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

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

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

volunteer.html    11) <ol>

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  27) <p>Tor has <a href="<page open-positions>">two open positions</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  28) please <a href="<page contact>">contact us</a> if you are qualified!</p>
en/volunteer.wml  29) 

en/volunteer.wml  30) <a id="Usability"></a>

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

volunteer.html    32) <ol>

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  48) </li>

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  56) </li>

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  67) <li>Create a <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/CommunityLogos">community logo</a> under a Creative Commons license that all can use and modify</li>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

volunteer.html    81) <ol>

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

en/volunteer.wml  83) Tor controller,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml 121) <li>

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

en/volunteer.wml 123) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml 125) <br />

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

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

en/volunteer.wml 131) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 132) The Tor Browser Bundle incorporates Tor, Firefox, Polipo, and the Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 133) user interface (and optionally the <a href="http://pidgin.im/">Pidgin</a>
en/volunteer.wml 134) Instant Messaging client). Components are pre-configured to operate in a
en/volunteer.wml 135) secure way, and it has very few dependencies on the installed operating
en/volunteer.wml 136) system. It has therefore become one of the most easy to use, and popular,
en/volunteer.wml 137) ways to use Tor on Windows.

en/volunteer.wml 138) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 139) However, there is currently no released package for Linux and Mac OS
en/volunteer.wml 140) X, so this project would be to implement Tor Browser Bundle for OS X and
en/volunteer.wml 141) continue work on the Tor Browser Bundle for Linux. This will involve modifications to Vidalia (C++), possibly

en/volunteer.wml 142) Firefox (C) then creating and testing the launcher on a range of

en/volunteer.wml 143) operating system versions and configurations to verify portability.
en/volunteer.wml 144) Some work on this was completed as part of the Google Summer of Code
en/volunteer.wml 145) 2009. Another part of this project is to identify all of the traces left
en/volunteer.wml 146) behind by using a Tor Browser Bundle on Mac OS X or Linux.  Developing
en/volunteer.wml 147) ways to stop, counter, or remove these traces is a final step.

en/volunteer.wml 148) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 149) Students should be familiar with application development on one or
en/volunteer.wml 150) preferably both of Linux and Mac OS X, and be comfortable with C/C++
en/volunteer.wml 151) and shell scripting.
en/volunteer.wml 152) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 153) Part of this project could be usability testing of Tor Browser Bundle,

en/volunteer.wml 154) ideally amongst our target demographic.  That would help a lot in knowing
en/volunteer.wml 155) what needs to be done in terms of bug fixes or new features. We get this
en/volunteer.wml 156) informally at the moment, but a more structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml 157) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 158) 

en/volunteer.wml 159) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 160) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</b>

en/volunteer.wml 161) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 162) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 163) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 164) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 165) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 166) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 167) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 168) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml 169) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 170) It would be great to set up an automated system for tracking network
en/volunteer.wml 171) health over time, graphing it, etc. Part of this project would involve
en/volunteer.wml 172) inventing better metrics for assessing network health and growth. Is the
en/volunteer.wml 173) average uptime of the network increasing? How many relays are qualifying
en/volunteer.wml 174) for Guard status this month compared to last month? What's the turnover
en/volunteer.wml 175) in terms of new relays showing up and relays shutting off? Periodically
en/volunteer.wml 176) people collect brief snapshots, but where it gets really interesting is
en/volunteer.wml 177) when we start tracking data points over time.
en/volunteer.wml 178) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 179) Data could be collected from the Tor Network Scanners in <a
en/volunteer.wml 180) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>, from

en/volunteer.wml 181) the server descriptors that each relay publishes, and from other
en/volunteer.wml 182) sources. Results over time could be integrated into one of the <a
en/volunteer.wml 183) href="https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/">Tor Status</a> web pages, or be
en/volunteer.wml 184) kept separate. Speaking of the Tor Status pages, take a look at Roger's
en/volunteer.wml 185) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2008/msg00300.html">Tor
en/volunteer.wml 186) Status wish list</a>.
en/volunteer.wml 187) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 188) 
en/volunteer.wml 189) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 190) <b>Improving Tor's ability to resist censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml 191) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 192) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 193) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 194) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 195) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 196) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 197) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 198) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Steven</i>

en/volunteer.wml 199) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 200) The Tor 0.2.1.x series makes <a

en/volunteer.wml 201) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html">significant

en/volunteer.wml 202) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml 203) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its
en/volunteer.wml 204) anti-censorship design.  For example, current Tors can only listen on a
en/volunteer.wml 205) single address/port combination at a time.  There's

en/volunteer.wml 206) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a

en/volunteer.wml 207) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml 208) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more

en/volunteer.wml 209) work.  Another anti-censorship project is to try to make Tor
en/volunteer.wml 210) more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify <a
en/volunteer.wml 211) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>
en/volunteer.wml 212) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol,
en/volunteer.wml 213) and seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could <a
en/volunteer.wml 214) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like

en/volunteer.wml 215) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml 216) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml 217) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 218) This project involves a lot of research and design. One of the big
en/volunteer.wml 219) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml 220) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 221) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml 222) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 223) 

en/volunteer.wml 224) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 225) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>

en/volunteer.wml 226) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 227) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 228) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 229) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 230) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 231) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 232) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 233) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike, Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml 234) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 235) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml 236) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml 237) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml 238) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml 239) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml 240) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml 241) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml 242) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,
en/volunteer.wml 243) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml 244) as described in the
en/volunteer.wml 245) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml 246) Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml 247) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml 248) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml 249) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml 250) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too
en/volunteer.wml 251) much communications overhead between relays and directory
en/volunteer.wml 252) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml 253) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 254) 
en/volunteer.wml 255) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 256) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml 257) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 258) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 259) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 260) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 261) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 262) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 263) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 264) Likely Mentors: <i>Chris</i>

en/volunteer.wml 265) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 266) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml 267) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml 268) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:

en/volunteer.wml 269) <ol><li> the ability to asynchronously query name servers, find the
en/volunteer.wml 270) system nameservers, and manage netbios and dns queries.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 271) <li> manage events and buffers natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes,
en/volunteer.wml 272) Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in Windows it's whatever the config
en/volunteer.wml 273) specifies).</li>
en/volunteer.wml 274) <li> some sort of GUI config and reporting tool, bonus if it has a
en/volunteer.wml 275) systray icon with right clickable menu options. Double bonus if it's
en/volunteer.wml 276) cross-platform compatible.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 277) <li> allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml 278) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"</li>
en/volunteer.wml 279) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml 280) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 281) 

en/volunteer.wml 282) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 283) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface for Vidalia</b>

en/volunteer.wml 284) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 285) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 286) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 287) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 288) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 289) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 290) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 291) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 292) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 293) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml 294) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml 295) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml 296) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml 297) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml 298) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml 299) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml 300) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml 301) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 302) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml 303) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml 304) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml 305) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml 306) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 307) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml 308) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml 309) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml 310) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml 311) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml 312) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml 313) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml 314) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml 315) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 316) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml 317) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml 318) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml 319) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml 320) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml 321) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml 322) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml 323) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 324) 

en/volunteer.wml 325) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 326) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>

en/volunteer.wml 327) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 328) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 329) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 330) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 331) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 332) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 333) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 334) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml 335) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 336) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml 337) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml 338) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml 339) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml 340) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml 341) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 342) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml 343) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml 344) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml 345) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml 346) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml 347) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 348) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 349) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml 350) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 351) 
en/volunteer.wml 352) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 353) <b>Help with independent Tor client implementations</b>

en/volunteer.wml 354) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 355) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 356) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 357) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 358) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 359) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 360) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 361) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Nick</i>
en/volunteer.wml 362) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 363) Others are currently working on Tor clients for Java, Android, and Maemo

en/volunteer.wml 364) environments.  The first step is to get a handle on the current state of

en/volunteer.wml 365) the project in which you are interested in helping; <a

en/volunteer.wml 366) href="http://github.com/brl/JTor">Tor for Java</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 367) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/">Android/Orbot</a>
en/volunteer.wml 368) , or Tor for Maemo. Check out the repository and familiarlize yourself
en/volunteer.wml 369) with the source code.  Further, support for requesting or even providing
en/volunteer.wml 370) Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.

en/volunteer.wml 371) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 372) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java

en/volunteer.wml 373) code, including a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml 374) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml 375) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml 376) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml 377) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml 378) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 379) 
en/volunteer.wml 380) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 381) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 382) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 383) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 384) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 385) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 386) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 387) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 388) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 389) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 390) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml 391) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml 392) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml 393) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml 394) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml 395) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 396) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml 397) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 398) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml 399) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml 400) <a
en/volunteer.wml 401) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml 402) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 403) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml 404) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml 405) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml 406) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml 407) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml 408) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 409) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml 410) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 411) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.
en/volunteer.wml 412) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 413) 

en/volunteer.wml 414) <!-- <li>

en/volunteer.wml 415) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 416) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 417) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 418) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 419) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 420) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 421) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 422) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 423) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 424) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 425) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml 426) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml 427) features to consider include:

en/volunteer.wml 428) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml 429) <li> Integration of the <a

en/volunteer.wml 430) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml 431) Python library</a>

en/volunteer.wml 432) for authenticated HTTPS downloads.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 433) <li> Adding a level of indirection

en/volunteer.wml 434) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an

en/volunteer.wml 435) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 436) <li> Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted

en/volunteer.wml 437) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml 438) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml 439) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and

en/volunteer.wml 440) Python proficiency.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 441) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml 442) </li> -->

en/volunteer.wml 443) 
en/volunteer.wml 444) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 445) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml 446) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 447) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 448) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 449) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 450) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 451) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 452) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 453) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml 454) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 455) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml 456) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml 457) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml 458) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml 459) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml 460) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 461) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml 462) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml 463) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml 464) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml 465) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml 466) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 467) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml 468) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml 469) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml 470) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml 471) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml 472) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 473) 
en/volunteer.wml 474) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 475) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 476) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 477) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 478) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 479) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 480) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 481) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 482) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 483) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 484) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 485) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml 486) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml 487) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml 488) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml 489) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml 490) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml 491) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml 492) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml 493) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml 494) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml 495) from here."
en/volunteer.wml 496) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 497) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 498) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml 499) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml 500) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml 501) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml 502) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 503) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 504) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml 505) required.
en/volunteer.wml 506) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 507) 
en/volunteer.wml 508) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 509) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml 510) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 511) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 512) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 513) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 514) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 515) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 516) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 517) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 518) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 519) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml 520) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml 521) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml 522) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml 523) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml 524) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 525) 

en/volunteer.wml 526) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 527) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</b>
en/volunteer.wml 528) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 529) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 530) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 531) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 532) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 533) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 534) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 535) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 536) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 537) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml 538) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml 539) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml 540) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml 541) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml 542) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml 543) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.

en/volunteer.wml 544) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 545) 

en/volunteer.wml 546) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 547) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml 548) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 549) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 550) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 551) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 552) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 553) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 554) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 555) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml 556) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 557) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml 558) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml 559) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml 560) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml 561) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml 562) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml 563) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml 564) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml 565) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml 566) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml 567) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml 568) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml 569) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml 570) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml 571) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml 572) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml 573) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml 574) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 575) 

en/volunteer.wml 576) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 577) <b>Better Debian/Ubuntu Packaging for Tor+Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 578) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 579) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml 580) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml 581) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a

en/volunteer.wml 582) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined

en/volunteer.wml 583) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml 584) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml 585) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml 586) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml 587) ports — they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml 588) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 589) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml 590) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml 591) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml 592) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml 593) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml 594) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml 595) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml 596) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml 597) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 598) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml 599) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml 600) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml 601) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml 602) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml 603) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 604) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 605) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml 606) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml 607) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml 608) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts
en/volunteer.wml 609) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml 610) best idea
en/volunteer.wml 611) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml 612) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml 613) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml 614) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 615) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml 616) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml 617) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 618) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 619) 

en/volunteer.wml 620) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 621) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml 622) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 623) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml 624) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml 625) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml 626) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml 627) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml 628) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml 629) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml 630) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml 631) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml 632) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml 633) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml 634) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml 635) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 636) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml 637) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml 638) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml 639) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml 640) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 641) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml 642) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml 643) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml 644) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 645) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 646) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml 647) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml 648) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml 649) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml 650) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml 651) with others prior to implementation.

en/volunteer.wml 652) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 653) 

en/volunteer.wml 654) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 655) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for builds</b>

en/volunteer.wml 656) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 657) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml 658) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml 659) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml 660) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 661) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml 662) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml 663) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml 664) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 665) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml 666) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml 667) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml 668) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml 669) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml 670) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml 671) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml 672) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 673) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml 674) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml 675) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml 676) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 677) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 678) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 679) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml 680) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 681) 

en/volunteer.wml 682) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 683) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml 684) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 685) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 686) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 687) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 688) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 689) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 690) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 691) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml 692) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml 697) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 698) 
en/volunteer.wml 699) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 700) <b>An authenticating IRC proxy</b>
en/volunteer.wml 701) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 702) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 703) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 704) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 705) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 706) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 707) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 708) Likely Mentors: <i>Sebastian, Weasel, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml 709) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 710) The world needs an authenticating irc proxy. As we're periodically
en/volunteer.wml 711) reminded from the Penny Arcade web comic, "Internet user + anonymity =
en/volunteer.wml 712) jerk". With respect to websites we're actually doing ok, since websites
en/volunteer.wml 713) can make their users log in and use other application-level authentication
en/volunteer.wml 714) approaches. But IRC servers are much worse off, because most IRC server
en/volunteer.wml 715) code is poorly written: hard to maintain, and harder to modify. Many
en/volunteer.wml 716) IRC networks now block connections from Tor, and we're basically down to
en/volunteer.wml 717) two holdouts (OFTC and Freenode). This state of affairs means that a lot
en/volunteer.wml 718) of people around the world are thinking "I told you so" about anonymity
en/volunteer.wml 719) online, when in fact the problem is simply lack of technology to make the
en/volunteer.wml 720) problem manageable. We need some way to let the IRC networks distinguish
en/volunteer.wml 721) which users have developed a reputation as not being jerks, so they can
en/volunteer.wml 722) treat the two groups separately. There are some really cool research
en/volunteer.wml 723) designs like <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~nymble/">Nymble</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 724) which aim to let websites blacklist users without needing to learn who
en/volunteer.wml 725) they are.  But Nymble is designed around web interactions. We need to
en/volunteer.wml 726) build the glue around the IRC protocol that would let us plug in a project
en/volunteer.wml 727) like Nymble (or a simpler one to start, as a proof-of-concept). One way
en/volunteer.wml 728) to do that would be to build an IRC proxy that knows how to hear from
en/volunteer.wml 729) IRC clients, knows how to talk to IRC servers, and has an additional
en/volunteer.wml 730) layer that requires the users to authenticate.
en/volunteer.wml 731) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 732) 
en/volunteer.wml 733) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 734) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml 735) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 736) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a
en/volunteer.wml 737) href="<gitblob>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development
en/volunteer.wml 738) roadmap</a> for more ideas.
en/volunteer.wml 739) Some of the <a href="<gittree>doc/spec/proposals">current proposals</a>
en/volunteer.wml 740) might also be short on developers.
en/volunteer.wml 741) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 742) 

en/volunteer.wml 743) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml 744) 

en/volunteer.wml 745) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 746) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html   747) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml 748) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml 749) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml 750) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml 751) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml 752) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml 753) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml 754) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml 755) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml 756) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml 757) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml 758) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml 759) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 760) 

en/volunteer.wml 761) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 762) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml 763) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml 764) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml 765) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 766) 

en/volunteer.wml 767) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml 768) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml 769) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml 770) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml 771) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml 772) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml 773) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml 774) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml 775) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 776) 

en/volunteer.wml 777) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml 778) 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 779) 

volunteer.html   780) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html   781) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml 782) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html   783) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml 784) 

volunteer.html   785) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html   786) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html   787) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html   788) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml 789) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml 790) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml 791) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml 792) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification

en/volunteer.wml 793) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml 794) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 795) 

volunteer.html   796) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html   797) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html   798) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 799) 
en/volunteer.wml 800) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml 801) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml 802) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml 803) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml 804) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml 805) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 806) 

en/volunteer.wml 807) <li>How can we make the various LiveCD/USB systems easier
en/volunteer.wml 808) to maintain, improve, and document?  Some examples are <a

en/volunteer.wml 809) href="http://amnesia.boum.org/">amnesia LiveCD/USB</a> and the <a

en/volunteer.wml 810) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>

en/volunteer.wml 811) </li>

volunteer.html   812) </ol>
volunteer.html   813) 

en/volunteer.wml 814) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 815) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html   816) <ol>

volunteer.html   817) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html   818) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html   819) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html   820) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html   821) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html   822) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html   823) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html   824) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html   825) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html   826) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html   827) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html   828) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html   829) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html   830) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html   831) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html   832) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html   833) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html   834) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html   835) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html   836) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html   837) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html   838) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 839) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml 840) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml 841) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml 842) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml 843) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml 844) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml 845) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml 846) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml 847) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 848) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml 849) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml 850) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml 851) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml 852) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml 853) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 854) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml 855) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml 856) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml 857) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml 858) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml 859) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml 860) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml 861) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml 862) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml 863) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml 864) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml 865) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml 866) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml 867) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml 868) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html   869) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html   870) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html   871) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html   872) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html   873) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html   874) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html   875) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html   876) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html   877) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html   878) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 879) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml 880) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml 881) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml 882) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml 883) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml 884) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml 885) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 886) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html   887) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html   888) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html   889) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html   890) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html   891) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html   892) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html   893) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html   894) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html   895) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html   896) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html   897) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html   898) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html   899) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html   900) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html   901) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html   902) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html   903) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html   904) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 905) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml 906) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml 907) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml 908) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml 909) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml 910) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml 911) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml 912) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml 913) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml 914) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml 915) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html   916) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html   917) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html   918) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml 919) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html   920) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html   921) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html   922) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 923) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html   924) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html   925) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 926) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml 927) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml 928) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml 929) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml 930) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml 931) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml 932) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml 933) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml 934) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml 935) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml 936) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml 937) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml 938) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml 939) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml 940) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 941) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 942) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 943) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 944) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 945) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 946) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 947) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 948) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 949) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 950) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 951) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 952) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 953) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 954) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 955) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 956) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 957) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 958) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 959) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 960) </li>

volunteer.html   961) </ol>
volunteer.html   962) 

en/volunteer.wml 963) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 964) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 965) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 966) </p>

volunteer.html   967) 

en/volunteer.wml 968)   </div><!-- #main -->

volunteer.html   969)