml  415) by collecting as many workable and known methods for decloaking a

en/volunteer.wml  416) Tor user. (<a href="https://torcheck.xenobite.eu/">This page</a> may

en/volunteer.wml  417) be helpful as a start.) One should be familiar with the common pitfalls but

en/volunteer.wml  418) possibly have new methods in mind for implementing decloaking issues. The
en/volunteer.wml  419) website should ensure that it tells a user what their problem is. It
en/volunteer.wml  420) should help them to fix the problem or direct them to the proper support

en/volunteer.wml  421) channels. The person should also be closely familiar with using Tor and how

en/volunteer.wml  422) to prevent Tor information leakage.

en/volunteer.wml  423) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  424) -->

en/volunteer.wml  425) 

en/volunteer.wml  426) <!-- Nick did quite some work here. Is this project still required then?

en/volunteer.wml  427) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  428) <b>Libevent and Tor integration improvements</b>
en/volunteer.wml  429) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  430) Tor should make better use of the more recent features of Niels
en/volunteer.wml  431) Provos's <a href="http://monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">Libevent</a>

en/volunteer.wml  432) library.  Tor already uses Libevent for its low-level asynchronous IO

en/volunteer.wml  433) calls, and could also use Libevent's increasingly good implementations

en/volunteer.wml  434) of network buffers and of HTTP.  This wouldn't be simply a matter of

en/volunteer.wml  435) replacing Tor's internal calls with calls to Libevent: instead, we'll

en/volunteer.wml  436) need to refactor Tor to use Libevent calls that do not follow the

en/volunteer.wml  437) same models as Tor's existing backends. Also, we'll need to add
en/volunteer.wml  438) missing functionality to Libevent as needed — most difficult likely
en/volunteer.wml  439) will be adding OpenSSL support on top of Libevent's buffer abstraction.
en/volunteer.wml  440) Also tricky will be adding rate-limiting to Libevent.

en/volunteer.wml  441) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  442) -->

en/volunteer.wml  443) 
en/volunteer.wml  444) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  445) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  446) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  447) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  448) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  449) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  450) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  451) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  452) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  453) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  454) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  455) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml  456) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml  457) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml  458) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml  459) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml  460) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml  461) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml  462) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,

en/volunteer.wml  463) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml  464) as described in the

en/volunteer.wml  465) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml  466) Tor"</a> paper

en/volunteer.wml  467) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to

en/volunteer.wml  468) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they

en/volunteer.wml  469) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml  470) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too

en/volunteer.wml  471) much communications overhead between relays and directory

en/volunteer.wml  472) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml  473) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  474) 

en/volunteer.wml  475) <!--

en/volunteer.wml  476) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  477) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for Windows builds</b>
en/volunteer.wml  478) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  479) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml  480) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml  481) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml  482) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  483) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml  484) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml  485) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml  486) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  487) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should
en/volunteer.wml  488) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml  489) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml  490) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml  491) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml  492) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml  493) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but

en/volunteer.wml  494) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  495) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.

en/volunteer.wml  496) We've got buildbot (except on Windows — as noted above) to automate

en/volunteer.wml  497) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml  498) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml  499) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  500) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test

en/volunteer.wml  501) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml  502) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  503) -->

en/volunteer.wml  504) 

en/volunteer.wml  505) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  506) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>
en/volunteer.wml  507) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  508) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  509) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  510) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  511) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  512) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  513) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  514) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick</i>
en/volunteer.wml  515) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  516) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start

en/volunteer.wml  517) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in

en/volunteer.wml  518) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant

en/volunteer.wml  519) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic

en/volunteer.wml  520) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml  521) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  522) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got

en/volunteer.wml  523) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml  524) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),

en/volunteer.wml  525) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml  526) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)

en/volunteer.wml  527) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  528) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test

en/volunteer.wml  529) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml  530) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  531) 

en/volunteer.wml  532) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  533) <b>Help revive an independent Tor client implementation</b>

en/volunteer.wml  534) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  535) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  536) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  537) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  538) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  539) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  540) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  541) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Nick</i>
en/volunteer.wml  542) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  543) Reanimate one of the approaches to implement a Tor client in Java,
en/volunteer.wml  544) e.g. the <a href="http://onioncoffee.sourceforge.net/">OnionCoffee
en/volunteer.wml  545) project</a>, and make it run on <a
en/volunteer.wml  546) href="http://code.google.com/android/">Android</a>. The first step
en/volunteer.wml  547) would be to port the existing code and execute it in an Android
en/volunteer.wml  548) environment. Next, the code should be updated to support the newer Tor
en/volunteer.wml  549) protocol versions like the <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/dir-spec.txt">v3
en/volunteer.wml  550) directory protocol</a>. Further, support for requesting or even

en/volunteer.wml  551) providing Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml  552) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  553) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java
en/volunteer.wml  554) code, including

en/volunteer.wml  555) a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml  556) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,

en/volunteer.wml  557) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml  558) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and

en/volunteer.wml  559) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml  560) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  561) 
en/volunteer.wml  562) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  563) <b>Bring moniTor to life</b>
en/volunteer.wml  564) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  565) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  566) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  567) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  568) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  569) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  570) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  571) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Jacob</i>
en/volunteer.wml  572) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  573) Implement a <a href="http://www.ss64.com/bash/top.html">top-like</a>
en/volunteer.wml  574) management tool for Tor relays. The purpose of such a tool would be
en/volunteer.wml  575) to monitor a local Tor relay via its control port and include useful
en/volunteer.wml  576) system information of the underlying machine. When running this tool, it
en/volunteer.wml  577) would dynamically update its content like top does for Linux processes.
en/volunteer.wml  578) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Jan-2008/msg00005.html">This

en/volunteer.wml  579) or-dev post</a> might be a good first read.
en/volunteer.wml  580) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  581) A person interested in this should be familiar

en/volunteer.wml  582) with or willing to learn about administering a Tor relay and configuring
en/volunteer.wml  583) it via its control port. As an initial prototype is written in Python,
en/volunteer.wml  584) some knowledge about writing Python code would be helpful, too. This

en/volunteer.wml  585) project is one part about identifying requirements to such a
en/volunteer.wml  586) tool and designing its interface, and one part lots of coding.

en/volunteer.wml  587) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  588) 

en/volunteer.wml  589) <!-- Removed, unless Mike still wants this to be in.

en/volunteer.wml  590) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  591) <b>Torbutton improvements</b>
en/volunteer.wml  592) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  593) Torbutton has a number of improvements that can be made in the post-1.2
en/volunteer.wml  594) timeframe. Most of these are documented as feature requests in the <a

en/volunteer.wml  595) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&project=5">Torbutton

en/volunteer.wml  596) flyspray section</a>. Good examples include: stripping off node.exit on http
en/volunteer.wml  597) headers, more fine-grained control over formfill blocking, improved referrer

en/volunteer.wml  598) spoofing based on the domain of the site (a-la <a

en/volunteer.wml  599) href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/953">refcontrol extension</a>),

en/volunteer.wml  600) tighter integration with Vidalia for reporting Tor status, a New Identity
en/volunteer.wml  601) button with Tor integration and multiple identity management, and anything

en/volunteer.wml  602) else you might think of.

en/volunteer.wml  603) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  604) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml  605) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  606) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.

en/volunteer.wml  607) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  608) -->

en/volunteer.wml  609) 

en/volunteer.wml  610) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  611) <b>Porting Polipo to Windows</b>
en/volunteer.wml  612) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  613) Priority: <i>--</i>
en/volunteer.wml  614) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  615) Effort Level: <i>--</i>
en/volunteer.wml  616) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  617) Skill Level: <i>--</i>
en/volunteer.wml  618) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  619) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  620) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  621) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml  622) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to

en/volunteer.wml  623) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:

en/volunteer.wml  624) 1) the ability to asynchronously

en/volunteer.wml  625) query name servers, find the system nameservers, and manage netbios

en/volunteer.wml  626) and dns queries. 
en/volunteer.wml  627) 2) manage events and buffers

en/volunteer.wml  628) natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes, Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in

en/volunteer.wml  629) Windows it's whatever the config specifies). 3) some sort of GUI config

en/volunteer.wml  630) and reporting tool, bonus if it has a systray icon with right clickable
en/volunteer.wml  631) menu options. Double bonus if it's cross-platform compatible.
en/volunteer.wml  632) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  633) 

en/volunteer.wml  634) <!-- Is Blossom development still happening?

en/volunteer.wml  635) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  636) <b>Rework and extend Blossom</b>
en/volunteer.wml  637) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  638) Rework and extend Blossom (a tool for monitoring and
en/volunteer.wml  639) selecting appropriate Tor circuits based upon exit node requirements
en/volunteer.wml  640) specified by the user) to gather data in a self-contained way, with
en/volunteer.wml  641) parameters easily configurable by the user.  Blossom is presently
en/volunteer.wml  642) implemented as a single Python script that interfaces with Tor using the
en/volunteer.wml  643) Controller interface and depends upon metadata about Tor nodes obtained
en/volunteer.wml  644) via external processes, such as a webpage indicating status of the nodes
en/volunteer.wml  645) plus publically available data from DNS, whois, etc.  This project has
en/volunteer.wml  646) two parts: (1) Determine which additional metadata may be useful and
en/volunteer.wml  647) rework Blossom so that it cleanly obtains the metadata on its own rather
en/volunteer.wml  648) than depend upon external scripts (this may, for example, involve
en/volunteer.wml  649) additional threads or inter-process communication), and (2) develop a
en/volunteer.wml  650) means by which the user can easily configure Blossom, starting with a
en/volunteer.wml  651) configuration file and possibly working up to a web configuration engine.

en/volunteer.wml  652) Knowledge of Tor and Python are important; knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml  653) TCP, interprocess communication, and Perl will also be helpful.  An
en/volunteer.wml  654) interest in network neutrality is important as well, since the
en/volunteer.wml  655) principles of evaluating and understanding internet inconsistency are at
en/volunteer.wml  656) the core of the Blossom effort.

en/volunteer.wml  657) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  658) 
en/volunteer.wml  659) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  660) <b>Improve Blossom: Allow users to qualitatively describe exit nodes they desire</b>
en/volunteer.wml  661) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  662) Develop and implement a means of affording Blossom
en/volunteer.wml  663) users the ability to qualitatively describe the exit node that they
en/volunteer.wml  664) want.  The Internet is an inconsistent place: some Tor exit nodes see
en/volunteer.wml  665) the world differently than others.  As presently implemented, Blossom (a
en/volunteer.wml  666) tool for monitoring and selecting appropriate Tor circuits based upon
en/volunteer.wml  667) exit node requirements specified by the user) lacks a sufficiently rich
en/volunteer.wml  668) language to describe how the different vantage points are different.
en/volunteer.wml  669) For example, some exit nodes may have an upstream network that filters
en/volunteer.wml  670) certain kinds of traffic or certain websites.  Other exit nodes may
en/volunteer.wml  671) provide access to special content as a result of their location, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml  672) as a result of discrimination on the part of the content providers
en/volunteer.wml  673) themselves.  This project has two parts: (1) develop a language for
en/volunteer.wml  674) describing characteristics of networks in which exit nodes reside, and
en/volunteer.wml  675) (2) incorporate this language into Blossom so that users can select Tor
en/volunteer.wml  676) paths based upon the description.

en/volunteer.wml  677) Knowledge of Tor and Python are important; knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml  678) TCP, interprocess communication, and Perl will also be helpful.  An
en/volunteer.wml  679) interest in network neutrality is important as well, since the
en/volunteer.wml  680) principles of evaluating and understanding internet inconsistency are at
en/volunteer.wml  681) the core of the Blossom effort.

en/volunteer.wml  682) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  683) -->

en/volunteer.wml  684) 

en/volunteer.wml  685) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  686) <b>Implement a torrent-based scheme for downloading Thandy packages</b>
en/volunteer.wml  687) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  688) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  689) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  690) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  691) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  692) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  693) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  694) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick</i>
en/volunteer.wml  695) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  696) <a
en/volunteer.wml  697) href="http://git.torproject.org/checkout/thandy/master/specs/thandy-spec.txt">Thandy</a>

en/volunteer.wml  698) is a relatively new software to allow assisted updates of Tor and related

en/volunteer.wml  699) software. Currently, there are very few users, but we expect Thandy to be
en/volunteer.wml  700) used by almost every Tor user in the future. To avoid crashing servers on
en/volunteer.wml  701) the day of a Tor update, we need new ways to distribute new packages
en/volunteer.wml  702) efficiently, and using libtorrent seems to be a possible solution. If you
en/volunteer.wml  703) think of other good ideas, great - please do let us know!<br />
en/volunteer.wml  704) We also need to investigate how to include our mirrors better. If possible,
en/volunteer.wml  705) there should be an easy way for them to help distributing the packages.
en/volunteer.wml  706) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  707) 

en/volunteer.wml  708) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  709) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml  710) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  711) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  712) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  713) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  714) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  715) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  716) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  717) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  718) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  719) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml  720) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml  721) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml  722) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml  723) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml  724) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  725) 

en/volunteer.wml  726) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  727) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>

en/volunteer.wml  728) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  729) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  730) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  731) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  732) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  733) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  734) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  735) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>

en/volunteer.wml  736) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml  737) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml  738) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&project=5&type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml  739) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml  740) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml  741) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>, 
en/volunteer.wml  742) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml  743) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  744) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml  745) specific cookies</a> when
en/volunteer.wml  746) cookies are cleared, 
en/volunteer.wml  747) <a
en/volunteer.wml  748) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml  749) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  750) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml  751) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml  752) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml  753) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml  754) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml  755) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  756) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml  757) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  758) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.
en/volunteer.wml  759) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  760) 

en/volunteer.wml  761) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  762) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml  763) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  764) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  765) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  766) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  767) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  768) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  769) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  770) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml  771) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  772) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml  773) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml  774) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml  775) structured process would be better.
en/volunteer.wml  776) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  777) 

en/volunteer.wml  778) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  779) <b>Translation wiki for our website</b>
en/volunteer.wml  780) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  781) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  782) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  783) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  784) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  785) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  786) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  787) Likely Mentors: <i>Jacob</i>
en/volunteer.wml  788) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  789) The Tor Project has been working over the past year to set up web-based
en/volunteer.wml  790) tools to help volunteers translate our applications into other languages.
en/volunteer.wml  791) We finally hit upon Pootle, and we have a fine web-based translation engine
en/volunteer.wml  792) in place for Vidalia, Torbutton, and Torcheck. However, Pootle only
en/volunteer.wml  793) translates strings that are in the "po" format, and our website uses wml
en/volunteer.wml  794) files. This project is about finding a way to convert our wml files into po
en/volunteer.wml  795) strings and back, so they can be handled by Pootle.
en/volunteer.wml  796) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  797) 

en/volunteer.wml  798) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  799) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  800) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  801) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a

en/volunteer.wml  802) href="<svnsandbox>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml  803) roadmap</a> for more ideas.

en/volunteer.wml  804) Some of the <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/">current proposals</a> 
en/volunteer.wml  805) might also be short on developers. 

en/volunteer.wml  806) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  807) 

en/volunteer.wml  808) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml  809) 

en/volunteer.wml  810) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  811) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html    812) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  813) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml  814) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml  815) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml  816) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml  817) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml  818) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml  819) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml  820) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml  821) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml  822) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml  823) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml  824) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  825) 

en/volunteer.wml  826) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml  827) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml  828) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting
en/volunteer.wml  829) <a href="http://vidalia-project.net/">Vidalia</a> so it supports the
en/volunteer.wml  830) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  831) 

en/volunteer.wml  832) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml  833) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml  834) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml  835) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml  836) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml  837) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml  838) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml  839) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml  840) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  841) 

en/volunteer.wml  842) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml  843) via OpenSSL. Nobody has ever tested it, though. Does somebody want to get

volunteer.html    844) a card and let us know how it goes?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  845) 

volunteer.html    846) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html    847) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml  848) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html    849) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml  850) 

volunteer.html    851) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html    852) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html    853) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html    854) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml  855) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml  856) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml  857) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml  858) href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification
en/volunteer.wml  859) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml  860) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  861) 

volunteer.html    862) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html    863) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html    864) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  865) 
en/volunteer.wml  866) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml  867) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml  868) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml  869) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml  870) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml  871) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  872) 
en/volunteer.wml  873) <li>How can we make the <a
en/volunteer.wml  874) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>
en/volunteer.wml  875) easier to maintain, improve, and document?</li>

volunteer.html    876) </ol>
volunteer.html    877) 

en/volunteer.wml  878) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  879) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html    880) <ol>

volunteer.html    881) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html    882) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html    883) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html    884) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html    885) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html    886) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html    887) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html    888) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html    889) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html    890) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html    891) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html    892) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html    893) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html    894) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html    895) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html    896) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html    897) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html    898) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html    899) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html    900) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html    901) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html    902) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  903) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml  904) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml  905) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml  906) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml  907) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml  908) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml  909) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml  910) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml  911) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  912) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml  913) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml  914) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml  915) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml  916) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml  917) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  918) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml  919) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml  920) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml  921) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml  922) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml  923) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml  924) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml  925) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml  926) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml  927) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml  928) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml  929) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml  930) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml  931) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml  932) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html    933) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html    934) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html    935) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html    936) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html    937) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html    938) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html    939) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html    940) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html    941) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html    942) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  943) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml  944) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml  945) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml  946) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml  947) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml  948) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml  949) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  950) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html    951) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html    952) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html    953) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html    954) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html    955) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html    956) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html    957) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html    958) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html    959) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html    960) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html    961) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html    962) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html    963) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html    964) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html    965) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html    966) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html    967) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html    968) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  969) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml  970) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml  971) href="<svnsandbox>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml  972) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml  973) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml  974) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml  975) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml  976) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml  977) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml  978) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml  979) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html    980) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html    981) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html    982) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml  983) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html    984) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html    985) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html    986) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  987) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html    988) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html    989) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  990) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml  991) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml  992) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml  993) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml  994) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml  995) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml  996) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml  997) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml  998) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml  999) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml 1000) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml 1001) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml 1002) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml 1003) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml 1004) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 1005) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 1006) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 1007) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 1008) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 1009) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 1010) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 1011) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 1012) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 1013) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 1014) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 1015) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 1016) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 1017) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 1018) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 1019) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 1020) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 1021) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 1022) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 1023) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 1024) </li>

volunteer.html   1025) </ol>
volunteer.html   1026) 

en/volunteer.wml 1027) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 1028) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 1029) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 1030) </p>

volunteer.html   1031) 

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volunteer.html   1033) 

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