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volunteer.html      4) 

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

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

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

volunteer.html     11) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml   29) 

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

volunteer.html     32) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml   80) <li>

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

en/volunteer.wml   82) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml   84) <br />

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

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

en/volunteer.wml   90) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml   97) <br />

en/volunteer.wml   98) However, there is currently no released package for Mac OS X, so this project
en/volunteer.wml   99) would be to implement Tor Browser Bundle for OS X. This will involve
en/volunteer.wml  100) modifications to Vidalia (C++), possibly Firefox (C) then creating and testing
en/volunteer.wml  101) the launcher on a range of operating system versions and configurations to
en/volunteer.wml  102) verify portability.  Some work on this was completed as part of the Google
en/volunteer.wml  103) Summer of Code 2009. Another part of this project is to identify all of the
en/volunteer.wml  104) traces left behind by using a Tor Browser Bundle on Mac OS X or Linux.
en/volunteer.wml  105) Developing ways to stop, counter, or remove these traces is a final step.

en/volunteer.wml  106) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  107) Students should be familiar with application development on one or
en/volunteer.wml  108) preferably both of Linux and Mac OS X, and be comfortable with C/C++
en/volunteer.wml  109) and shell scripting.
en/volunteer.wml  110) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  111) Part of this project could be usability testing of Tor Browser Bundle,

en/volunteer.wml  112) ideally amongst our target demographic.  That would help a lot in knowing
en/volunteer.wml  113) what needs to be done in terms of bug fixes or new features. We get this
en/volunteer.wml  114) informally at the moment, but a more structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml  115) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  116) A beta version of the Tor Browser Bundle has been released for GNU/Linux, but
en/volunteer.wml  117) work is still required for the Tor IM Browser bundle. Work is currently being
en/volunteer.wml  118) done on the Mac OS X version as well. If you would like to help extend or do
en/volunteer.wml  119) security auditing for either (or both) of these, please contact Erinn.

en/volunteer.wml  120) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  121) 

en/volunteer.wml  122) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  123) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</b>

en/volunteer.wml  124) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  125) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  126) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  127) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  128) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  129) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  130) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  131) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml  132) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  133) It would be great to set up an automated system for tracking network
en/volunteer.wml  134) health over time, graphing it, etc. Part of this project would involve
en/volunteer.wml  135) inventing better metrics for assessing network health and growth. Is the
en/volunteer.wml  136) average uptime of the network increasing? How many relays are qualifying
en/volunteer.wml  137) for Guard status this month compared to last month? What's the turnover
en/volunteer.wml  138) in terms of new relays showing up and relays shutting off? Periodically
en/volunteer.wml  139) people collect brief snapshots, but where it gets really interesting is
en/volunteer.wml  140) when we start tracking data points over time.
en/volunteer.wml  141) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  142) Data could be collected from the Tor Network Scanners in <a
en/volunteer.wml  143) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>, from

en/volunteer.wml  144) the server descriptors that each relay publishes, and from other
en/volunteer.wml  145) sources. Results over time could be integrated into one of the <a
en/volunteer.wml  146) href="https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/">Tor Status</a> web pages, or be
en/volunteer.wml  147) kept separate. Speaking of the Tor Status pages, take a look at Roger's
en/volunteer.wml  148) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2008/msg00300.html">Tor
en/volunteer.wml  149) Status wish list</a>.
en/volunteer.wml  150) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  151) 

en/volunteer.wml  152) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  153) <b>Rewrite TorDNSEL, this time with a spec!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  154) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  155) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  156) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  157) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  158) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  159) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  160) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  161) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike, Roger, Sebastian</i>
en/volunteer.wml  162) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  163) The <a href="<page tordnsel/index>">Tor DNS Exit List</a> is an
en/volunteer.wml  164) unmaintained Haskell

en/volunteer.wml  165) program that serves three purposes. First, it provides an rbl-style DNS
en/volunteer.wml  166) interface for people to look up whether a given IP address is (or has
en/volunteer.wml  167) recently been) a Tor exit relay. Second, it actively builds circuits over
en/volunteer.wml  168) the Tor network and connects back to itself, to learn the actual exit
en/volunteer.wml  169) IP address of each relay — some Tor relays exit from a different
en/volunteer.wml  170) address than they advertise in their descriptor. Third, it exports a <a
en/volunteer.wml  171) href="http://exitlist.torproject.org/exitAddresses">set of conclusions</a>
en/volunteer.wml  172) so that <a href="https://check.torproject.org/">check.torproject.org</a>
en/volunteer.wml  173) can guess for you whether your browser is configured to point to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml  174) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  175) This project would make use of <a
en/volunteer.wml  176) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>,

en/volunteer.wml  177) a set of Python scripts to interact with Tor,

en/volunteer.wml  178) to figure out how our Tor Exit Checker should actually work, and then
en/volunteer.wml  179) build it — probably in Python since Torflow is in Python. The main
en/volunteer.wml  180) goal is to reduce false positives as much as possible, by making sure
en/volunteer.wml  181) that it learns about new relays as soon as possible, making sure that
en/volunteer.wml  182) the testing phase concludes quickly, and making sure the answers get
en/volunteer.wml  183) passed to the Check script quickly. As a bonus, we should standardize
en/volunteer.wml  184) (specify) the format of the exitAddresses file, and rewrite the <a
en/volunteer.wml  185) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/check/trunk/cgi-bin/TorBulkExitList.py">Tor

en/volunteer.wml  186) Bulk Exit List</a> script to use that file rather than its current <a
en/volunteer.wml  187) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=1019">horrible
en/volunteer.wml  188) DNS hacks</a>. As an extra bonus, we should work with Freenode, OFTC,
en/volunteer.wml  189) and/or other IRC networks to make sure that the scripts we offer are
en/volunteer.wml  190) actually the scripts they want, in terms of accurately identifying which
en/volunteer.wml  191) of their users are coming from the Tor network.

en/volunteer.wml  192) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  193) You can fetch the <a href="git://git.torproject.org/git/tordnsel">latest
en/volunteer.wml  194) tordnsel</a> via git.
en/volunteer.wml  195) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  196) 

en/volunteer.wml  197) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  198) <b>Improving Tor's ability to resist censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml  199) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  200) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  201) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  202) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  203) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  204) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  205) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  206) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Steven</i>

en/volunteer.wml  207) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  208) The Tor 0.2.1.x series makes <a

en/volunteer.wml  209) href="<svnprojects>design-paper/blocking.html">significant

en/volunteer.wml  210) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml  211) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its
en/volunteer.wml  212) anti-censorship design.  For example, current Tors can only listen on a
en/volunteer.wml  213) single address/port combination at a time.  There's

en/volunteer.wml  214) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a

en/volunteer.wml  215) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml  216) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more

en/volunteer.wml  217) work.
en/volunteer.wml  218) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  219) Another area that needs work is our <a
en/volunteer.wml  220) href="http://gitweb.torproject.org//bridgedb.git?a=tree">bridgedb</a>
en/volunteer.wml  221) service. See e.g. <a
en/volunteer.wml  222) href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Dec-2009/msg00000.html">Roger's
en/volunteer.wml  223) or-dev post</a> from December for details &mdash; lots of design work
en/volunteer.wml  224) remains.

en/volunteer.wml  225) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  226) This project involves a lot of research and design. One of the big
en/volunteer.wml  227) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml  228) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  229) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml  230) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  231) 

en/volunteer.wml  232) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  233) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>

en/volunteer.wml  234) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  235) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  236) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  237) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  238) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  239) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  240) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  241) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike, Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml  242) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  243) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml  244) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml  245) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml  246) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml  247) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml  248) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml  249) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml  250) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,
en/volunteer.wml  251) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml  252) as described in the
en/volunteer.wml  253) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml  254) Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml  255) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml  256) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml  257) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml  258) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too
en/volunteer.wml  259) much communications overhead between relays and directory
en/volunteer.wml  260) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml  261) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  262) 
en/volunteer.wml  263) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  264) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml  265) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  266) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  267) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  268) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  269) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  270) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  271) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  272) Likely Mentors: <i>Chris</i>

en/volunteer.wml  273) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  274) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml  275) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml  276) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:

en/volunteer.wml  277) <ol><li> the ability to asynchronously query name servers, find the
en/volunteer.wml  278) system nameservers, and manage netbios and dns queries.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  279) <li> manage events and buffers natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes,
en/volunteer.wml  280) Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in Windows it's whatever the config
en/volunteer.wml  281) specifies).</li>
en/volunteer.wml  282) <li> some sort of GUI config and reporting tool, bonus if it has a
en/volunteer.wml  283) systray icon with right clickable menu options. Double bonus if it's
en/volunteer.wml  284) cross-platform compatible.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  285) <li> allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml  286) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"</li>
en/volunteer.wml  287) </ol>

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

en/volunteer.wml  290) <li>

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

en/volunteer.wml  292) <br />

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  333) <li>

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

en/volunteer.wml  335) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml  337) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  338) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  339) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  340) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  341) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  342) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Erinn</i>

en/volunteer.wml  343) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  344) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml  345) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml  346) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml  347) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml  348) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml  349) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  350) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml  351) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml  352) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml  353) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml  354) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml  355) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  356) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml  357) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml  358) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  359) 
en/volunteer.wml  360) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  361) <b>Help with independent Tor client implementations</b>

en/volunteer.wml  362) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  363) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  364) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  365) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  366) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  367) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  368) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  369) Likely Mentors: <i>Bruce, Nathan</i>

en/volunteer.wml  370) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  371) Others are currently working on Tor clients for Java, Android, and Maemo

en/volunteer.wml  372) environments.  The first step is to get a handle on the current state of

en/volunteer.wml  373) the project in which you are interested in helping; <a

en/volunteer.wml  374) href="http://github.com/brl/JTor">Tor for Java</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  375) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/">Android/Orbot</a>

en/volunteer.wml  376) , or <a href="<page docs/N900>">Tor for Maemo</a>. Check out the
en/volunteer.wml  377) repository and familiarize yourself

en/volunteer.wml  378) with the source code.  Further, support for requesting or even providing
en/volunteer.wml  379) Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.

en/volunteer.wml  380) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  381) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java

en/volunteer.wml  382) code, including a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml  383) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml  384) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml  385) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml  386) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml  387) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  388) 

en/volunteer.wml  389) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  390) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml  391) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  392) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  393) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  394) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  395) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  396) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  397) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  398) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  399) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml  400) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml  401) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml  402) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml  403) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml  404) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  405) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml  406) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  407) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml  408) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml  409) <a
en/volunteer.wml  410) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml  411) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  412) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml  413) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml  414) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml  415) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml  416) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml  417) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  418) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml  419) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  420) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.

en/volunteer.wml  421) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  422) 

en/volunteer.wml  423) <!-- <li>

en/volunteer.wml  424) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml  425) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  426) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  427) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  428) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  429) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  430) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  431) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  432) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  433) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  434) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml  435) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml  436) features to consider include:

en/volunteer.wml  437) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml  438) <li> Integration of the <a

en/volunteer.wml  439) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml  440) Python library</a>

en/volunteer.wml  441) for authenticated HTTPS downloads.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  442) <li> Adding a level of indirection

en/volunteer.wml  443) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an

en/volunteer.wml  444) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  445) <li> Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted

en/volunteer.wml  446) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml  447) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml  448) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and

en/volunteer.wml  449) Python proficiency.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  450) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml  451) </li> -->

en/volunteer.wml  452) 
en/volunteer.wml  453) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  454) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml  455) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  456) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  457) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  458) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  459) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  460) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  461) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  462) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml  463) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  464) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml  465) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml  466) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml  467) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml  468) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml  469) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  470) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml  471) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml  472) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml  473) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml  474) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml  475) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  476) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml  477) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml  478) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml  479) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml  480) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml  481) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  482) 
en/volunteer.wml  483) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  484) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml  485) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  486) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  487) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  488) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  489) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  490) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  491) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  492) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml  493) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  494) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml  495) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml  496) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml  497) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml  498) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml  499) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml  500) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml  501) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml  502) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml  503) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml  504) from here."
en/volunteer.wml  505) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  506) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  507) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml  508) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml  509) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml  510) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml  511) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  512) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  513) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml  514) required.
en/volunteer.wml  515) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  516) 
en/volunteer.wml  517) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  518) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml  519) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  520) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  521) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  522) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  523) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  524) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  525) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  526) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  527) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  528) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml  529) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml  530) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml  531) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml  532) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml  533) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  534) 

en/volunteer.wml  535) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  536) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</b>
en/volunteer.wml  537) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  538) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml  539) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  540) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  541) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  542) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  543) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  544) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  545) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  546) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml  547) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml  548) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml  549) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml  550) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml  551) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml  552) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.

en/volunteer.wml  553) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  554) 

en/volunteer.wml  555) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  556) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml  557) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  558) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  559) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  560) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  561) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  562) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  563) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  564) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml  565) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  566) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml  567) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml  568) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml  569) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml  570) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml  571) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml  572) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml  573) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml  574) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml  575) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml  576) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml  577) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml  578) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml  579) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml  580) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml  581) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml  582) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml  583) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  584) 

en/volunteer.wml  585) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  586) <b>Better Debian/Ubuntu Packaging for Tor+Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml  587) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  588) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  589) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  590) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  591) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  592) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  593) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  594) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn, Peter</i>
en/volunteer.wml  595) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  596) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml  597) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml  598) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a

en/volunteer.wml  599) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined

en/volunteer.wml  600) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml  601) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml  602) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml  603) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml  604) ports — they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml  605) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  606) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml  607) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml  608) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml  609) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml  610) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml  611) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml  612) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml  613) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml  614) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  615) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml  616) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml  617) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml  618) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml  619) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml  620) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  621) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  622) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml  623) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml  624) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml  625) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts
en/volunteer.wml  626) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml  627) best idea
en/volunteer.wml  628) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml  629) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml  630) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml  631) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  632) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml  633) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml  634) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml  635) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  636) 

en/volunteer.wml  637) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  638) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml  639) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  640) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml  641) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml  642) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml  643) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml  644) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml  645) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml  646) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml  647) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml  648) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml  649) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml  650) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml  651) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml  652) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  653) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml  654) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml  655) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml  656) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml  657) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  658) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml  659) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml  660) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml  661) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  662) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  663) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml  664) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml  665) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml  666) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml  667) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml  668) with others prior to implementation.

en/volunteer.wml  669) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  670) 

en/volunteer.wml  671) <li>

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

en/volunteer.wml  673) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  674) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  675) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  676) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  677) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  678) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  679) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  680) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn</i>
en/volunteer.wml  681) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  682) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml  683) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml  684) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml  685) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  686) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml  687) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml  688) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml  689) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  690) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml  691) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml  692) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml  693) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml  694) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml  695) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml  696) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml  697) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  698) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml  699) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml  700) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml  701) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml  702) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  703) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml  704) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml  705) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  706) 

en/volunteer.wml  707) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  708) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml  709) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  710) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  711) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  712) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  713) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  714) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  715) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  716) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml  717) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  718) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml  719) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml  720) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml  721) structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml  722) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  723) 
en/volunteer.wml  724) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  725) <b>An authenticating IRC proxy</b>
en/volunteer.wml  726) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  727) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  728) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  729) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  730) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  731) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  732) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  733) Likely Mentors: <i>Sebastian, Weasel, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml  734) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  735) The world needs an authenticating irc proxy. As we're periodically
en/volunteer.wml  736) reminded from the Penny Arcade web comic, "Internet user + anonymity =
en/volunteer.wml  737) jerk". With respect to websites we're actually doing ok, since websites
en/volunteer.wml  738) can make their users log in and use other application-level authentication
en/volunteer.wml  739) approaches. But IRC servers are much worse off, because most IRC server
en/volunteer.wml  740) code is poorly written: hard to maintain, and harder to modify. Many
en/volunteer.wml  741) IRC networks now block connections from Tor, and we're basically down to
en/volunteer.wml  742) two holdouts (OFTC and Freenode). This state of affairs means that a lot
en/volunteer.wml  743) of people around the world are thinking "I told you so" about anonymity
en/volunteer.wml  744) online, when in fact the problem is simply lack of technology to make the
en/volunteer.wml  745) problem manageable. We need some way to let the IRC networks distinguish
en/volunteer.wml  746) which users have developed a reputation as not being jerks, so they can
en/volunteer.wml  747) treat the two groups separately. There are some really cool research
en/volunteer.wml  748) designs like <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~nymble/">Nymble</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  749) which aim to let websites blacklist users without needing to learn who
en/volunteer.wml  750) they are.  But Nymble is designed around web interactions. We need to
en/volunteer.wml  751) build the glue around the IRC protocol that would let us plug in a project
en/volunteer.wml  752) like Nymble (or a simpler one to start, as a proof-of-concept). One way
en/volunteer.wml  753) to do that would be to build an IRC proxy that knows how to hear from
en/volunteer.wml  754) IRC clients, knows how to talk to IRC servers, and has an additional

en/volunteer.wml  755) layer that requires the users to authenticate.  Some work on this has
en/volunteer.wml  756) begun by other volunteers, see their progress at <a
en/volunteer.wml  757) href="http://github.com/anonirc/orc">http://github.com/anonirc/orc</a>.

en/volunteer.wml  758) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  759) 

en/volunteer.wml  760) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  761) <b>Make torsocks/dsocks work on OS X</b>
en/volunteer.wml  762) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  763) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  764) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  765) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  766) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  767) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  768) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  769) Likely Mentors: <i>?</i>
en/volunteer.wml  770) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  771) <a href="http://code.google.com/p/torsocks/">Torsocks</a> and <a
en/volunteer.wml  772) href="http://code.google.com/p/dsocks/">dsocks</a> are wrappers that will
en/volunteer.wml  773) run applications, intercept their outgoing network connections, and push
en/volunteer.wml  774) those connections through Tor. The goal is to handle applications that
en/volunteer.wml  775) don't support proxies (or don't supporting them well). To get it right,
en/volunteer.wml  776) they need to intercept many system calls. The syscalls you need to
en/volunteer.wml  777) intercept on Linux differ dramatically from those on BSD. So Torsocks
en/volunteer.wml  778) works fine on Linux, dsocks works ok on BSD (though it may be less
en/volunteer.wml  779) maintained and thus might miss more syscalls), and nothing works well
en/volunteer.wml  780) on both. First, we should patch dsocks to use Tor's <i>mapaddress</i>
en/volunteer.wml  781) commands from the controller interface, so we don't waste a whole
en/volunteer.wml  782) round-trip inside Tor doing the resolve before connecting. Second,
en/volunteer.wml  783) we should make our <i>torify</i> script detect which of torsocks or
en/volunteer.wml  784) dsocks is installed, and call them appropriately. This probably means
en/volunteer.wml  785) unifying their interfaces, and might involve sharing code between them
en/volunteer.wml  786) or discarding one entirely.
en/volunteer.wml  787) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  788) 

en/volunteer.wml  789) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  790) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  791) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  792) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a
en/volunteer.wml  793) href="<gitblob>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml  794) roadmap</a> for more ideas, or just try out Tor, Vidalia, and Torbutton,
en/volunteer.wml  795) and find out what you think needs fixing.

en/volunteer.wml  796) Some of the <a href="<gittree>doc/spec/proposals">current proposals</a>
en/volunteer.wml  797) might also be short on developers.
en/volunteer.wml  798) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  799) 

en/volunteer.wml  800) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml  801) 

en/volunteer.wml  802) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  803) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html    804) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  805) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml  806) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml  807) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml  808) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml  809) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml  810) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml  811) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml  812) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml  813) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml  814) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml  815) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml  816) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  817) 

en/volunteer.wml  818) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml  819) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml  820) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml  821) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml  822) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  823) 

en/volunteer.wml  824) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml  825) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml  826) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml  827) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml  828) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml  829) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml  830) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml  831) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml  832) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  833) 

en/volunteer.wml  834) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml  835) 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  836) 

volunteer.html    837) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html    838) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml  839) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html    840) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml  841) 

volunteer.html    842) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html    843) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html    844) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html    845) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml  846) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml  847) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml  848) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml  849) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification

en/volunteer.wml  850) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml  851) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  852) 

volunteer.html    853) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html    854) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html    855) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  856) 
en/volunteer.wml  857) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml  858) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml  859) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml  860) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml  861) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml  862) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  863) 

en/volunteer.wml  864) <li>How can we make the various LiveCD/USB systems easier
en/volunteer.wml  865) to maintain, improve, and document?  Some examples are <a

en/volunteer.wml  866) href="http://amnesia.boum.org/">amnesia LiveCD/USB</a> and the <a

en/volunteer.wml  867) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>

en/volunteer.wml  868) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  869) 
en/volunteer.wml  870) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  871) Another anti-censorship project is to try to make Tor
en/volunteer.wml  872) more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify <a
en/volunteer.wml  873) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>
en/volunteer.wml  874) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol,
en/volunteer.wml  875) and seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could <a

en/volunteer.wml  876) href="<svnprojects>design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like

en/volunteer.wml  877) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml  878) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml  879) To start, check out Shane Pope's <a
en/volunteer.wml  880) href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37735/index.html">thesis and prototype</a>.
en/volunteer.wml  881) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  882) 

volunteer.html    883) </ol>
volunteer.html    884) 

en/volunteer.wml  885) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  886) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html    887) <ol>

volunteer.html    888) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html    889) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html    890) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html    891) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html    892) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html    893) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html    894) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html    895) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html    896) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html    897) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html    898) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html    899) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html    900) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html    901) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html    902) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html    903) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html    904) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html    905) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html    906) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html    907) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html    908) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html    909) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  910) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml  911) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml  912) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml  913) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml  914) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml  915) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml  916) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml  917) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml  918) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  919) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml  920) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml  921) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml  922) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml  923) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml  924) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  925) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml  926) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml  927) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml  928) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml  929) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml  930) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml  931) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml  932) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml  933) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml  934) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml  935) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml  936) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml  937) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml  938) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml  939) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html    940) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html    941) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html    942) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html    943) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html    944) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html    945) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html    946) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html    947) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html    948) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html    949) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  950) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml  951) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml  952) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml  953) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml  954) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml  955) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml  956) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  957) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html    958) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html    959) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html    960) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html    961) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html    962) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html    963) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html    964) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html    965) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html    966) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html    967) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html    968) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html    969) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html    970) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html    971) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html    972) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html    973) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html    974) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html    975) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  976) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml  977) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml  978) href="<svnprojects>design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml  979) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml  980) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml  981) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml  982) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml  983) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml  984) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml  985) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml  986) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html    987) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html    988) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html    989) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml  990) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html    991) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html    992) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html    993) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  994) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html    995) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html    996) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  997) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml  998) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml  999) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml 1000) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml 1001) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml 1002) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml 1003) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml 1004) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml 1005) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml 1006) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml 1007) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml 1008) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml 1009) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml 1010) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml 1011) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 1012) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 1013) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 1014) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 1015) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 1016) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 1017) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 1018) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 1019) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 1020) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 1021) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 1022) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 1023) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 1024) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 1025) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 1026) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 1027) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 1028) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 1029) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 1030) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 1031) </li>

volunteer.html   1032) </ol>
volunteer.html   1033) 

en/volunteer.wml 1034) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 1035) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 1036) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 1037) </p>

volunteer.html   1038) 

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