tor-webwml.git

en/volunteer.wml   1) ## translation metadata

en/volunteer.wml   2) # Revision: $Revision$

en/volunteer.wml   3) # Translation-Priority: 4-optional

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="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) 

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

en/volunteer.wml 254) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 255) 
en/volunteer.wml 256) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 257) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml 258) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 259) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 260) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 261) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 262) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 263) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 264) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 265) Likely Mentors: <i>Chris</i>

en/volunteer.wml 266) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 267) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml 268) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml 269) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:

en/volunteer.wml 270) <ol><li> the ability to asynchronously query name servers, find the
en/volunteer.wml 271) system nameservers, and manage netbios and dns queries.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 272) <li> manage events and buffers natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes,
en/volunteer.wml 273) Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in Windows it's whatever the config
en/volunteer.wml 274) specifies).</li>
en/volunteer.wml 275) <li> some sort of GUI config and reporting tool, bonus if it has a
en/volunteer.wml 276) systray icon with right clickable menu options. Double bonus if it's
en/volunteer.wml 277) cross-platform compatible.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 278) <li> allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml 279) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"</li>
en/volunteer.wml 280) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml 281) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 282) 

en/volunteer.wml 283) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 284) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface</b>

en/volunteer.wml 285) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 286) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 287) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 288) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 289) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 290) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 291) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 292) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 293) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 294) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml 295) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml 296) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml 297) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml 298) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml 299) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml 300) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml 301) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml 302) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 303) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml 304) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml 305) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml 306) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml 307) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 308) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml 309) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml 310) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml 311) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml 312) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml 313) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml 314) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml 315) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml 316) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 317) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml 318) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml 319) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml 320) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml 321) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml 322) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml 323) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml 324) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 325) 

en/volunteer.wml 326) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 327) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>

en/volunteer.wml 328) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 329) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 330) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 331) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 332) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 333) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 334) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 335) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml 336) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 337) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml 338) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml 339) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml 340) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml 341) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml 342) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 343) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml 344) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml 345) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml 346) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml 347) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml 348) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 349) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 350) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml 351) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 352) 
en/volunteer.wml 353) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 354) <b>Help with independent Tor client implementations</b>

en/volunteer.wml 355) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 356) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 357) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 358) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 359) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 360) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 361) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 362) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Nick</i>
en/volunteer.wml 363) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 364) Others are currently working on Tor clients for Java, Android, and Maemo

en/volunteer.wml 365) environments.  The first step is to get a handle on the current state of

en/volunteer.wml 366) the project in which you are interested in helping; <a

en/volunteer.wml 367) href="http://github.com/brl/JTor">Tor for Java</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 368) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/">Android/Orbot</a>
en/volunteer.wml 369) , or Tor for Maemo. Check out the repository and familiarlize yourself
en/volunteer.wml 370) with the source code.  Further, support for requesting or even providing
en/volunteer.wml 371) Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.

en/volunteer.wml 372) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 373) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java

en/volunteer.wml 374) code, including a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml 375) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml 376) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml 377) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml 378) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml 379) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 380) 
en/volunteer.wml 381) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 382) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 383) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 384) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 385) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 386) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 387) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 388) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 389) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 390) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 391) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml 392) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml 393) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml 394) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml 395) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml 396) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 397) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml 398) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 399) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml 400) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml 401) <a
en/volunteer.wml 402) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml 403) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 404) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml 405) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml 406) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml 407) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml 408) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml 409) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 410) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml 411) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 412) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.
en/volunteer.wml 413) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 414) 

en/volunteer.wml 415) <!-- <li>

en/volunteer.wml 416) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 417) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 418) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 419) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 420) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 421) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 422) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 423) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 424) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 425) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 426) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml 427) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml 428) features to consider include:

en/volunteer.wml 429) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml 430) <li> Integration of the <a

en/volunteer.wml 431) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml 432) Python library</a>

en/volunteer.wml 433) for authenticated HTTPS downloads.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 434) <li> Adding a level of indirection

en/volunteer.wml 435) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an

en/volunteer.wml 436) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 437) <li> Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted

en/volunteer.wml 438) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml 439) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml 440) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and

en/volunteer.wml 441) Python proficiency.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 442) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml 443) </li> -->

en/volunteer.wml 444) 
en/volunteer.wml 445) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 446) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml 447) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 448) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 449) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 450) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 451) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 452) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 453) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 454) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml 455) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 456) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml 457) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml 458) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml 459) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml 460) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml 461) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 462) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml 463) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml 464) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml 465) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml 466) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml 467) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 468) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml 469) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml 470) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml 471) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml 472) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml 473) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 474) 
en/volunteer.wml 475) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 476) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 477) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 478) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 479) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 480) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 481) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 482) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 483) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 484) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 485) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 486) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml 487) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml 488) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml 489) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml 490) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml 491) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml 492) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml 493) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml 494) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml 495) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml 496) from here."
en/volunteer.wml 497) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 498) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 499) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml 500) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml 501) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml 502) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml 503) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 504) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 505) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml 506) required.
en/volunteer.wml 507) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 508) 
en/volunteer.wml 509) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 510) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml 511) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 512) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 513) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 514) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 515) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 516) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 517) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 518) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 519) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 520) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml 521) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml 522) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml 523) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml 524) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml 525) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 526) 
en/volunteer.wml 527) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 528) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</b>
en/volunteer.wml 529) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 530) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 531) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 532) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 533) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 534) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 535) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 536) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 537) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 538) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml 539) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml 540) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml 541) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml 542) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml 543) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml 544) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.
en/volunteer.wml 545) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 546) 

en/volunteer.wml 547) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 548) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml 549) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 550) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 551) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 552) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 553) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 554) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 555) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 556) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml 557) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 558) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml 559) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml 560) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml 561) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml 562) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml 563) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml 564) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml 565) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml 566) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml 567) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml 568) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml 569) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml 570) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml 571) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml 572) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml 573) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml 574) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml 575) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 576) 

en/volunteer.wml 577) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 578) <b>Better Debian/Ubuntu Packaging for Tor+Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 579) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 580) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml 581) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml 582) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a

en/volunteer.wml 583) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined

en/volunteer.wml 584) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml 585) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml 586) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml 587) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml 588) ports — they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml 589) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 590) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml 591) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml 592) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml 593) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml 594) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml 595) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml 596) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml 597) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml 598) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 599) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml 600) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml 601) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml 602) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml 603) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml 604) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 605) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 606) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml 607) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml 608) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml 609) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts
en/volunteer.wml 610) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml 611) best idea
en/volunteer.wml 612) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml 613) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml 614) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml 615) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 616) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml 617) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml 618) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 619) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 620) 

en/volunteer.wml 621) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 622) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml 623) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 624) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml 625) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml 626) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml 627) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml 628) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml 629) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml 630) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml 631) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml 632) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml 633) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml 634) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml 635) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml 636) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 637) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml 638) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml 639) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml 640) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml 641) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 642) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml 643) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml 644) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml 645) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 646) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 647) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml 648) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml 649) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml 650) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml 651) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml 652) with others prior to implementation.

en/volunteer.wml 653) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 654) 

en/volunteer.wml 655) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 656) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for builds</b>

en/volunteer.wml 657) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 658) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml 659) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml 660) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml 661) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 662) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml 663) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml 664) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml 665) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 666) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml 667) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml 668) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml 669) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml 670) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml 671) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml 672) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml 673) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 674) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml 675) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml 676) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml 677) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 678) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 679) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 680) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml 681) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 682) 

en/volunteer.wml 683) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 684) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml 685) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 686) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 687) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 688) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 689) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 690) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 691) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 692) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml 693) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 694) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml 695) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml 696) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml 697) structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml 698) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 699) 
en/volunteer.wml 700) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 701) <b>An authenticating IRC proxy</b>
en/volunteer.wml 702) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 703) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 704) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 705) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 706) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 707) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 708) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 709) Likely Mentors: <i>Sebastian, Weasel, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml 710) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 711) The world needs an authenticating irc proxy. As we're periodically
en/volunteer.wml 712) reminded from the Penny Arcade web comic, "Internet user + anonymity =
en/volunteer.wml 713) jerk". With respect to websites we're actually doing ok, since websites
en/volunteer.wml 714) can make their users log in and use other application-level authentication
en/volunteer.wml 715) approaches. But IRC servers are much worse off, because most IRC server
en/volunteer.wml 716) code is poorly written: hard to maintain, and harder to modify. Many
en/volunteer.wml 717) IRC networks now block connections from Tor, and we're basically down to
en/volunteer.wml 718) two holdouts (OFTC and Freenode). This state of affairs means that a lot
en/volunteer.wml 719) of people around the world are thinking "I told you so" about anonymity
en/volunteer.wml 720) online, when in fact the problem is simply lack of technology to make the
en/volunteer.wml 721) problem manageable. We need some way to let the IRC networks distinguish
en/volunteer.wml 722) which users have developed a reputation as not being jerks, so they can
en/volunteer.wml 723) treat the two groups separately. There are some really cool research
en/volunteer.wml 724) designs like <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~nymble/">Nymble</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 725) which aim to let websites blacklist users without needing to learn who
en/volunteer.wml 726) they are.  But Nymble is designed around web interactions. We need to
en/volunteer.wml 727) build the glue around the IRC protocol that would let us plug in a project
en/volunteer.wml 728) like Nymble (or a simpler one to start, as a proof-of-concept). One way
en/volunteer.wml 729) to do that would be to build an IRC proxy that knows how to hear from
en/volunteer.wml 730) IRC clients, knows how to talk to IRC servers, and has an additional
en/volunteer.wml 731) layer that requires the users to authenticate.
en/volunteer.wml 732) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 733) 
en/volunteer.wml 734) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 735) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml 736) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 737) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a
en/volunteer.wml 738) href="<gitblob>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development
en/volunteer.wml 739) roadmap</a> for more ideas.
en/volunteer.wml 740) Some of the <a href="<gittree>doc/spec/proposals">current proposals</a>
en/volunteer.wml 741) might also be short on developers.
en/volunteer.wml 742) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 743) 

en/volunteer.wml 744) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml 745) 

en/volunteer.wml 746) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 747) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html   748) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml 749) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml 750) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml 751) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml 752) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml 753) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml 754) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml 755) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml 756) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml 757) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml 758) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml 759) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml 760) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 761) 

en/volunteer.wml 762) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 763) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml 764) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml 765) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml 766) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 767) 

en/volunteer.wml 768) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml 769) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml 770) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml 771) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml 772) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml 773) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml 774) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml 775) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml 776) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 777) 

en/volunteer.wml 778) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml 779) 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 780) 

volunteer.html   781) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html   782) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml 783) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html   784) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml 785) 

volunteer.html   786) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html   787) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html   788) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html   789) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml 790) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml 791) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml 792) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml 793) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification

en/volunteer.wml 794) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml 795) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 796) 

volunteer.html   797) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html   798) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html   799) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 800) 
en/volunteer.wml 801) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml 802) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml 803) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml 804) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml 805) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml 806) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 807) 

en/volunteer.wml 808) <li>How can we make the various LiveCD/USB systems easier
en/volunteer.wml 809) to maintain, improve, and document?  Some examples are <a

en/volunteer.wml 810) href="http://amnesia.boum.org/">amnesia LiveCD/USB</a> and the <a

en/volunteer.wml 811) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>

en/volunteer.wml 812) </li>

volunteer.html   813) </ol>
volunteer.html   814) 

en/volunteer.wml 815) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 816) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html   817) <ol>

volunteer.html   818) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html   819) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html   820) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html   821) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html   822) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html   823) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html   824) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html   825) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html   826) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html   827) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html   828) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html   829) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html   830) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html   831) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html   832) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html   833) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html   834) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html   835) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html   836) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html   837) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html   838) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html   839) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 840) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml 841) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml 842) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml 843) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml 844) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml 845) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml 846) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml 847) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml 848) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 849) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml 850) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml 851) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml 852) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml 853) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml 854) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 855) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml 856) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml 857) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml 858) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml 859) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml 860) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml 861) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml 862) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml 863) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml 864) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml 865) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml 866) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml 867) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml 868) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml 869) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html   870) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html   871) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html   872) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html   873) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html   874) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html   875) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html   876) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html   877) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html   878) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html   879) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 880) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml 881) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml 882) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml 883) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml 884) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml 885) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml 886) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 887) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html   888) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html   889) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html   890) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html   891) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html   892) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html   893) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html   894) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html   895) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html   896) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html   897) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html   898) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html   899) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html   900) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html   901) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html   902) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html   903) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html   904) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html   905) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 906) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml 907) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml 908) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml 909) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml 910) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml 911) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml 912) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml 913) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml 914) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml 915) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml 916) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html   917) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html   918) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html   919) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml 920) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html   921) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html   922) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html   923) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 924) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html   925) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html   926) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 927) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml 928) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml 929) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml 930) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml 931) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml 932) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml 933) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml 934) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml 935) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml 936) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml 937) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml 938) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml 939) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml 940) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml 941) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 942) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 943) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 944) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 945) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 946) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 947) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 948) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 949) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 950) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 951) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 952) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 953) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 954) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 955) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 956) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 957) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 958) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 959) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 960) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 961) </li>

volunteer.html   962) </ol>
volunteer.html   963) 

en/volunteer.wml 964) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 965) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 966) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 967) </p>

volunteer.html   968) 

en/volunteer.wml 969)   </div><!-- #main -->

volunteer.html   970)