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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 Linux/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 Linux and Mac OS
en/volunteer.wml   99) X, so this project would be to implement Tor Browser Bundle for OS X and
en/volunteer.wml  100) continue work on the Tor Browser Bundle for Linux. This will involve modifications to Vidalia (C++), possibly

en/volunteer.wml  101) Firefox (C) then creating and testing the launcher on a range of

en/volunteer.wml  102) operating system versions and configurations to verify portability.
en/volunteer.wml  103) Some work on this was completed as part of the Google Summer of Code
en/volunteer.wml  104) 2009. Another part of this project is to identify all of the traces left
en/volunteer.wml  105) behind by using a Tor Browser Bundle on Mac OS X or Linux.  Developing
en/volunteer.wml  106) ways to stop, counter, or remove these traces is a final step.

en/volunteer.wml  107) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  108) Students should be familiar with application development on one or
en/volunteer.wml  109) preferably both of Linux and Mac OS X, and be comfortable with C/C++
en/volunteer.wml  110) and shell scripting.
en/volunteer.wml  111) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  112) Part of this project could be usability testing of Tor Browser Bundle,

en/volunteer.wml  113) ideally amongst our target demographic.  That would help a lot in knowing
en/volunteer.wml  114) what needs to be done in terms of bug fixes or new features. We get this
en/volunteer.wml  115) informally at the moment, but a more structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml  116) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  117) 

en/volunteer.wml  118) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  119) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</b>

en/volunteer.wml  120) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  121) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  122) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  123) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  124) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  125) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  126) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  127) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml  128) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  129) It would be great to set up an automated system for tracking network
en/volunteer.wml  130) health over time, graphing it, etc. Part of this project would involve
en/volunteer.wml  131) inventing better metrics for assessing network health and growth. Is the
en/volunteer.wml  132) average uptime of the network increasing? How many relays are qualifying
en/volunteer.wml  133) for Guard status this month compared to last month? What's the turnover
en/volunteer.wml  134) in terms of new relays showing up and relays shutting off? Periodically
en/volunteer.wml  135) people collect brief snapshots, but where it gets really interesting is
en/volunteer.wml  136) when we start tracking data points over time.
en/volunteer.wml  137) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  138) Data could be collected from the Tor Network Scanners in <a
en/volunteer.wml  139) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>, from

en/volunteer.wml  140) the server descriptors that each relay publishes, and from other
en/volunteer.wml  141) sources. Results over time could be integrated into one of the <a
en/volunteer.wml  142) href="https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/">Tor Status</a> web pages, or be
en/volunteer.wml  143) kept separate. Speaking of the Tor Status pages, take a look at Roger's
en/volunteer.wml  144) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2008/msg00300.html">Tor
en/volunteer.wml  145) Status wish list</a>.
en/volunteer.wml  146) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  147) 

en/volunteer.wml  148) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  149) <b>Rewrite TorDNSEL, this time with a spec!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  150) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  151) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  152) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  153) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  154) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  155) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  156) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  157) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike, Roger, Sebastian</i>
en/volunteer.wml  158) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  159) The <a href="<page tordnsel/index>">Tor DNS Exit List</a> is an
en/volunteer.wml  160) unmaintained Haskell

en/volunteer.wml  161) program that serves three purposes. First, it provides an rbl-style DNS
en/volunteer.wml  162) interface for people to look up whether a given IP address is (or has
en/volunteer.wml  163) recently been) a Tor exit relay. Second, it actively builds circuits over
en/volunteer.wml  164) the Tor network and connects back to itself, to learn the actual exit
en/volunteer.wml  165) IP address of each relay — some Tor relays exit from a different
en/volunteer.wml  166) address than they advertise in their descriptor. Third, it exports a <a
en/volunteer.wml  167) href="http://exitlist.torproject.org/exitAddresses">set of conclusions</a>
en/volunteer.wml  168) so that <a href="https://check.torproject.org/">check.torproject.org</a>
en/volunteer.wml  169) can guess for you whether your browser is configured to point to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml  170) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  171) This project would make use of <a
en/volunteer.wml  172) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>,

en/volunteer.wml  173) a set of Python scripts to interact with Tor,

en/volunteer.wml  174) to figure out how our Tor Exit Checker should actually work, and then
en/volunteer.wml  175) build it — probably in Python since Torflow is in Python. The main
en/volunteer.wml  176) goal is to reduce false positives as much as possible, by making sure
en/volunteer.wml  177) that it learns about new relays as soon as possible, making sure that
en/volunteer.wml  178) the testing phase concludes quickly, and making sure the answers get
en/volunteer.wml  179) passed to the Check script quickly. As a bonus, we should standardize
en/volunteer.wml  180) (specify) the format of the exitAddresses file, and rewrite the <a
en/volunteer.wml  181) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/check/trunk/cgi-bin/TorBulkExitList.py">Tor

en/volunteer.wml  182) Bulk Exit List</a> script to use that file rather than its current <a
en/volunteer.wml  183) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=1019">horrible
en/volunteer.wml  184) DNS hacks</a>. As an extra bonus, we should work with Freenode, OFTC,
en/volunteer.wml  185) and/or other IRC networks to make sure that the scripts we offer are
en/volunteer.wml  186) actually the scripts they want, in terms of accurately identifying which
en/volunteer.wml  187) of their users are coming from the Tor network.

en/volunteer.wml  188) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  189) You can fetch the <a href="git://git.torproject.org/git/tordnsel">latest
en/volunteer.wml  190) tordnsel</a> via git.
en/volunteer.wml  191) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  192) 

en/volunteer.wml  193) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  194) <b>Improving Tor's ability to resist censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml  195) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  196) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  197) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  198) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  199) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  200) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  201) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  202) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Steven</i>

en/volunteer.wml  203) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  204) The Tor 0.2.1.x series makes <a

en/volunteer.wml  205) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html">significant

en/volunteer.wml  206) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml  207) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its
en/volunteer.wml  208) anti-censorship design.  For example, current Tors can only listen on a
en/volunteer.wml  209) single address/port combination at a time.  There's

en/volunteer.wml  210) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a

en/volunteer.wml  211) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml  212) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more

en/volunteer.wml  213) work.
en/volunteer.wml  214) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  215) Another area that needs work is our <a
en/volunteer.wml  216) href="http://gitweb.torproject.org//bridgedb.git?a=tree">bridgedb</a>
en/volunteer.wml  217) service. See e.g. <a
en/volunteer.wml  218) href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Dec-2009/msg00000.html">Roger's
en/volunteer.wml  219) or-dev post</a> from December for details &mdash; lots of design work
en/volunteer.wml  220) remains.

en/volunteer.wml  221) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  222) This project involves a lot of research and design. One of the big
en/volunteer.wml  223) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml  224) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  225) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml  226) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  227) 

en/volunteer.wml  228) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  229) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>

en/volunteer.wml  230) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  231) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  232) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  233) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  234) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  235) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  236) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  237) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike, Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml  238) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  239) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml  240) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml  241) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml  242) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml  243) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml  244) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml  245) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml  246) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,
en/volunteer.wml  247) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml  248) as described in the
en/volunteer.wml  249) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml  250) Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml  251) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml  252) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml  253) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml  254) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too
en/volunteer.wml  255) much communications overhead between relays and directory
en/volunteer.wml  256) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml  257) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  258) 
en/volunteer.wml  259) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  260) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml  261) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  262) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  263) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  264) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  265) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  266) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  267) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  268) Likely Mentors: <i>Chris</i>

en/volunteer.wml  269) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  270) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml  271) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml  272) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:

en/volunteer.wml  273) <ol><li> the ability to asynchronously query name servers, find the
en/volunteer.wml  274) system nameservers, and manage netbios and dns queries.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  275) <li> manage events and buffers natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes,
en/volunteer.wml  276) Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in Windows it's whatever the config
en/volunteer.wml  277) specifies).</li>
en/volunteer.wml  278) <li> some sort of GUI config and reporting tool, bonus if it has a
en/volunteer.wml  279) systray icon with right clickable menu options. Double bonus if it's
en/volunteer.wml  280) cross-platform compatible.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  281) <li> allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml  282) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"</li>
en/volunteer.wml  283) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml  284) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  285) 

en/volunteer.wml  286) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  287) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface for Vidalia</b>

en/volunteer.wml  288) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  289) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  290) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  291) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  292) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  293) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  294) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  295) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml  296) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  297) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml  298) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml  299) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml  300) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml  301) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml  302) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml  303) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml  304) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml  305) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  306) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml  307) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml  308) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml  309) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml  310) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  311) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml  312) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml  313) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml  314) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml  315) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml  316) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml  317) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml  318) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml  319) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  320) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml  321) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml  322) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml  323) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml  324) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml  325) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml  326) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml  327) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  328) 

en/volunteer.wml  329) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  330) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>

en/volunteer.wml  331) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  332) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  333) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  334) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  335) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  336) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  337) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  338) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Erinn</i>

en/volunteer.wml  339) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  340) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml  341) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml  342) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml  343) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml  344) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml  345) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  346) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml  347) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml  348) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml  349) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml  350) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml  351) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  352) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml  353) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml  354) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  355) 
en/volunteer.wml  356) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  357) <b>Help with independent Tor client implementations</b>

en/volunteer.wml  358) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  359) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  360) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  361) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  362) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  363) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  364) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  365) Likely Mentors: <i>Bruce, Nathan</i>

en/volunteer.wml  366) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  367) Others are currently working on Tor clients for Java, Android, and Maemo

en/volunteer.wml  368) environments.  The first step is to get a handle on the current state of

en/volunteer.wml  369) the project in which you are interested in helping; <a

en/volunteer.wml  370) href="http://github.com/brl/JTor">Tor for Java</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  371) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/">Android/Orbot</a>
en/volunteer.wml  372) , or Tor for Maemo. Check out the repository and familiarlize yourself
en/volunteer.wml  373) with the source code.  Further, support for requesting or even providing
en/volunteer.wml  374) Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.

en/volunteer.wml  375) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  376) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java

en/volunteer.wml  377) code, including a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml  378) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml  379) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml  380) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml  381) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml  382) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  383) 

en/volunteer.wml  384) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  385) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml  386) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  387) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  388) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  389) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  390) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  391) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  392) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  393) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  394) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml  395) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml  396) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml  397) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml  398) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml  399) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  400) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml  401) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  402) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml  403) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml  404) <a
en/volunteer.wml  405) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml  406) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  407) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml  408) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml  409) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml  410) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml  411) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml  412) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  413) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml  414) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  415) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.

en/volunteer.wml  416) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  417) 

en/volunteer.wml  418) <!-- <li>

en/volunteer.wml  419) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml  420) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  421) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  422) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  423) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  424) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  425) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  426) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  427) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  428) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  429) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml  430) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml  431) features to consider include:

en/volunteer.wml  432) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml  433) <li> Integration of the <a

en/volunteer.wml  434) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml  435) Python library</a>

en/volunteer.wml  436) for authenticated HTTPS downloads.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  437) <li> Adding a level of indirection

en/volunteer.wml  438) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an

en/volunteer.wml  439) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  440) <li> Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted

en/volunteer.wml  441) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml  442) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml  443) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and

en/volunteer.wml  444) Python proficiency.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  445) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml  446) </li> -->

en/volunteer.wml  447) 
en/volunteer.wml  448) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  449) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml  450) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  451) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  452) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  453) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  454) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  455) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  456) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  457) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml  458) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  459) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml  460) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml  461) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml  462) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml  463) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml  464) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  465) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml  466) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml  467) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml  468) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml  469) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml  470) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  471) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml  472) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml  473) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml  474) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml  475) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml  476) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  477) 
en/volunteer.wml  478) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  479) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml  480) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  481) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  482) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  483) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  484) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  485) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  486) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  487) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml  488) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  489) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml  490) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml  491) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml  492) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml  493) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml  494) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml  495) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml  496) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml  497) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml  498) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml  499) from here."
en/volunteer.wml  500) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  501) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  502) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml  503) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml  504) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml  505) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml  506) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  507) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  508) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml  509) required.
en/volunteer.wml  510) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  511) 
en/volunteer.wml  512) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  513) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml  514) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  515) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  516) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  517) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  518) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  519) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  520) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  521) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  522) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  523) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml  524) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml  525) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml  526) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml  527) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml  528) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  529) 

en/volunteer.wml  530) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  531) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</b>
en/volunteer.wml  532) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  533) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml  534) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  535) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  536) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  537) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  538) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  539) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  540) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  541) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml  542) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml  543) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml  544) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml  545) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml  546) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml  547) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.

en/volunteer.wml  548) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  549) 

en/volunteer.wml  550) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  551) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml  552) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  553) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  554) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  555) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  556) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  557) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  558) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  559) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml  560) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  561) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml  562) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml  563) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml  564) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml  565) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml  566) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml  567) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml  568) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml  569) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml  570) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml  571) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml  572) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml  573) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml  574) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml  575) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml  576) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml  577) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml  578) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  579) 

en/volunteer.wml  580) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  581) <b>Better Debian/Ubuntu Packaging for Tor+Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml  582) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  583) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  584) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  585) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  586) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  587) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  588) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  589) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn, Peter</i>
en/volunteer.wml  590) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  591) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml  592) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml  593) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a

en/volunteer.wml  594) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined

en/volunteer.wml  595) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml  596) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml  597) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml  598) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml  599) ports — they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml  600) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  601) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml  602) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml  603) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml  604) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml  605) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml  606) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml  607) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml  608) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml  609) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  610) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml  611) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml  612) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml  613) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml  614) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml  615) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  616) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  617) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml  618) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml  619) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml  620) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts
en/volunteer.wml  621) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml  622) best idea
en/volunteer.wml  623) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml  624) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml  625) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml  626) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  627) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml  628) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml  629) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml  630) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  631) 

en/volunteer.wml  632) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  633) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml  634) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  635) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml  636) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml  637) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml  638) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml  639) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml  640) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml  641) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml  642) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml  643) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml  644) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml  645) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml  646) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml  647) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  648) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml  649) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml  650) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml  651) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml  652) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  653) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml  654) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml  655) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml  656) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  657) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  658) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml  659) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml  660) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml  661) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml  662) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml  663) with others prior to implementation.

en/volunteer.wml  664) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  665) 

en/volunteer.wml  666) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  667) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for builds</b>

en/volunteer.wml  668) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  669) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  670) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  671) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  672) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  673) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  674) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  675) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn</i>
en/volunteer.wml  676) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  677) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml  678) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml  679) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml  680) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  681) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml  682) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml  683) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml  684) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  685) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml  686) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml  687) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml  688) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml  689) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml  690) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml  691) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml  692) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  693) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml  694) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml  695) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml  696) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml  697) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  698) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml  699) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml  700) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  701) 

en/volunteer.wml  702) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  703) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml  704) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  705) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  706) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  707) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  708) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  709) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  710) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  711) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml  712) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  713) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml  714) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml  715) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml  716) structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml  717) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  718) 
en/volunteer.wml  719) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  720) <b>An authenticating IRC proxy</b>
en/volunteer.wml  721) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  722) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  723) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  724) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  725) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  726) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  727) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  728) Likely Mentors: <i>Sebastian, Weasel, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml  729) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  730) The world needs an authenticating irc proxy. As we're periodically
en/volunteer.wml  731) reminded from the Penny Arcade web comic, "Internet user + anonymity =
en/volunteer.wml  732) jerk". With respect to websites we're actually doing ok, since websites
en/volunteer.wml  733) can make their users log in and use other application-level authentication
en/volunteer.wml  734) approaches. But IRC servers are much worse off, because most IRC server
en/volunteer.wml  735) code is poorly written: hard to maintain, and harder to modify. Many
en/volunteer.wml  736) IRC networks now block connections from Tor, and we're basically down to
en/volunteer.wml  737) two holdouts (OFTC and Freenode). This state of affairs means that a lot
en/volunteer.wml  738) of people around the world are thinking "I told you so" about anonymity
en/volunteer.wml  739) online, when in fact the problem is simply lack of technology to make the
en/volunteer.wml  740) problem manageable. We need some way to let the IRC networks distinguish
en/volunteer.wml  741) which users have developed a reputation as not being jerks, so they can
en/volunteer.wml  742) treat the two groups separately. There are some really cool research
en/volunteer.wml  743) designs like <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~nymble/">Nymble</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  744) which aim to let websites blacklist users without needing to learn who
en/volunteer.wml  745) they are.  But Nymble is designed around web interactions. We need to
en/volunteer.wml  746) build the glue around the IRC protocol that would let us plug in a project
en/volunteer.wml  747) like Nymble (or a simpler one to start, as a proof-of-concept). One way
en/volunteer.wml  748) to do that would be to build an IRC proxy that knows how to hear from
en/volunteer.wml  749) IRC clients, knows how to talk to IRC servers, and has an additional
en/volunteer.wml  750) layer that requires the users to authenticate.
en/volunteer.wml  751) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  752) 

en/volunteer.wml  753) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  754) <b>Make torsocks/dsocks work on OS X</b>
en/volunteer.wml  755) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  756) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  757) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  758) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  759) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  760) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  761) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  762) Likely Mentors: <i>?</i>
en/volunteer.wml  763) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  764) <a href="http://code.google.com/p/torsocks/">Torsocks</a> and <a
en/volunteer.wml  765) href="http://code.google.com/p/dsocks/">dsocks</a> are wrappers that will
en/volunteer.wml  766) run applications, intercept their outgoing network connections, and push
en/volunteer.wml  767) those connections through Tor. The goal is to handle applications that
en/volunteer.wml  768) don't support proxies (or don't supporting them well). To get it right,
en/volunteer.wml  769) they need to intercept many system calls. The syscalls you need to
en/volunteer.wml  770) intercept on Linux differ dramatically from those on BSD. So Torsocks
en/volunteer.wml  771) works fine on Linux, dsocks works ok on BSD (though it may be less
en/volunteer.wml  772) maintained and thus might miss more syscalls), and nothing works well
en/volunteer.wml  773) on both. First, we should patch dsocks to use Tor's <i>mapaddress</i>
en/volunteer.wml  774) commands from the controller interface, so we don't waste a whole
en/volunteer.wml  775) round-trip inside Tor doing the resolve before connecting. Second,
en/volunteer.wml  776) we should make our <i>torify</i> script detect which of torsocks or
en/volunteer.wml  777) dsocks is installed, and call them appropriately. This probably means
en/volunteer.wml  778) unifying their interfaces, and might involve sharing code between them
en/volunteer.wml  779) or discarding one entirely.
en/volunteer.wml  780) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  781) 

en/volunteer.wml  782) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  783) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  784) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  785) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a
en/volunteer.wml  786) href="<gitblob>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml  787) roadmap</a> for more ideas, or just try out Tor, Vidalia, and Torbutton,
en/volunteer.wml  788) and find out what you think needs fixing.

en/volunteer.wml  789) Some of the <a href="<gittree>doc/spec/proposals">current proposals</a>
en/volunteer.wml  790) might also be short on developers.
en/volunteer.wml  791) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  792) 

en/volunteer.wml  793) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml  794) 

en/volunteer.wml  795) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  796) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html    797) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  798) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml  799) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml  800) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml  801) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml  802) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml  803) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml  804) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml  805) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml  806) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml  807) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml  808) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml  809) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  810) 

en/volunteer.wml  811) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml  812) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml  813) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml  814) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml  815) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  816) 

en/volunteer.wml  817) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml  818) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml  819) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml  820) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml  821) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml  822) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml  823) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml  824) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml  825) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  826) 

en/volunteer.wml  827) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml  828) 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  829) 

volunteer.html    830) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html    831) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml  832) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html    833) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml  834) 

volunteer.html    835) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html    836) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html    837) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html    838) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml  839) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml  840) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml  841) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml  842) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification

en/volunteer.wml  843) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml  844) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  845) 

volunteer.html    846) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html    847) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html    848) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  849) 
en/volunteer.wml  850) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml  851) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml  852) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml  853) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml  854) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml  855) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  856) 

en/volunteer.wml  857) <li>How can we make the various LiveCD/USB systems easier
en/volunteer.wml  858) to maintain, improve, and document?  Some examples are <a

en/volunteer.wml  859) href="http://amnesia.boum.org/">amnesia LiveCD/USB</a> and the <a

en/volunteer.wml  860) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>

en/volunteer.wml  861) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  862) 
en/volunteer.wml  863) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  864) Another anti-censorship project is to try to make Tor
en/volunteer.wml  865) more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify <a
en/volunteer.wml  866) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>
en/volunteer.wml  867) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol,
en/volunteer.wml  868) and seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could <a
en/volunteer.wml  869) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like
en/volunteer.wml  870) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml  871) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml  872) To start, check out Shane Pope's <a
en/volunteer.wml  873) href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37735/index.html">thesis and prototype</a>.
en/volunteer.wml  874) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  875) 

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="<gitblob>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>
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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)