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volunteer.html      4) 

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

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

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

volunteer.html     11) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml   29) 

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

volunteer.html     32) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml   80) <li>

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

en/volunteer.wml   82) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml   84) <br />

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

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

en/volunteer.wml   90) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml   97) <br />

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  124) <br />

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  132) <br />

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  161) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike, Roger, Sebastian, Damian</i>

en/volunteer.wml  162) <br />

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  201) <br />

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  207) <br />

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  210) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml  211) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its

en/volunteer.wml  212) anti-censorship design.
en/volunteer.wml  213) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  214) One huge category of work is adding features to our <a
en/volunteer.wml  215) href="http://gitweb.torproject.org//bridgedb.git?a=tree">bridgedb</a>
en/volunteer.wml  216) service (Python). Tor aims to give out <a href="<page bridges>">bridge
en/volunteer.wml  217) relay addresses</a> to users that can't reach the Tor network
en/volunteer.wml  218) directly, but there's an arms race between algorithms for distributing
en/volunteer.wml  219) addresses and algorithms for gathering and blocking them. See <a
en/volunteer.wml  220) href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/bridge-distribution-strategies">our
en/volunteer.wml  221) blog post on the topic</a> as an overview, and then look at <a
en/volunteer.wml  222) href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Dec-2009/msg00000.html">Roger's
en/volunteer.wml  223) or-dev post</a> from December for more recent thoughts &mdash; lots of
en/volunteer.wml  224) design work remains.
en/volunteer.wml  225) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  226) If you want to get more into the guts of Tor itself (C), a more minor problem

en/volunteer.wml  227) we should address is that current Tors can only listen on a single
en/volunteer.wml  228) address/port combination at a time. There's

en/volunteer.wml  229) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a

en/volunteer.wml  230) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml  231) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more

en/volunteer.wml  232) work.
en/volunteer.wml  233) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  234) This project could involve a lot of research and design. One of the big

en/volunteer.wml  235) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml  236) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  237) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml  238) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  239) 

en/volunteer.wml  240) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  241) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>

en/volunteer.wml  242) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  243) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  244) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  245) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  246) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  247) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  248) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  249) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike, Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml  250) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  251) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml  252) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml  253) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml  254) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml  255) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml  256) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml  257) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml  258) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,
en/volunteer.wml  259) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml  260) as described in the
en/volunteer.wml  261) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml  262) Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml  263) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml  264) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml  265) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml  266) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too
en/volunteer.wml  267) much communications overhead between relays and directory
en/volunteer.wml  268) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml  269) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  270) 
en/volunteer.wml  271) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  272) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml  273) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  274) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  275) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  276) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  277) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  278) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  279) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  280) Likely Mentors: <i>Chris</i>

en/volunteer.wml  281) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  282) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml  283) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml  284) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:

en/volunteer.wml  285) <ol><li> the ability to asynchronously query name servers, find the
en/volunteer.wml  286) system nameservers, and manage netbios and dns queries.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  287) <li> manage events and buffers natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes,
en/volunteer.wml  288) Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in Windows it's whatever the config
en/volunteer.wml  289) specifies).</li>
en/volunteer.wml  290) <li> some sort of GUI config and reporting tool, bonus if it has a
en/volunteer.wml  291) systray icon with right clickable menu options. Double bonus if it's
en/volunteer.wml  292) cross-platform compatible.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  293) <li> allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml  294) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"</li>
en/volunteer.wml  295) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml  296) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  297) 

en/volunteer.wml  298) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  299) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface for Vidalia</b>

en/volunteer.wml  300) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  301) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  302) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  303) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  304) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  305) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  306) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  307) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml  308) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  309) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml  310) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml  311) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml  312) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml  313) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml  314) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml  315) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml  316) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml  317) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  318) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml  319) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml  320) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml  321) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml  322) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  323) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml  324) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml  325) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml  326) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml  327) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml  328) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml  329) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml  330) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml  331) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  332) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml  333) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml  334) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml  335) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml  336) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml  337) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml  338) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml  339) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  340) 

en/volunteer.wml  341) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  342) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>

en/volunteer.wml  343) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  344) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  345) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  346) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  347) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  348) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  349) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  350) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Erinn</i>

en/volunteer.wml  351) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  352) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml  353) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml  354) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml  355) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml  356) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml  357) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  358) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml  359) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml  360) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml  361) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml  362) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml  363) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  364) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml  365) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml  366) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  367) 
en/volunteer.wml  368) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  369) <b>Help with independent Tor client implementations</b>

en/volunteer.wml  370) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  371) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  372) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  373) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  374) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  375) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  376) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  377) Likely Mentors: <i>Bruce, Nathan</i>

en/volunteer.wml  378) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  379) Others are currently working on Tor clients for Java, Android, and Maemo

en/volunteer.wml  380) environments.  The first step is to get a handle on the current state of

en/volunteer.wml  381) the project in which you are interested in helping; <a

en/volunteer.wml  382) href="http://github.com/brl/JTor">Tor for Java</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  383) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/">Android/Orbot</a>

en/volunteer.wml  384) , or <a href="<page docs/N900>">Tor for Maemo</a>. Check out the
en/volunteer.wml  385) repository and familiarize yourself

en/volunteer.wml  386) with the source code.  Further, support for requesting or even providing
en/volunteer.wml  387) Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.

en/volunteer.wml  388) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  389) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java

en/volunteer.wml  390) code, including a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml  391) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml  392) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml  393) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml  394) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml  395) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  396) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  397) <b>More on Orbot &amp; Android OS-specific development</b>
en/volunteer.wml  398) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml  399) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  400) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  401) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  402) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  403) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  404) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  405) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  406) Likely Mentors: <i>Nathan</i>
en/volunteer.wml  407) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  408) 
en/volunteer.wml  409) <b>Android Java UI work:</b> Improved home screen to show better statistics about data transferred (up/down), number of circuits connected, quality of connection and so on. The "Tether Wifi" Android application is a good model to follow in how it shows a realtime count of bytes transferred as well as notifications when wifi client connect. In addition, better display/handling of Tor system/error messages would also be very helpful. Finally, the addition of a wizard or tutorial walkthrough for novice users to explain to them exactly what or what is not anonymized or protected would greatly improve the likelihood they will use Orbot correctly.
en/volunteer.wml  410) <br/><br/>
en/volunteer.wml  411) 
en/volunteer.wml  412) <b>Android Java OS/Core app work:</b> Better system-wide indicator either via the notification bar, "Toast" pop-up dialogs or some other indicator that an application's traffic is indeed moving through Orbot/Tor. For instance, right now you need to first go to a torcheck web service to ensure your browser is routing via Tor. Orbot should be able to notify you that circuits are being opened, used, etc. The aforementioned data transfer tracker might provide this type of awareness as well.
en/volunteer.wml  413) 
en/volunteer.wml  414) <br/><br/>
en/volunteer.wml  415) <b>Android Java Library/Community Outreach work:</b> We need to package a simple library for use with third-party application to easily enable them to support "Torification" on non-root devices (aka w/o transparent proxying). This library should include a wrapper for the Apache HTTPClient library, a utility class for detecting the state of Orbot connectivity, and other relevant/useful things an Android app might need to anonymize itself. This work would include the creation of the library, documentation, and sample code. Outreach or effort to implement the library within other open-source apps would follow.
en/volunteer.wml  416) 
en/volunteer.wml  417) <br/><br/>
en/volunteer.wml  418) <b>Android OS/C/Linux work:</b> The port of Tor to Android is basically a straight cross-compile to Linux ARM. There has been no work done in looking the optimization of Tor within a mobile hardware environment, on the ARM processor or other Android hardware, or on mobile networks. It should be noted, that even without optimization, Tor is handling the mobile network environment very well, automatically detecting change in IP addresses, reconnecting circuits, etc across switching from 2G to 3G to Wifi, and so forth. 
en/volunteer.wml  419) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  420) 

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

en/volunteer.wml  422) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml  423) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  424) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  425) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  426) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  427) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  428) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  429) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  430) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  431) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml  432) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml  433) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml  434) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml  435) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml  436) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  437) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml  438) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  439) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml  440) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml  441) <a
en/volunteer.wml  442) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml  443) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  444) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml  445) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml  446) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml  447) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml  448) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml  449) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  450) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml  451) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  452) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.

en/volunteer.wml  453) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  454) 

en/volunteer.wml  455) <!-- <li>

en/volunteer.wml  456) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml  457) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  458) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  459) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  460) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  461) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  462) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  463) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  464) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  465) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  466) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml  467) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml  468) features to consider include:

en/volunteer.wml  469) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml  470) <li> Integration of the <a

en/volunteer.wml  471) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml  472) Python library</a>

en/volunteer.wml  473) for authenticated HTTPS downloads.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  474) <li> Adding a level of indirection

en/volunteer.wml  475) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an

en/volunteer.wml  476) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  477) <li> Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted

en/volunteer.wml  478) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml  479) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml  480) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and

en/volunteer.wml  481) Python proficiency.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  482) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml  483) </li> -->

en/volunteer.wml  484) 
en/volunteer.wml  485) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  486) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml  487) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  488) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  489) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  490) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  491) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  492) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  493) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  494) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml  495) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  496) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml  497) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml  498) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml  499) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml  500) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml  501) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  502) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml  503) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml  504) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml  505) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml  506) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml  507) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  508) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml  509) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml  510) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml  511) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml  512) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml  513) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  514) 
en/volunteer.wml  515) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  516) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml  517) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  518) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  519) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  520) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  521) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  522) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  523) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  524) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml  525) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  526) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml  527) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml  528) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml  529) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml  530) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml  531) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml  532) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml  533) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml  534) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml  535) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml  536) from here."
en/volunteer.wml  537) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  538) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  539) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml  540) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml  541) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml  542) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml  543) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  544) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  545) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml  546) required.
en/volunteer.wml  547) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  548) 
en/volunteer.wml  549) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  550) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml  551) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  552) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  553) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  554) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  555) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  556) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  557) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  558) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  559) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  560) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml  561) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml  562) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml  563) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml  564) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml  565) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  566) 

en/volunteer.wml  567) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  568) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</b>
en/volunteer.wml  569) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  570) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml  571) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  572) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  573) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  574) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  575) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  576) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  577) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  578) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml  579) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml  580) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml  581) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml  582) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml  583) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml  584) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.

en/volunteer.wml  585) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  586) 

en/volunteer.wml  587) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  588) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml  589) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  590) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  591) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  592) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  593) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  594) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  595) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  596) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger, Damian</i>

en/volunteer.wml  597) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  598) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml  599) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml  600) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml  601) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml  602) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml  603) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml  604) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml  605) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml  606) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml  607) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml  608) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml  609) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml  610) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml  611) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml  612) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml  613) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml  614) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml  615) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  616) 

en/volunteer.wml  617) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  618) <b>Improvements for Tor+Vidalia interaction on Linux/Unix platforms</b>

en/volunteer.wml  619) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  620) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  621) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  622) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  623) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  624) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  625) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  626) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn, Peter</i>
en/volunteer.wml  627) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  628) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely with Tor on Linux and Unix platforms.
en/volunteer.wml  629) Currently, on Debian and Ubuntu, there is a configuration mechanism which
en/volunteer.wml  630) allows Vidalia to override Tor's ability to start on boot (by sourcing
en/volunteer.wml  631) <code>/etc/default/tor.vidalia</code> which sets <code>RUN_DAEMON=no</code> at the user's
en/volunteer.wml  632) request), but full implementation of <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> 
en/volunteer.wml  633) communication is still required.
en/volunteer.wml  634) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  635) A better solution on Linux and Unix platforms would be to use Tor's
en/volunteer.wml  636) ControlSocket, which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket,
en/volunteer.wml  637) and could possibly be enabled by default in Tor's distribution packages.
en/volunteer.wml  638) Vidalia can then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie)
en/volunteer.wml  639) authentication if the user running Vidalia is also in the distribution-specific
en/volunteer.wml  640) tor group.
en/volunteer.wml  641) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  642) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket to
en/volunteer.wml  643) Vidalia. The student will then develop and test this support on various
en/volunteer.wml  644) distributions to make sure it behaves in a predictable and consistent manner on
en/volunteer.wml  645) all of them.
en/volunteer.wml  646) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  647) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive and usable way for Vidalia to be
en/volunteer.wml  648) able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is located in
en/volunteer.wml  649) <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. In Debian and Ubuntu we handle
en/volunteer.wml  650) this with the aforementioned <code>/etc/default/tor.vidalia</code> but this
en/volunteer.wml  651) functionality could (or should) be less distribution-specific. 
en/volunteer.wml  652) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  653) The best idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml  654) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because if the user is not
en/volunteer.wml  655) using the latest Debian/Ubuntu packages, they may not have disabled Tor's
en/volunteer.wml  656) ability to run on boot and will end up with a configuration that is different
en/volunteer.wml  657) from what they want. The second best idea we've come up with is for Vidalia to
en/volunteer.wml  658) write out a temporary torrc file and ask the user to manually move it to
en/volunteer.wml  659) <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>, but that's bad because users shouldn't have to
en/volunteer.wml  660) mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml  661) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  662) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of various Linux
en/volunteer.wml  663) distributions and their packaging mechanisms as well as some C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  664) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.

en/volunteer.wml  665) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  666) 

en/volunteer.wml  667) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  668) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml  669) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  670) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml  671) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml  672) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml  673) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml  674) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml  675) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml  676) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml  677) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml  678) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml  679) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml  680) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml  681) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml  682) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  683) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml  684) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml  685) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml  686) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml  687) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  688) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml  689) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml  690) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml  691) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  692) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  693) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml  694) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml  695) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml  696) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml  697) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml  698) with others prior to implementation.

en/volunteer.wml  699) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  700) 

en/volunteer.wml  701) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  702) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for builds</b>

en/volunteer.wml  703) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  704) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  705) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  706) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  707) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  708) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  709) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  710) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn</i>
en/volunteer.wml  711) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  712) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml  713) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml  714) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml  715) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  716) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml  717) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml  718) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml  719) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  720) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml  721) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml  722) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml  723) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml  724) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml  725) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml  726) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml  727) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  728) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml  729) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml  730) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml  731) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml  732) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  733) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml  734) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml  735) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  736) 

en/volunteer.wml  737) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  738) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml  739) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  740) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  741) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  742) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  743) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  744) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  745) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  746) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml  747) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  748) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml  749) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml  750) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml  751) structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml  752) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  753) 
en/volunteer.wml  754) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  755) <b>An authenticating IRC proxy</b>
en/volunteer.wml  756) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  757) Priority: <i>Low</i>

en/volunteer.wml  758) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  759) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  760) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  761) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  762) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  763) Likely Mentors: <i>Sebastian, Weasel, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml  764) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  765) The world needs an authenticating irc proxy. As we're periodically
en/volunteer.wml  766) reminded from the Penny Arcade web comic, "Internet user + anonymity =
en/volunteer.wml  767) jerk". With respect to websites we're actually doing ok, since websites
en/volunteer.wml  768) can make their users log in and use other application-level authentication
en/volunteer.wml  769) approaches. But IRC servers are much worse off, because most IRC server
en/volunteer.wml  770) code is poorly written: hard to maintain, and harder to modify. Many
en/volunteer.wml  771) IRC networks now block connections from Tor, and we're basically down to
en/volunteer.wml  772) two holdouts (OFTC and Freenode). This state of affairs means that a lot
en/volunteer.wml  773) of people around the world are thinking "I told you so" about anonymity
en/volunteer.wml  774) online, when in fact the problem is simply lack of technology to make the
en/volunteer.wml  775) problem manageable. We need some way to let the IRC networks distinguish
en/volunteer.wml  776) which users have developed a reputation as not being jerks, so they can
en/volunteer.wml  777) treat the two groups separately. There are some really cool research
en/volunteer.wml  778) designs like <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~nymble/">Nymble</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  779) which aim to let websites blacklist users without needing to learn who
en/volunteer.wml  780) they are.  But Nymble is designed around web interactions. We need to
en/volunteer.wml  781) build the glue around the IRC protocol that would let us plug in a project
en/volunteer.wml  782) like Nymble (or a simpler one to start, as a proof-of-concept). One way
en/volunteer.wml  783) to do that would be to build an IRC proxy that knows how to hear from
en/volunteer.wml  784) IRC clients, knows how to talk to IRC servers, and has an additional

en/volunteer.wml  785) layer that requires the users to authenticate.  Some work on this has
en/volunteer.wml  786) begun by other volunteers, see their progress at <a
en/volunteer.wml  787) href="http://github.com/anonirc/orc">http://github.com/anonirc/orc</a>.

en/volunteer.wml  788) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  789) 

en/volunteer.wml  790) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  791) <b>Make torsocks/dsocks work on OS X</b>
en/volunteer.wml  792) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  793) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  794) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  795) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  796) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  797) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  798) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  799) Likely Mentors: <i>?</i>
en/volunteer.wml  800) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  801) <a href="http://code.google.com/p/torsocks/">Torsocks</a> and <a
en/volunteer.wml  802) href="http://code.google.com/p/dsocks/">dsocks</a> are wrappers that will
en/volunteer.wml  803) run applications, intercept their outgoing network connections, and push
en/volunteer.wml  804) those connections through Tor. The goal is to handle applications that
en/volunteer.wml  805) don't support proxies (or don't supporting them well). To get it right,
en/volunteer.wml  806) they need to intercept many system calls. The syscalls you need to
en/volunteer.wml  807) intercept on Linux differ dramatically from those on BSD. So Torsocks
en/volunteer.wml  808) works fine on Linux, dsocks works ok on BSD (though it may be less
en/volunteer.wml  809) maintained and thus might miss more syscalls), and nothing works well
en/volunteer.wml  810) on both. First, we should patch dsocks to use Tor's <i>mapaddress</i>
en/volunteer.wml  811) commands from the controller interface, so we don't waste a whole
en/volunteer.wml  812) round-trip inside Tor doing the resolve before connecting. Second,
en/volunteer.wml  813) we should make our <i>torify</i> script detect which of torsocks or
en/volunteer.wml  814) dsocks is installed, and call them appropriately. This probably means
en/volunteer.wml  815) unifying their interfaces, and might involve sharing code between them
en/volunteer.wml  816) or discarding one entirely.
en/volunteer.wml  817) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  818) 

en/volunteer.wml  819) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  820) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  821) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  822) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a
en/volunteer.wml  823) href="<gitblob>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml  824) roadmap</a> for more ideas, or just try out Tor, Vidalia, and Torbutton,
en/volunteer.wml  825) and find out what you think needs fixing.

en/volunteer.wml  826) Some of the <a href="<gittree>doc/spec/proposals">current proposals</a>
en/volunteer.wml  827) might also be short on developers.
en/volunteer.wml  828) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  829) 

en/volunteer.wml  830) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml  831) 

en/volunteer.wml  832) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  833) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html    834) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  835) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml  836) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml  837) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml  838) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml  839) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml  840) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml  841) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml  842) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml  843) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml  844) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml  845) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml  846) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  847) 

en/volunteer.wml  848) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml  849) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml  850) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml  851) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml  852) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  853) 

en/volunteer.wml  854) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml  855) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml  856) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml  857) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml  858) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml  859) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml  860) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml  861) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml  862) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  863) 

en/volunteer.wml  864) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml  865) 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  866) 

volunteer.html    867) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html    868) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml  869) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html    870) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml  871) 

volunteer.html    872) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html    873) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html    874) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html    875) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml  876) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml  877) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml  878) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml  879) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification

en/volunteer.wml  880) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml  881) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  882) 

volunteer.html    883) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html    884) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html    885) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  886) 
en/volunteer.wml  887) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml  888) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml  889) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml  890) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml  891) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml  892) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  893) 

en/volunteer.wml  894) <li>How can we make the various LiveCD/USB systems easier

en/volunteer.wml  895) to maintain, improve, and document?  One example is <a
en/volunteer.wml  896) href="https://amnesia.boum.org/">The (Amnesic) Incognito Live
en/volunteer.wml  897) System</a>.

en/volunteer.wml  898) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  899) 
en/volunteer.wml  900) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  901) Another anti-censorship project is to try to make Tor
en/volunteer.wml  902) more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify <a
en/volunteer.wml  903) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>
en/volunteer.wml  904) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol,
en/volunteer.wml  905) and seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could <a

en/volunteer.wml  906) href="<svnprojects>design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like

en/volunteer.wml  907) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml  908) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml  909) To start, check out Shane Pope's <a
en/volunteer.wml  910) href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37735/index.html">thesis and prototype</a>.
en/volunteer.wml  911) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  912) 

volunteer.html    913) </ol>
volunteer.html    914) 

en/volunteer.wml  915) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  916) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html    917) <ol>

volunteer.html    918) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html    919) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html    920) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html    921) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html    922) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html    923) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html    924) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html    925) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html    926) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html    927) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html    928) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html    929) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html    930) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html    931) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html    932) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html    933) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html    934) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html    935) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html    936) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html    937) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html    938) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html    939) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  940) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml  941) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml  942) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml  943) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml  944) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml  945) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml  946) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml  947) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml  948) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  949) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml  950) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml  951) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml  952) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml  953) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml  954) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  955) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml  956) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml  957) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml  958) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml  959) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml  960) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml  961) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml  962) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml  963) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml  964) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml  965) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml  966) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml  967) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml  968) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml  969) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html    970) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html    971) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html    972) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html    973) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html    974) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html    975) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html    976) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html    977) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html    978) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html    979) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  980) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml  981) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml  982) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml  983) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml  984) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml  985) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml  986) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  987) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html    988) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html    989) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html    990) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html    991) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html    992) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html    993) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html    994) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html    995) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html    996) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html    997) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html    998) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html    999) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html   1000) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html   1001) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html   1002) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html   1003) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html   1004) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html   1005) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 1006) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml 1007) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml 1008) href="<svnprojects>design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml 1009) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml 1010) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml 1011) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml 1012) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml 1013) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml 1014) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml 1015) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml 1016) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html   1017) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html   1018) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html   1019) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml 1020) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html   1021) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html   1022) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html   1023) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 1024) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html   1025) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html   1026) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 1027) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml 1028) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml 1029) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml 1030) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml 1031) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml 1032) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml 1033) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml 1034) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml 1035) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml 1036) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml 1037) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml 1038) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml 1039) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml 1040) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml 1041) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 1042) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 1043) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 1044) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 1045) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 1046) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 1047) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 1048) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 1049) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 1050) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 1051) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 1052) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 1053) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 1054) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 1055) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 1056) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 1057) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 1058) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 1059) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 1060) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 1061) </li>

volunteer.html   1062) </ol>
volunteer.html   1063) 

en/volunteer.wml 1064) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 1065) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 1066) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 1067) </p>

volunteer.html   1068) 

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