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en/volunteer.wml   4) #include "head.wmi" TITLE="Tor: Volunteer"

volunteer.html     5) 
volunteer.html     6) <div class="main-column">
volunteer.html     7) 
volunteer.html     8) <!-- PUT CONTENT AFTER THIS TAG -->

en/volunteer.wml   9) <h2>Three things everyone can do now:</h2>

volunteer.html    10) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  11) <li>Please consider <a href="<page docs/tor-doc-relay>">running
en/volunteer.wml  12) a relay</a> to help the Tor network grow.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  13) <li>Tell your friends! Get them to run relays. Get them to run hidden

volunteer.html    14) services. Get them to tell their friends.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  15) <li>We are looking for funding and sponsors. If you like Tor's goals, please

en/volunteer.wml  16)   <a href="<page donate>">take a moment to donate to support further
en/volunteer.wml  17)   Tor development</a>. Also, if you know any

en/volunteer.wml  18)   companies, NGOs, agencies, or other organizations that want communications

en/volunteer.wml  19)   security, let them know about us.</li>

volunteer.html    20) </ol>
volunteer.html    21) 

en/volunteer.wml  22) <a id="Usability"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  23) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Usability">Supporting Applications</a></h2>

volunteer.html    24) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  25) <li>We need good ways to intercept DNS requests so they don't "leak" their
en/volunteer.wml  26) request to a local observer while we're trying to be anonymous. (This
en/volunteer.wml  27) happens because the application does the DNS resolve before going to
en/volunteer.wml  28) the SOCKS proxy.)</li>

en/volunteer.wml  29) <li>Tsocks/dsocks items:

en/volunteer.wml  30) <ul>
en/volunteer.wml  31) <li>We need to <a

en/volunteer.wml  32) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TSocksPatches">apply

en/volunteer.wml  33) all our tsocks patches</a> and maintain a new fork. We'll host it if
en/volunteer.wml  34) you want.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  35) <li>We should patch Dug Song's "dsocks" program to use Tor's
en/volunteer.wml  36) <i>mapaddress</i> commands from the controller interface, so we
en/volunteer.wml  37) don't waste a whole round-trip inside Tor doing the resolve before
en/volunteer.wml  38) connecting.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  39) <li>We need to make our <i>torify</i> script detect which of tsocks or
en/volunteer.wml  40) dsocks is installed, and call them appropriately. This probably means
en/volunteer.wml  41) unifying their interfaces, and might involve sharing code between them
en/volunteer.wml  42) or discarding one entirely.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  43) </ul>

en/volunteer.wml  44) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  45) <li>People running relays tell us they want to have one BandwidthRate

en/volunteer.wml  46) during some part of the day, and a different BandwidthRate at other
en/volunteer.wml  47) parts of the day. Rather than coding this inside Tor, we should have a
en/volunteer.wml  48) little script that speaks via the <a href="<page gui/index>">Tor
en/volunteer.wml  49) Controller Interface</a>, and does a setconf to change the bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml  50) rate.  There is one for Unix and Mac already (it uses bash and cron),
en/volunteer.wml  51) but Windows users still need a solution.

en/volunteer.wml  52) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  53) <li>Tor can <a

en/volunteer.wml  54) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#ChooseEntryExit">exit

en/volunteer.wml  55) the Tor network from a particular exit node</a>, but we should be able
en/volunteer.wml  56) to specify just a country and have something automatically pick. The
en/volunteer.wml  57) best bet is to fetch Blossom's directory also, and run a local Blossom
en/volunteer.wml  58) client that fetches this directory securely (via Tor and checking its
en/volunteer.wml  59) signature), intercepts <tt>.country.blossom</tt> hostnames, and does
en/volunteer.wml  60) the right thing.</li>

volunteer.html    61) <li>Speaking of geolocation data, somebody should draw a map of the Earth

en/volunteer.wml  62) with a pin-point for each Tor relay. Bonus points if it updates as the

en/volunteer.wml  63) network grows and changes. Unfortunately, the easy ways to do this involve
en/volunteer.wml  64) sending all the data to Google and having them draw the map for you. How
en/volunteer.wml  65) much does this impact privacy, and do we have any other good options?</li>

volunteer.html    66) </ol>
volunteer.html    67) 

en/volunteer.wml  68) <a id="Documentation"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  69) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Documentation">Documentation</a></h2>

volunteer.html    70) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  71) <li>Please help Matt Edman with the documentation and how-tos for his

en/volunteer.wml  72) Tor controller,
en/volunteer.wml  73) <a href="http://vidalia-project.net/">Vidalia</a>.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  74) <li>Evaluate and document

en/volunteer.wml  75) <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/wiki/TheOnionRouter/TorifyHOWTO">our

en/volunteer.wml  76) list of programs</a> that can be configured to use Tor.</li>

volunteer.html    77) <li>We need better documentation for dynamically intercepting

en/volunteer.wml  78) connections and sending them through Tor. tsocks (Linux), dsocks (BSD),

en/volunteer.wml  79) and freecap (Windows) seem to be good candidates, as would better
en/volunteer.wml  80) use of our new TransPort feature.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  81) <li>We have a huge list of <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/SupportPrograms">potentially useful

volunteer.html    82) programs that interface to Tor</a>. Which ones are useful in which
volunteer.html    83) situations? Please help us test them out and document your results.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  84) <li>Help translate the web page and documentation into other
en/volunteer.wml  85) languages. See the <a href="<page translation>">translation

en/volunteer.wml  86) guidelines</a> if you want to help out. We especially need Arabic or
en/volunteer.wml  87) Farsi translations, for the many Tor users in censored areas.</li>

volunteer.html    88) </ol>
volunteer.html    89) 

en/volunteer.wml  90) <a id="Coding"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  91) <a id="Summer"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  92) <a id="Projects"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  93) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Projects">Good Coding Projects</a></h2>

en/volunteer.wml  94) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml  95) 

en/volunteer.wml  96) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  97) Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework
en/volunteer.wml  98) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  99) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml 100) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml 101) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml 102) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml 103) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml 104) user. Time permitting, we would also like to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml 105) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml 106) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml 107) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 108) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml 109) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml 110) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml 111) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml 112) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 113) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml 114) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml 115) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml 116) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 117) A student undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 118) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. The
en/volunteer.wml 119) student should also have a basic understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml 120) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml 121) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml 122) will be producing a design document for others to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml 123) with the student prior to implementation.
en/volunteer.wml 124) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 125) 
en/volunteer.wml 126) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 127) An Improved and More Usable Network Map
en/volunteer.wml 128) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 129) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml 130) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml 131) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml 132) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml 133) poor graphics. Instead, we would like to leverage KDE's Marble widget
en/volunteer.wml 134) that gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml 135) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml 136) display additional information. We might also consider adding the ability
en/volunteer.wml 137) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml 138) more Tor exit relays and say, ``I want my connections to foo.com to exit
en/volunteer.wml 139) from here.''
en/volunteer.wml 140) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 141) This project will first involve the student getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 142) and the Marble widget's API. The student will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml 143) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml 144) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml 145) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml 146) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 147) A student undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 148) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml 149) required.
en/volunteer.wml 150) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 151) 
en/volunteer.wml 152) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 153) Better Debian Support &amp; Packaging
en/volunteer.wml 154) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 155) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml 156) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml 157) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a
en/volunteer.wml 158) CntrolPort defined in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml 159) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml 160) Tor, and then Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml 161) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml 162) ports--they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml 163) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 164) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml 165) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml 166) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml 167) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml 168) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml 169) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml 170) then authenticate to Tor using cookie authentication if the user running
en/volunteer.wml 171) Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml 172) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 173) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml 174) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml 175) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml 176) making sure it works well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml 177) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml 178) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 179) A student undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml 180) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml 181) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 182) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 183) 
en/volunteer.wml 184) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 185) Tor Status Event Interface
en/volunteer.wml 186) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 187) There may are a number of status changes of which the user may need
en/volunteer.wml 188) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up a Tor
en/volunteer.wml 189) relay and Tor decides the user's relay is not reachable from outside
en/volunteer.wml 190) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user
en/volunteer.wml 191) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log', which they
en/volunteer.wml 192) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml 193) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml 194) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml 195) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 196) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml 197) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml 198) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml 199) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml 200) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 201) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml 202) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml 203) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml 204) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml 205) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe
en/volunteer.wml 206) suggests a remedy for any negative statuses if they can be corrected by
en/volunteer.wml 207) the user. Of course, this is just an example and the student is free to
en/volunteer.wml 208) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml 209) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 210) A student undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout
en/volunteer.wml 211) experience and some C++ development experience. Previous experience
en/volunteer.wml 212) with Qt and Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but not required. Some
en/volunteer.wml 213) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml 214) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml 215) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml 216) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml 217) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 218) 

en/volunteer.wml 219) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 220) A translation wiki
en/volunteer.wml 221) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 222) We require a way to edit and translate sections of the website &mdash;
en/volunteer.wml 223) possibly resulting in a patch for the official svn tree. The current
en/volunteer.wml 224) "cost" of publication of website changes is quite high even for English
en/volunteer.wml 225) language users. They need to check out our template files, translate them
en/volunteer.wml 226) and send us the translation. For a single word change or any type of
en/volunteer.wml 227) minor change, the page may never be corrected or translated.  It would
en/volunteer.wml 228) be nice to have a wiki that was specifically geared towards translation
en/volunteer.wml 229) and would somehow track the upstream (English) versions to indicate when
en/volunteer.wml 230) a fresh translation is needed. This seems mostly like a job for a wiki
en/volunteer.wml 231) integrator or wiki software author. Certainly the person would need to
en/volunteer.wml 232) be interested in human languages and translation. They should at least
en/volunteer.wml 233) be minimally familiar with what Tor is but would not have to interact
en/volunteer.wml 234) with the software, only the documentation on the website.
en/volunteer.wml 235) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 236) 
en/volunteer.wml 237) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 238) https://check.torproject.org
en/volunteer.wml 239) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 240) We currently have a functional web page to detect if Tor is working. It
en/volunteer.wml 241) is has a few places where it falls short. It requires improvements with
en/volunteer.wml 242) regard to default languages and functionality. It currently only responds
en/volunteer.wml 243) in English. In addition, it is a hack of a perl script that should have
en/volunteer.wml 244) never seen the light of day. It should probably be rewritten in python
en/volunteer.wml 245) with multi-lingual support in mind. It currently uses the Tor DNS exit
en/volunteer.wml 246) list and should continue to do so in the future. It may result in certain
en/volunteer.wml 247) false positives and these should be discovered, documented, and fixed
en/volunteer.wml 248) where possible. Anyone working on this project should be interested in
en/volunteer.wml 249) DNS, basic perl or preferably python programming skills and will have
en/volunteer.wml 250) to interact minimally with Tor to test their code.
en/volunteer.wml 251) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 252) 
en/volunteer.wml 253) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 254) exitlist.torproject.org
en/volunteer.wml 255) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 256) The exitlist software is written by our fabulous anonymous
en/volunteer.wml 257) contributer Tup. It's a haskel DNS server that supports part of our <a
en/volunteer.wml 258) href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/trunk/doc/contrib/torel-design.txt">exitlist
en/volunteer.wml 259) design document</a>. Currently, it's functional and it is used by
en/volunteer.wml 260) check.torproject.org and other users. The issues that are outstanding
en/volunteer.wml 261) are mostly aesthetic. This wonderful service could use a much better
en/volunteer.wml 262) website using the common Tor theme. It would be best served with better
en/volunteer.wml 263) documentation for common services that use an RBL. It could use more
en/volunteer.wml 264) publicity. A person working on this project should be interested in DNS,
en/volunteer.wml 265) basic RBL configuration for popular services, and writing documentation.
en/volunteer.wml 266) The person would require minimal Tor interaction &mdash; testing their
en/volunteer.wml 267) own documentation at the very least. Furthermore, it would be useful
en/volunteer.wml 268) if they were interested in haskel and wanted to implement more of the
en/volunteer.wml 269) torel-design.txt suggestions.
en/volunteer.wml 270) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 271) 
en/volunteer.wml 272) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 273) Testing Tor for end users
en/volunteer.wml 274) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 275) The Tor project currently lacks a solid test to ensure that a
en/volunteer.wml 276) user has a properly configured web browser. It should test for as
en/volunteer.wml 277) many known issues as possible. It should attempt to decloak the
en/volunteer.wml 278) user in any way possible.  Two current webpages that track these
en/volunteer.wml 279) kinds of issues are run by Greg and HD Moore. Greg keeps a nice <a
en/volunteer.wml 280) href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/tor/torbutton/">list of issues along
en/volunteer.wml 281) with their proof of concept code, bug issues, etc</a>. HD Moore runs
en/volunteer.wml 282) the <a href="http://metasploit.com/research/misc/decloak/">metasploit
en/volunteer.wml 283) decloak website</a>. A person interested in attacking Tor could start
en/volunteer.wml 284) by collecting as many workable and known methods for decloaking a
en/volunteer.wml 285) Tor user. The person should be familiar with the common pitfalls but
en/volunteer.wml 286) possibly have new methods in mind for implementing decloaking issues. The
en/volunteer.wml 287) website should ensure that it tells a user what their problem is. It
en/volunteer.wml 288) should help them to fix the problem or direct them to the proper support
en/volunteer.wml 289) channels. The person should be closely familiar with using Tor and how
en/volunteer.wml 290) to prevent Tor leakage.
en/volunteer.wml 291) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 292) 

en/volunteer.wml 293) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 294) Tor needs even better censorship resistance mechanisms.  There are
en/volunteer.wml 295) several mechanisms that can help.  Tor should be able listen on multiple
en/volunteer.wml 296) addresses and ports, and allow clients to connect to all of them.
en/volunteer.wml 297) Tor should be able to appear like a webserver (HTTP or HTTPS) when
en/volunteer.wml 298) contacted by port-scanning tools.
en/volunteer.wml 299) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 300) 
en/volunteer.wml 301) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 302) Tor should make better use of the more recent features of Niels Provos's
en/volunteer.wml 303) Libevent library.  Libevent already provides HTTP and socket buffers;
en/volunteer.wml 304) Tor's code for those could be replaced.  We'll need to improve libevent's
en/volunteer.wml 305) code as needed; particularly, to add good openssl support on top of
en/volunteer.wml 306) libevent's buffer abstraction.
en/volunteer.wml 307) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 308) 
en/volunteer.wml 309) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 310) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a distributed way, as in the
en/volunteer.wml 311) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/">"A Tuneup for Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml 312) by Snader and Borisov.  A student could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml 313) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml 314) dovetail with Tor in the wild, and determine good ways to incorporate them
en/volunteer.wml 315) into the Tor network without adding undesirable n^2 traffic properties
en/volunteer.wml 316) at the directory authorities.
en/volunteer.wml 317) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 318) 
en/volunteer.wml 319) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 320) Tor needs to be far more tested.  This is a multi-part effort.  To start
en/volunteer.wml 321) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml 322) the areas outside the utility functions.  This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml 323) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml 324) as possible from globals.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 325) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing.  We've got
en/volunteer.wml 326) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml 327) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 328) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 329) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 330) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml 331) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 332) 

en/volunteer.wml 333) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 334) Reanimate one of the approaches to implement a Tor client in Java,
en/volunteer.wml 335) e.g. the <a href="http://onioncoffee.sourceforge.net/">OnionCoffee
en/volunteer.wml 336) project</a>, and make it run on <a
en/volunteer.wml 337) href="http://code.google.com/android/">Android</a>. The first step
en/volunteer.wml 338) would be to port the existing code and execute it in an Android
en/volunteer.wml 339) environment. Next, the code should be updated to support the newer Tor
en/volunteer.wml 340) protocol versions like the <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/dir-spec.txt">v3
en/volunteer.wml 341) directory protocol</a>. Further, support for requesting or even
en/volunteer.wml 342) providing Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required. The
en/volunteer.wml 343) student should be able to understand and write new Java code, including
en/volunteer.wml 344) a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helping,
en/volunteer.wml 345) too. The student should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml 346) implement code based on it, and, if required, refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml 347) if things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml 348) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml 349) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 350) 
en/volunteer.wml 351) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 352) Write a tool that runs automatic system tests in addition
en/volunteer.wml 353) to the existing unit tests. The Java-based Tor simulator <a
en/volunteer.wml 354) href="https://tor-svn.freehaven.net/svn/puppetor/trunk/">PuppeTor</a>
en/volunteer.wml 355) might be a good start for starting up a private Tor network, using it
en/volunteer.wml 356) for a while, and verifying that at least parts of it are working. This
en/volunteer.wml 357) project requires to conceive a blueprint for performing system tests
en/volunteer.wml 358) of private Tor networks, before starting to code. Typical types of
en/volunteer.wml 359) tests range from performing single requests over the private network to
en/volunteer.wml 360) manipulating exchanged messages and see if nodes handle corrupt messages
en/volunteer.wml 361) appropriately. The student should be able to obtain a good understanding
en/volunteer.wml 362) of how Tor works and what problems and bugs could arise to design good
en/volunteer.wml 363) test cases. Understanding the existing Tor code and documentation is
en/volunteer.wml 364) vital. If PuppeTor is used, the student should also be able to understand
en/volunteer.wml 365) and possibly extend an existing Java application. This project is partly
en/volunteer.wml 366) about design and partly about coding.
en/volunteer.wml 367) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 368) 
en/volunteer.wml 369) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 370) Implement a <a href="http://www.ss64.com/bash/top.html">top-like</a>
en/volunteer.wml 371) management tool for Tor relays. The purpose of such a tool would be
en/volunteer.wml 372) to monitor a local Tor relay via its control port and include useful
en/volunteer.wml 373) system information of the underlying machine. When running this tool, it
en/volunteer.wml 374) would dynamically update its content like top does for Linux processes.
en/volunteer.wml 375) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Jan-2008/msg00005.html">This
en/volunteer.wml 376) or-dev post</a> might be a good first read. The student should be familiar
en/volunteer.wml 377) with or willing to learn about administering a Tor relay and configuring
en/volunteer.wml 378) it via its control port. As an initial prototype is written in Python,
en/volunteer.wml 379) some knowledge about writing Python code would be helpful, too. This
en/volunteer.wml 380) project is for the one part about identifying requirements to such a
en/volunteer.wml 381) tool and designing its interface; but on the other part, the project
en/volunteer.wml 382) also requires a lot of coding.
en/volunteer.wml 383) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 384) 

en/volunteer.wml 385) <li>Help Mike Perry on his <a
en/volunteer.wml 386) href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/torflow/">TorFlow</a>
en/volunteer.wml 387) library (<a href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/torflow/TODO">TODO</a>):
en/volunteer.wml 388) it's a python library that uses the <a
en/volunteer.wml 389) href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/torctl/doc/howto.txt">Tor controller
en/volunteer.wml 390) protocol</a> to instruct Tor to build circuits in a variety of ways,
en/volunteer.wml 391) and then it measures performance and tries to detect anomalies.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 392) <li>Torflow / soat to detect bad relays and automatically get that
en/volunteer.wml 393) info to the directory authorities for realtime blacklisting</li>
en/volunteer.wml 394) <li>Torstatus. Set up an automated system for tracking network health
en/volunteer.wml 395) over time, graphing it, etc. Better metrics for assessing network
en/volunteer.wml 396) health and growth.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 397) <li>vidalia and upnp</li>
en/volunteer.wml 398) <li>nymble</li>

en/volunteer.wml 399) 
en/volunteer.wml 400) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 401) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml 402) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml 403) Windows. 1) handle spaces in path names and understand the filesystem
en/volunteer.wml 404) namespace &mdash; namespace meaning where application data, personal data,
en/volunteer.wml 405) and program data typically reside in various versions of Windows. 2) the
en/volunteer.wml 406) ability to handle ipv6 communications. 3) the ability to asynchronously
en/volunteer.wml 407) query name servers, find the system nameservers, and manage netbios
en/volunteer.wml 408) and dns queries. 4) use native regex capabilities of Windows, rather
en/volunteer.wml 409) than using 3rd party GNU regex libraries. 5) manage events and buffers
en/volunteer.wml 410) natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes, Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in
en/volunteer.wml 411) Windows it's whatever the config specifies). 6) some sort of GUI config
en/volunteer.wml 412) and reporting tool, bonus if it has a systray icon with right clickable
en/volunteer.wml 413) menu options. Double bonus if it's cross-platform compatible.
en/volunteer.wml 414) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 415) 
en/volunteer.wml 416) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 417) a way to generate the website diagrams from source, so we can translate
en/volunteer.wml 418) them as utf-8 text rather than with gimp. (svg? or imagemagick?)
en/volunteer.wml 419) integrate this with a wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml 420) generated in multiple languages at web publish
en/volunteer.wml 421) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 422) 

en/volunteer.wml 423) <li>How can we make the <a
en/volunteer.wml 424) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>
en/volunteer.wml 425) easier to maintain, improve, and document?</li>
en/volunteer.wml 426) <li>We need a distributed testing framework. We have unit tests,
en/volunteer.wml 427) but it would be great to have a script that starts up a Tor network, uses
en/volunteer.wml 428) it for a while, and verifies that at least parts of it are working.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 429) 
en/volunteer.wml 430) <li>Don't like any of these? Look at the <a
en/volunteer.wml 431) href="<svnsandbox>doc/design-paper/roadmap-future.pdf">Tor development
en/volunteer.wml 432) roadmap</a> for more ideas.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 433) <li>Don't see your idea here? We probably need it anyway! Contact
en/volunteer.wml 434) us and find out.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 435) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml 436) 

en/volunteer.wml 437) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Coding">Coding and Design</a></h2>

volunteer.html   438) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml 439) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml 440) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml 441) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml 442) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml 443) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml 444) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml 445) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml 446) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml 447) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml 448) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a
en/volunteer.wml 449) <a href="https://tor-svn.freehaven.net/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good
en/volunteer.wml 450) start</a> on this last summer.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 451) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 452) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml 453) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting
en/volunteer.wml 454) <a href="http://vidalia-project.net/">Vidalia</a> so it supports the
en/volunteer.wml 455) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 456) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml 457) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml 458) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml 459) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml 460) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml 461) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml 462) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml 463) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml 464) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 465) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml 466) via OpenSSL. Nobody has ever tested it, though. Does somebody want to get

volunteer.html   467) a card and let us know how it goes?</li>

volunteer.html   468) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html   469) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml 470) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html   471) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

volunteer.html   472) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html   473) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html   474) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html   475) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml 476) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml 477) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml 478) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml 479) href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification
en/volunteer.wml 480) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml 481) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

volunteer.html   482) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html   483) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html   484) first place to start.</li>

volunteer.html   485) </ol>
volunteer.html   486) 

en/volunteer.wml 487) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 488) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html   489) <ol>

volunteer.html   490) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html   491) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html   492) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html   493) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html   494) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html   495) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html   496) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html   497) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html   498) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html   499) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html   500) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html   501) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html   502) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html   503) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html   504) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html   505) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html   506) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html   507) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html   508) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html   509) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html   510) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html   511) schemes work better than others?</li>

volunteer.html   512) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html   513) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html   514) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html   515) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html   516) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html   517) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html   518) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html   519) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html   520) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html   521) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 522) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml 523) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml 524) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml 525) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml 526) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml 527) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml 528) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 529) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html   530) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html   531) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html   532) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html   533) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html   534) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html   535) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html   536) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html   537) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html   538) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html   539) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html   540) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html   541) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html   542) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html   543) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html   544) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html   545) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html   546) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html   547) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

volunteer.html   548) <li>To let dissidents in remote countries use Tor without being blocked
volunteer.html   549) at their country's firewall, we need a way to get tens of thousands of
volunteer.html   550) relays, not just a few hundred. We can imagine a Tor client GUI that

en/volunteer.wml 551) has a "Tor for Freedom" button at the top that opens a port and relays a

volunteer.html   552) few KB/s of traffic into the Tor network. (A few KB/s shouldn't be too
volunteer.html   553) much hassle, and there are few abuse issues since they're not being exit
volunteer.html   554) nodes.) But how do we distribute a list of these volunteer clients to the
volunteer.html   555) good dissidents in an automated way that doesn't let the country-level
volunteer.html   556) firewalls intercept and enumerate them? Probably needs to work on a

en/volunteer.wml 557) human-trust level. See our <a href="<page documentation>#DesignDoc">early
en/volunteer.wml 558) blocking-resistance design document</a> and our
en/volunteer.wml 559) <a

en/volunteer.wml 560) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#BlockingResistance">FAQ

en/volunteer.wml 561) entry</a> on this, and then read the <a
en/volunteer.wml 562) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/topic.html#Communications_20Censorship">censorship
en/volunteer.wml 563) resistance section of anonbib</a>.</li>

volunteer.html   564) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html   565) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html   566) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml 567) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html   568) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html   569) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html   570) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 571) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html   572) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html   573) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

volunteer.html   574) </ol>
volunteer.html   575) 

en/volunteer.wml 576) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 577) of these!

volunteer.html   578) 

en/volunteer.wml 579)   </div><!-- #main -->

volunteer.html   580) 

en/volunteer.wml 581) #include <foot.wmi>