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

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

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

volunteer.html    10) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

volunteer.html    24) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  44) </li>

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  52) </li>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

volunteer.html    70) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  96) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  97) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>

en/volunteer.wml  98) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  99) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 100) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 101) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 102) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 103) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 104) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 105) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml 106) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml 107) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml 108) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml 109) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml 110) user. Time permitting, we would also like to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml 111) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml 112) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml 113) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 114) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml 115) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml 116) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml 117) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml 118) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 119) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml 120) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml 121) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml 122) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 123) A student undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 124) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. The
en/volunteer.wml 125) student should also have a basic understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml 126) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml 127) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml 128) will be producing a design document for others to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml 129) with the student prior to implementation.
en/volunteer.wml 130) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 131) 
en/volunteer.wml 132) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 133) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map</b>

en/volunteer.wml 134) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 135) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml 136) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml 137) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml 138) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml 139) poor graphics. Instead, we would like to leverage KDE's Marble widget
en/volunteer.wml 140) that gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml 141) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml 142) display additional information. We might also consider adding the ability
en/volunteer.wml 143) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml 144) more Tor exit relays and say, ``I want my connections to foo.com to exit
en/volunteer.wml 145) from here.''
en/volunteer.wml 146) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 147) This project will first involve the student getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 148) and the Marble widget's API. The student will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml 149) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml 150) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml 151) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml 152) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 153) A student undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 154) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml 155) required.
en/volunteer.wml 156) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 157) 
en/volunteer.wml 158) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 159) <b>Better Debian Packaging and Debian Packaging Support</b>

en/volunteer.wml 160) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 161) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml 162) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml 163) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a
en/volunteer.wml 164) CntrolPort defined in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml 165) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml 166) Tor, and then Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml 167) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml 168) ports--they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml 169) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 170) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml 171) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml 172) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml 173) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml 174) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml 175) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml 176) then authenticate to Tor using cookie authentication if the user running
en/volunteer.wml 177) Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml 178) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 179) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml 180) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml 181) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml 182) making sure it works well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml 183) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml 184) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 185) A student undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml 186) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml 187) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 188) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 189) 
en/volunteer.wml 190) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 191) <b>Tor Status Event Interface</b>

en/volunteer.wml 192) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 193) There may are a number of status changes of which the user may need
en/volunteer.wml 194) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up a Tor
en/volunteer.wml 195) relay and Tor decides the user's relay is not reachable from outside
en/volunteer.wml 196) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user
en/volunteer.wml 197) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log', which they
en/volunteer.wml 198) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml 199) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml 200) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml 201) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 202) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml 203) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml 204) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml 205) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml 206) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 207) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml 208) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml 209) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml 210) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml 211) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe
en/volunteer.wml 212) suggests a remedy for any negative statuses if they can be corrected by
en/volunteer.wml 213) the user. Of course, this is just an example and the student is free to
en/volunteer.wml 214) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml 215) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 216) A student undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout
en/volunteer.wml 217) experience and some C++ development experience. Previous experience
en/volunteer.wml 218) with Qt and Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but not required. Some
en/volunteer.wml 219) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml 220) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml 221) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml 222) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml 223) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 224) 

en/volunteer.wml 225) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 226) <b>A Translation Wiki</b>

en/volunteer.wml 227) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 228) We require a way to edit and translate sections of the website &mdash;
en/volunteer.wml 229) possibly resulting in a patch for the official svn tree. The current
en/volunteer.wml 230) "cost" of publication of website changes is quite high even for English
en/volunteer.wml 231) language users. They need to check out our template files, translate them
en/volunteer.wml 232) and send us the translation. For a single word change or any type of
en/volunteer.wml 233) minor change, the page may never be corrected or translated.  It would
en/volunteer.wml 234) be nice to have a wiki that was specifically geared towards translation
en/volunteer.wml 235) and would somehow track the upstream (English) versions to indicate when
en/volunteer.wml 236) a fresh translation is needed. This seems mostly like a job for a wiki
en/volunteer.wml 237) integrator or wiki software author. Certainly the person would need to
en/volunteer.wml 238) be interested in human languages and translation. They should at least
en/volunteer.wml 239) be minimally familiar with what Tor is but would not have to interact
en/volunteer.wml 240) with the software, only the documentation on the website.
en/volunteer.wml 241) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 242) 
en/volunteer.wml 243) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 244) <b>Improvements on our active browser configuration tester</b> - 
en/volunteer.wml 245) <a href="https://check.torproject.org">https://check.torproject.org</a>

en/volunteer.wml 246) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 247) We currently have a functional web page to detect if Tor is working. It
en/volunteer.wml 248) is has a few places where it falls short. It requires improvements with
en/volunteer.wml 249) regard to default languages and functionality. It currently only responds
en/volunteer.wml 250) in English. In addition, it is a hack of a perl script that should have
en/volunteer.wml 251) never seen the light of day. It should probably be rewritten in python
en/volunteer.wml 252) with multi-lingual support in mind. It currently uses the Tor DNS exit
en/volunteer.wml 253) list and should continue to do so in the future. It may result in certain
en/volunteer.wml 254) false positives and these should be discovered, documented, and fixed
en/volunteer.wml 255) where possible. Anyone working on this project should be interested in
en/volunteer.wml 256) DNS, basic perl or preferably python programming skills and will have
en/volunteer.wml 257) to interact minimally with Tor to test their code.
en/volunteer.wml 258) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 259) 
en/volunteer.wml 260) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 261) <b>Improvements on our DNS Exit List service</b> - 
en/volunteer.wml 262) <a href="http://exitlist.torproject.org">http://exitlist.torproject.org</a>

en/volunteer.wml 263) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 264) The exitlist software is written by our fabulous anonymous

en/volunteer.wml 265) contributer Tup. It's a DNS server written in Haskell that supports part of our <a

en/volunteer.wml 266) href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/trunk/doc/contrib/torel-design.txt">exitlist
en/volunteer.wml 267) design document</a>. Currently, it's functional and it is used by
en/volunteer.wml 268) check.torproject.org and other users. The issues that are outstanding
en/volunteer.wml 269) are mostly aesthetic. This wonderful service could use a much better
en/volunteer.wml 270) website using the common Tor theme. It would be best served with better
en/volunteer.wml 271) documentation for common services that use an RBL. It could use more
en/volunteer.wml 272) publicity. A person working on this project should be interested in DNS,
en/volunteer.wml 273) basic RBL configuration for popular services, and writing documentation.
en/volunteer.wml 274) The person would require minimal Tor interaction &mdash; testing their
en/volunteer.wml 275) own documentation at the very least. Furthermore, it would be useful

en/volunteer.wml 276) if they were interested in Haskell and wanted to implement more of the

en/volunteer.wml 277) torel-design.txt suggestions.
en/volunteer.wml 278) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 279) 
en/volunteer.wml 280) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 281) <b>Testing integration of Tor with web browsers for our end users</b>

en/volunteer.wml 282) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 283) The Tor project currently lacks a solid test to ensure that a
en/volunteer.wml 284) user has a properly configured web browser. It should test for as
en/volunteer.wml 285) many known issues as possible. It should attempt to decloak the
en/volunteer.wml 286) user in any way possible.  Two current webpages that track these
en/volunteer.wml 287) kinds of issues are run by Greg and HD Moore. Greg keeps a nice <a
en/volunteer.wml 288) href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/tor/torbutton/">list of issues along
en/volunteer.wml 289) with their proof of concept code, bug issues, etc</a>. HD Moore runs
en/volunteer.wml 290) the <a href="http://metasploit.com/research/misc/decloak/">metasploit
en/volunteer.wml 291) decloak website</a>. A person interested in attacking Tor could start
en/volunteer.wml 292) by collecting as many workable and known methods for decloaking a
en/volunteer.wml 293) Tor user. The person should be familiar with the common pitfalls but
en/volunteer.wml 294) possibly have new methods in mind for implementing decloaking issues. The
en/volunteer.wml 295) website should ensure that it tells a user what their problem is. It
en/volunteer.wml 296) should help them to fix the problem or direct them to the proper support
en/volunteer.wml 297) channels. The person should be closely familiar with using Tor and how
en/volunteer.wml 298) to prevent Tor leakage.
en/volunteer.wml 299) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 300) 

en/volunteer.wml 301) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 302) <b>Improving our ability to be resistant to censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml 303) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 304) Tor needs even better censorship resistance mechanisms.  There are
en/volunteer.wml 305) several mechanisms that can help.  Tor should be able listen on multiple
en/volunteer.wml 306) addresses and ports, and allow clients to connect to all of them.
en/volunteer.wml 307) Tor should be able to appear like a webserver (HTTP or HTTPS) when
en/volunteer.wml 308) contacted by port-scanning tools.
en/volunteer.wml 309) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 310) 
en/volunteer.wml 311) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 312) <b>Libevent and Tor integration improvements</b>
en/volunteer.wml 313) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 314) Tor should make better use of the more recent features of Niels Provos's
en/volunteer.wml 315) Libevent library.  Libevent already provides HTTP and socket buffers;
en/volunteer.wml 316) Tor's code for those could be replaced.  We'll need to improve libevent's
en/volunteer.wml 317) code as needed; particularly, to add good openssl support on top of
en/volunteer.wml 318) libevent's buffer abstraction.
en/volunteer.wml 319) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 320) 
en/volunteer.wml 321) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 322) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>
en/volunteer.wml 323) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 324) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a distributed way, as in the
en/volunteer.wml 325) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/">"A Tuneup for Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml 326) by Snader and Borisov.  A student could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml 327) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml 328) dovetail with Tor in the wild, and determine good ways to incorporate them
en/volunteer.wml 329) into the Tor network without adding undesirable n^2 traffic properties
en/volunteer.wml 330) at the directory authorities.
en/volunteer.wml 331) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 332) 

en/volunteer.wml 333) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 334) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for Windows builds</b>
en/volunteer.wml 335) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 336) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml 337) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml 338) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml 339) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 340) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of
en/volunteer.wml 341) the platforms Tor does. See the 
en/volunteer.wml 342) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for 
en/volunteer.wml 343) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 344) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should
en/volunteer.wml 345) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml 346) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml 347) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml 348) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml 349) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml 350) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but

en/volunteer.wml 351) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 352) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml 353) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate 
en/volunteer.wml 354) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml 355) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 356) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 357) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 358) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.<br />

en/volunteer.wml 359) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 360) 

en/volunteer.wml 361) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 362) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>
en/volunteer.wml 363) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 364) Tor needs to be far more tested.  This is a multi-part effort.  To start
en/volunteer.wml 365) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml 366) the areas outside the utility functions.  This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml 367) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml 368) as possible from globals.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 369) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing.  We've got

en/volunteer.wml 370) buildbot (except on Windows — see above) to automate our regular 
en/volunteer.wml 371) integration and compile testing already,

en/volunteer.wml 372) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 373) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 374) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test

en/volunteer.wml 375) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.<br />

en/volunteer.wml 376) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 377) 

en/volunteer.wml 378) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 379) <b>Help revive the Java community around Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml 380) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 381) Reanimate one of the approaches to implement a Tor client in Java,
en/volunteer.wml 382) e.g. the <a href="http://onioncoffee.sourceforge.net/">OnionCoffee
en/volunteer.wml 383) project</a>, and make it run on <a
en/volunteer.wml 384) href="http://code.google.com/android/">Android</a>. The first step
en/volunteer.wml 385) would be to port the existing code and execute it in an Android
en/volunteer.wml 386) environment. Next, the code should be updated to support the newer Tor
en/volunteer.wml 387) protocol versions like the <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/dir-spec.txt">v3
en/volunteer.wml 388) directory protocol</a>. Further, support for requesting or even
en/volunteer.wml 389) providing Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required. The
en/volunteer.wml 390) student should be able to understand and write new Java code, including

en/volunteer.wml 391) a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml 392) too. The student should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml 393) implement code based on it, and, if required, refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml 394) if things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml 395) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml 396) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 397) 
en/volunteer.wml 398) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 399) <b>Become the PuppeTor Master</b>
en/volunteer.wml 400) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 401) Write a tool that runs automatic system tests in addition
en/volunteer.wml 402) to the existing unit tests. The Java-based Tor simulator <a
en/volunteer.wml 403) href="https://tor-svn.freehaven.net/svn/puppetor/trunk/">PuppeTor</a>
en/volunteer.wml 404) might be a good start for starting up a private Tor network, using it
en/volunteer.wml 405) for a while, and verifying that at least parts of it are working. This
en/volunteer.wml 406) project requires to conceive a blueprint for performing system tests
en/volunteer.wml 407) of private Tor networks, before starting to code. Typical types of
en/volunteer.wml 408) tests range from performing single requests over the private network to
en/volunteer.wml 409) manipulating exchanged messages and see if nodes handle corrupt messages
en/volunteer.wml 410) appropriately. The student should be able to obtain a good understanding
en/volunteer.wml 411) of how Tor works and what problems and bugs could arise to design good
en/volunteer.wml 412) test cases. Understanding the existing Tor code and documentation is
en/volunteer.wml 413) vital. If PuppeTor is used, the student should also be able to understand
en/volunteer.wml 414) and possibly extend an existing Java application. This project is partly
en/volunteer.wml 415) about design and partly about coding.
en/volunteer.wml 416) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 417) 
en/volunteer.wml 418) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 419) <b>Bring moniTor to life</b>
en/volunteer.wml 420) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 421) Implement a <a href="http://www.ss64.com/bash/top.html">top-like</a>
en/volunteer.wml 422) management tool for Tor relays. The purpose of such a tool would be
en/volunteer.wml 423) to monitor a local Tor relay via its control port and include useful
en/volunteer.wml 424) system information of the underlying machine. When running this tool, it
en/volunteer.wml 425) would dynamically update its content like top does for Linux processes.
en/volunteer.wml 426) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Jan-2008/msg00005.html">This
en/volunteer.wml 427) or-dev post</a> might be a good first read. The student should be familiar
en/volunteer.wml 428) with or willing to learn about administering a Tor relay and configuring
en/volunteer.wml 429) it via its control port. As an initial prototype is written in Python,
en/volunteer.wml 430) some knowledge about writing Python code would be helpful, too. This
en/volunteer.wml 431) project is for the one part about identifying requirements to such a
en/volunteer.wml 432) tool and designing its interface; but on the other part, the project
en/volunteer.wml 433) also requires a lot of coding.
en/volunteer.wml 434) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 435) 

en/volunteer.wml 436) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 437) <b>TorFlow improvements</b>
en/volunteer.wml 438) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 439) Help Mike Perry on his <a

en/volunteer.wml 440) href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/torflow/">TorFlow</a>
en/volunteer.wml 441) library (<a href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/torflow/TODO">TODO</a>):
en/volunteer.wml 442) it's a python library that uses the <a
en/volunteer.wml 443) href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/torctl/doc/howto.txt">Tor controller
en/volunteer.wml 444) protocol</a> to instruct Tor to build circuits in a variety of ways,

en/volunteer.wml 445) and then it measures performance and tries to detect anomalies.
en/volunteer.wml 446) Help detect bad relays and automatically get that
en/volunteer.wml 447) info to the directory authorities for realtime blacklisting.
en/volunteer.wml 448) 
en/volunteer.wml 449) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 450) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</b>
en/volunteer.wml 451) Torstatus. Set up an automated system for tracking network health

en/volunteer.wml 452) over time, graphing it, etc. Better metrics for assessing network

en/volunteer.wml 453) health and growth. Make it short and simple. Unbloated and easy to audit.
en/volunteer.wml 454) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 455) 

en/volunteer.wml 456) <li>vidalia and upnp</li>
en/volunteer.wml 457) <li>nymble</li>

en/volunteer.wml 458) 
en/volunteer.wml 459) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 460) <b>Porting Polipo to Windows</b>
en/volunteer.wml 461) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 462) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml 463) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml 464) Windows. 1) handle spaces in path names and understand the filesystem
en/volunteer.wml 465) namespace &mdash; namespace meaning where application data, personal data,
en/volunteer.wml 466) and program data typically reside in various versions of Windows. 2) the
en/volunteer.wml 467) ability to handle ipv6 communications. 3) the ability to asynchronously
en/volunteer.wml 468) query name servers, find the system nameservers, and manage netbios
en/volunteer.wml 469) and dns queries. 4) use native regex capabilities of Windows, rather
en/volunteer.wml 470) than using 3rd party GNU regex libraries. 5) manage events and buffers
en/volunteer.wml 471) natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes, Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in
en/volunteer.wml 472) Windows it's whatever the config specifies). 6) some sort of GUI config
en/volunteer.wml 473) and reporting tool, bonus if it has a systray icon with right clickable
en/volunteer.wml 474) menu options. Double bonus if it's cross-platform compatible.
en/volunteer.wml 475) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 476) 
en/volunteer.wml 477) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 478) <b>Make our diagrams beautiful and automated</b>

en/volunteer.wml 479) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 480) a way to generate the website diagrams from source, so we can translate
en/volunteer.wml 481) them as utf-8 text rather than with gimp. (svg? or imagemagick?)
en/volunteer.wml 482) integrate this with a wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml 483) generated in multiple languages at web publish
en/volunteer.wml 484) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 485) 

en/volunteer.wml 486) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 487) <b>Improve the LiveCD offerings for the Tor community</b>
en/volunteer.wml 488) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 489) How can we make the <a

en/volunteer.wml 490) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>
en/volunteer.wml 491) easier to maintain, improve, and document?</li>
en/volunteer.wml 492) <li>We need a distributed testing framework. We have unit tests,
en/volunteer.wml 493) but it would be great to have a script that starts up a Tor network, uses
en/volunteer.wml 494) it for a while, and verifies that at least parts of it are working.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 495) 

en/volunteer.wml 496) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 497) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml 498) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 499) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a

en/volunteer.wml 500) href="<svnsandbox>doc/design-paper/roadmap-future.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml 501) roadmap</a> for more ideas.<br /><br />
en/volunteer.wml 502) Don't see your idea here? We probably need it anyway! Contact

en/volunteer.wml 503) us and find out.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 504) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml 505) 

en/volunteer.wml 506) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Coding">Coding and Design</a></h2>

volunteer.html   507) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml 508) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml 509) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml 510) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml 511) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml 512) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml 513) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml 514) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml 515) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml 516) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml 517) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a
en/volunteer.wml 518) <a href="https://tor-svn.freehaven.net/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good
en/volunteer.wml 519) start</a> on this last summer.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 520) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 521) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml 522) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting
en/volunteer.wml 523) <a href="http://vidalia-project.net/">Vidalia</a> so it supports the
en/volunteer.wml 524) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 525) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml 526) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml 527) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml 528) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml 529) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml 530) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml 531) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml 532) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml 533) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 534) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml 535) via OpenSSL. Nobody has ever tested it, though. Does somebody want to get

volunteer.html   536) a card and let us know how it goes?</li>

volunteer.html   537) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html   538) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml 539) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html   540) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

volunteer.html   541) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html   542) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html   543) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html   544) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml 545) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml 546) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml 547) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml 548) href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification
en/volunteer.wml 549) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml 550) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

volunteer.html   551) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html   552) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html   553) first place to start.</li>

volunteer.html   554) </ol>
volunteer.html   555) 

en/volunteer.wml 556) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 557) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html   558) <ol>

volunteer.html   559) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html   560) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html   561) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html   562) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html   563) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html   564) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html   565) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html   566) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html   567) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html   568) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html   569) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html   570) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html   571) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html   572) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html   573) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html   574) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html   575) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html   576) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html   577) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html   578) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html   579) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html   580) schemes work better than others?</li>

volunteer.html   581) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html   582) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html   583) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html   584) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html   585) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html   586) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html   587) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html   588) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html   589) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html   590) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 591) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml 592) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml 593) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml 594) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml 595) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml 596) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml 597) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 598) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html   599) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html   600) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html   601) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html   602) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html   603) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html   604) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html   605) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html   606) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html   607) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html   608) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html   609) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html   610) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html   611) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html   612) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html   613) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html   614) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html   615) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html   616) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

volunteer.html   617) <li>To let dissidents in remote countries use Tor without being blocked
volunteer.html   618) at their country's firewall, we need a way to get tens of thousands of
volunteer.html   619) relays, not just a few hundred. We can imagine a Tor client GUI that

en/volunteer.wml 620) has a "Tor for Freedom" button at the top that opens a port and relays a

volunteer.html   621) few KB/s of traffic into the Tor network. (A few KB/s shouldn't be too
volunteer.html   622) much hassle, and there are few abuse issues since they're not being exit
volunteer.html   623) nodes.) But how do we distribute a list of these volunteer clients to the
volunteer.html   624) good dissidents in an automated way that doesn't let the country-level
volunteer.html   625) firewalls intercept and enumerate them? Probably needs to work on a

en/volunteer.wml 626) human-trust level. See our <a href="<page documentation>#DesignDoc">early
en/volunteer.wml 627) blocking-resistance design document</a> and our
en/volunteer.wml 628) <a

en/volunteer.wml 629) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#BlockingResistance">FAQ

en/volunteer.wml 630) entry</a> on this, and then read the <a
en/volunteer.wml 631) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/topic.html#Communications_20Censorship">censorship
en/volunteer.wml 632) resistance section of anonbib</a>.</li>

volunteer.html   633) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html   634) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html   635) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml 636) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html   637) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html   638) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html   639) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 640) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html   641) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html   642) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

volunteer.html   643) </ol>
volunteer.html   644) 

en/volunteer.wml 645) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 646) of these!

volunteer.html   647) 

en/volunteer.wml 648)   </div><!-- #main -->

volunteer.html   649) 

en/volunteer.wml 650) #include <foot.wmi>