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volunteer.html     4) 

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

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

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

volunteer.html    11) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  29) 

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

volunteer.html    32) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  80) <li>

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

en/volunteer.wml  82) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml  84) <br />

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  90) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml  97) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  98) However, there is currently no released package for Linux and Mac OS
en/volunteer.wml  99) X, so this project would be to implement Tor Browser Bundle for OS X and
en/volunteer.wml 100) continue work on the Tor Browser Bundle for Linux. This will involve modifications to Vidalia (C++), possibly

en/volunteer.wml 101) Firefox (C) then creating and testing the launcher on a range of

en/volunteer.wml 102) operating system versions and configurations to verify portability.
en/volunteer.wml 103) Some work on this was completed as part of the Google Summer of Code
en/volunteer.wml 104) 2009. Another part of this project is to identify all of the traces left
en/volunteer.wml 105) behind by using a Tor Browser Bundle on Mac OS X or Linux.  Developing
en/volunteer.wml 106) ways to stop, counter, or remove these traces is a final step.

en/volunteer.wml 107) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 108) Students should be familiar with application development on one or
en/volunteer.wml 109) preferably both of Linux and Mac OS X, and be comfortable with C/C++
en/volunteer.wml 110) and shell scripting.
en/volunteer.wml 111) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 112) Part of this project could be usability testing of Tor Browser Bundle,

en/volunteer.wml 113) ideally amongst our target demographic.  That would help a lot in knowing
en/volunteer.wml 114) what needs to be done in terms of bug fixes or new features. We get this
en/volunteer.wml 115) informally at the moment, but a more structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml 116) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 117) 

en/volunteer.wml 118) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 119) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</b>

en/volunteer.wml 120) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 121) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 122) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 123) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 124) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 125) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 126) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 127) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml 128) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 129) It would be great to set up an automated system for tracking network
en/volunteer.wml 130) health over time, graphing it, etc. Part of this project would involve
en/volunteer.wml 131) inventing better metrics for assessing network health and growth. Is the
en/volunteer.wml 132) average uptime of the network increasing? How many relays are qualifying
en/volunteer.wml 133) for Guard status this month compared to last month? What's the turnover
en/volunteer.wml 134) in terms of new relays showing up and relays shutting off? Periodically
en/volunteer.wml 135) people collect brief snapshots, but where it gets really interesting is
en/volunteer.wml 136) when we start tracking data points over time.
en/volunteer.wml 137) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 138) Data could be collected from the Tor Network Scanners in <a
en/volunteer.wml 139) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>, from

en/volunteer.wml 140) the server descriptors that each relay publishes, and from other
en/volunteer.wml 141) sources. Results over time could be integrated into one of the <a
en/volunteer.wml 142) href="https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/">Tor Status</a> web pages, or be
en/volunteer.wml 143) kept separate. Speaking of the Tor Status pages, take a look at Roger's
en/volunteer.wml 144) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2008/msg00300.html">Tor
en/volunteer.wml 145) Status wish list</a>.
en/volunteer.wml 146) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 147) 
en/volunteer.wml 148) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 149) <b>Improving Tor's ability to resist censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml 150) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 151) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 152) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 153) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 154) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 155) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 156) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 157) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Steven</i>

en/volunteer.wml 158) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 159) The Tor 0.2.1.x series makes <a

en/volunteer.wml 160) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html">significant

en/volunteer.wml 161) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml 162) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its
en/volunteer.wml 163) anti-censorship design.  For example, current Tors can only listen on a
en/volunteer.wml 164) single address/port combination at a time.  There's

en/volunteer.wml 165) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a

en/volunteer.wml 166) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml 167) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more

en/volunteer.wml 168) work.
en/volunteer.wml 169) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 170) Another area that needs work is our <a
en/volunteer.wml 171) href="http://gitweb.torproject.org//bridgedb.git?a=tree">bridgedb</a>
en/volunteer.wml 172) service. See e.g. <a
en/volunteer.wml 173) href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Dec-2009/msg00000.html">Roger's
en/volunteer.wml 174) or-dev post</a> from December for details &mdash; lots of design work
en/volunteer.wml 175) remains.

en/volunteer.wml 176) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 177) This project involves a lot of research and design. One of the big
en/volunteer.wml 178) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml 179) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 180) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml 181) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 182) 

en/volunteer.wml 183) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 184) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>

en/volunteer.wml 185) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 186) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 187) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 188) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 189) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 190) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 191) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 192) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike, Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml 193) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 194) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml 195) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml 196) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml 197) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml 198) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml 199) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml 200) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml 201) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,
en/volunteer.wml 202) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml 203) as described in the
en/volunteer.wml 204) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml 205) Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml 206) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml 207) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml 208) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml 209) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too
en/volunteer.wml 210) much communications overhead between relays and directory
en/volunteer.wml 211) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml 212) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 213) 
en/volunteer.wml 214) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 215) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml 216) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 217) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 218) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 219) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 220) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 221) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 222) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 223) Likely Mentors: <i>Chris</i>

en/volunteer.wml 224) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 225) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml 226) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml 227) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:

en/volunteer.wml 228) <ol><li> the ability to asynchronously query name servers, find the
en/volunteer.wml 229) system nameservers, and manage netbios and dns queries.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 230) <li> manage events and buffers natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes,
en/volunteer.wml 231) Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in Windows it's whatever the config
en/volunteer.wml 232) specifies).</li>
en/volunteer.wml 233) <li> some sort of GUI config and reporting tool, bonus if it has a
en/volunteer.wml 234) systray icon with right clickable menu options. Double bonus if it's
en/volunteer.wml 235) cross-platform compatible.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 236) <li> allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml 237) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"</li>
en/volunteer.wml 238) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml 239) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 240) 

en/volunteer.wml 241) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 242) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface for Vidalia</b>

en/volunteer.wml 243) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 244) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 245) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 246) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 247) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 248) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 249) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 250) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 251) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 252) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml 253) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml 254) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml 255) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml 256) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml 257) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml 258) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml 259) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml 260) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 261) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml 262) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml 263) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml 264) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml 265) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 266) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml 267) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml 268) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml 269) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml 270) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml 271) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml 272) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml 273) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml 274) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 275) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml 276) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml 277) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml 278) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml 279) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml 280) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml 281) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml 282) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 283) 

en/volunteer.wml 284) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 285) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>

en/volunteer.wml 286) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 287) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 288) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 289) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 290) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 291) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 292) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 293) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Erinn</i>

en/volunteer.wml 294) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 295) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml 296) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml 297) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml 298) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml 299) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml 300) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 301) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml 302) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml 303) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml 304) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml 305) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml 306) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 307) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 308) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml 309) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 310) 
en/volunteer.wml 311) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 312) <b>Help with independent Tor client implementations</b>

en/volunteer.wml 313) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 314) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 315) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 316) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 317) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 318) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 319) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 320) Likely Mentors: <i>Bruce, Nathan</i>

en/volunteer.wml 321) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 322) Others are currently working on Tor clients for Java, Android, and Maemo

en/volunteer.wml 323) environments.  The first step is to get a handle on the current state of

en/volunteer.wml 324) the project in which you are interested in helping; <a

en/volunteer.wml 325) href="http://github.com/brl/JTor">Tor for Java</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 326) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/">Android/Orbot</a>
en/volunteer.wml 327) , or Tor for Maemo. Check out the repository and familiarlize yourself
en/volunteer.wml 328) with the source code.  Further, support for requesting or even providing
en/volunteer.wml 329) Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.

en/volunteer.wml 330) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 331) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java

en/volunteer.wml 332) code, including a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml 333) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml 334) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml 335) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml 336) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml 337) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 338) 

en/volunteer.wml 339) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 340) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 341) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 342) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 343) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 344) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 345) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 346) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 347) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 348) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 349) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml 350) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml 351) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml 352) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml 353) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml 354) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 355) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml 356) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 357) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml 358) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml 359) <a
en/volunteer.wml 360) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml 361) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 362) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml 363) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml 364) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml 365) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml 366) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml 367) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 368) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml 369) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 370) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.

en/volunteer.wml 371) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 372) 

en/volunteer.wml 373) <!-- <li>

en/volunteer.wml 374) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 375) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 376) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 377) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 378) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 379) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 380) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 381) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 382) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 383) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 384) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml 385) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml 386) features to consider include:

en/volunteer.wml 387) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml 388) <li> Integration of the <a

en/volunteer.wml 389) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml 390) Python library</a>

en/volunteer.wml 391) for authenticated HTTPS downloads.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 392) <li> Adding a level of indirection

en/volunteer.wml 393) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an

en/volunteer.wml 394) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 395) <li> Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted

en/volunteer.wml 396) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml 397) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml 398) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and

en/volunteer.wml 399) Python proficiency.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 400) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml 401) </li> -->

en/volunteer.wml 402) 
en/volunteer.wml 403) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 404) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml 405) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 406) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 407) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 408) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 409) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 410) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 411) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 412) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml 413) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 414) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml 415) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml 416) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml 417) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml 418) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml 419) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 420) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml 421) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml 422) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml 423) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml 424) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml 425) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 426) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml 427) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml 428) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml 429) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml 430) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml 431) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 432) 
en/volunteer.wml 433) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 434) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 435) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 436) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 437) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 438) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 439) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 440) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 441) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 442) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 443) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 444) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml 445) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml 446) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml 447) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml 448) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml 449) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml 450) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml 451) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml 452) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml 453) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml 454) from here."
en/volunteer.wml 455) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 456) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 457) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml 458) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml 459) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml 460) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml 461) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 462) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 463) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml 464) required.
en/volunteer.wml 465) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 466) 
en/volunteer.wml 467) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 468) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml 469) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 470) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 471) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 472) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 473) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 474) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 475) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 476) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 477) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 478) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml 479) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml 480) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml 481) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml 482) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml 483) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 484) 

en/volunteer.wml 485) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 486) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</b>
en/volunteer.wml 487) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 488) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 489) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 490) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 491) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 492) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 493) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 494) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 495) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 496) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml 497) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml 498) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml 499) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml 500) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml 501) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml 502) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.

en/volunteer.wml 503) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 504) 

en/volunteer.wml 505) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 506) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml 507) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 508) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 509) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 510) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 511) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 512) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 513) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 514) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml 515) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 516) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml 517) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml 518) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml 519) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml 520) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml 521) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml 522) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml 523) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml 524) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml 525) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml 526) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml 527) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml 528) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml 529) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml 530) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml 531) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml 532) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml 533) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 534) 

en/volunteer.wml 535) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 536) <b>Better Debian/Ubuntu Packaging for Tor+Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 537) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 538) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 539) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 540) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 541) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 542) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 543) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 544) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn, Peter</i>
en/volunteer.wml 545) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 546) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml 547) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml 548) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a

en/volunteer.wml 549) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined

en/volunteer.wml 550) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml 551) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml 552) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml 553) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml 554) ports — they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml 555) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 556) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml 557) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml 558) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml 559) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml 560) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml 561) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml 562) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml 563) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml 564) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 565) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml 566) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml 567) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml 568) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml 569) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml 570) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 571) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 572) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml 573) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml 574) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml 575) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts
en/volunteer.wml 576) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml 577) best idea
en/volunteer.wml 578) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml 579) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml 580) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml 581) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 582) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml 583) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml 584) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 585) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 586) 

en/volunteer.wml 587) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 588) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml 589) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 590) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml 591) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml 592) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml 593) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml 594) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml 595) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml 596) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml 597) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml 598) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml 599) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml 600) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml 601) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml 602) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 603) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml 604) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml 605) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml 606) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml 607) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 608) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml 609) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml 610) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml 611) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 612) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 613) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml 614) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml 615) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml 616) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml 617) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml 618) with others prior to implementation.

en/volunteer.wml 619) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 620) 

en/volunteer.wml 621) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 622) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for builds</b>

en/volunteer.wml 623) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 624) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 625) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 626) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 627) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 628) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 629) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 630) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn</i>
en/volunteer.wml 631) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 632) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml 633) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml 634) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml 635) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 636) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml 637) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml 638) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml 639) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 640) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml 641) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml 642) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml 643) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml 644) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml 645) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml 646) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml 647) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 648) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml 649) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml 650) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml 651) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 652) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 653) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 654) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml 655) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 656) 

en/volunteer.wml 657) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml 658) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml 659) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 660) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 661) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 662) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 663) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 664) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 665) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 666) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml 667) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 668) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml 669) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml 670) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml 671) structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml 672) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml 673) 
en/volunteer.wml 674) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 675) <b>An authenticating IRC proxy</b>
en/volunteer.wml 676) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 677) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 678) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 679) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 680) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 681) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 682) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 683) Likely Mentors: <i>Sebastian, Weasel, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml 684) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 685) The world needs an authenticating irc proxy. As we're periodically
en/volunteer.wml 686) reminded from the Penny Arcade web comic, "Internet user + anonymity =
en/volunteer.wml 687) jerk". With respect to websites we're actually doing ok, since websites
en/volunteer.wml 688) can make their users log in and use other application-level authentication
en/volunteer.wml 689) approaches. But IRC servers are much worse off, because most IRC server
en/volunteer.wml 690) code is poorly written: hard to maintain, and harder to modify. Many
en/volunteer.wml 691) IRC networks now block connections from Tor, and we're basically down to
en/volunteer.wml 692) two holdouts (OFTC and Freenode). This state of affairs means that a lot
en/volunteer.wml 693) of people around the world are thinking "I told you so" about anonymity
en/volunteer.wml 694) online, when in fact the problem is simply lack of technology to make the
en/volunteer.wml 695) problem manageable. We need some way to let the IRC networks distinguish
en/volunteer.wml 696) which users have developed a reputation as not being jerks, so they can
en/volunteer.wml 697) treat the two groups separately. There are some really cool research
en/volunteer.wml 698) designs like <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~nymble/">Nymble</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 699) which aim to let websites blacklist users without needing to learn who
en/volunteer.wml 700) they are.  But Nymble is designed around web interactions. We need to
en/volunteer.wml 701) build the glue around the IRC protocol that would let us plug in a project
en/volunteer.wml 702) like Nymble (or a simpler one to start, as a proof-of-concept). One way
en/volunteer.wml 703) to do that would be to build an IRC proxy that knows how to hear from
en/volunteer.wml 704) IRC clients, knows how to talk to IRC servers, and has an additional
en/volunteer.wml 705) layer that requires the users to authenticate.
en/volunteer.wml 706) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 707) 

en/volunteer.wml 708) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 709) <b>Make torsocks/dsocks work on OS X</b>
en/volunteer.wml 710) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 711) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 712) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 713) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 714) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 715) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 716) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 717) Likely Mentors: <i>?</i>
en/volunteer.wml 718) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 719) <a href="http://code.google.com/p/torsocks/">Torsocks</a> and <a
en/volunteer.wml 720) href="http://code.google.com/p/dsocks/">dsocks</a> are wrappers that will
en/volunteer.wml 721) run applications, intercept their outgoing network connections, and push
en/volunteer.wml 722) those connections through Tor. The goal is to handle applications that
en/volunteer.wml 723) don't support proxies (or don't supporting them well). To get it right,
en/volunteer.wml 724) they need to intercept many system calls. The syscalls you need to
en/volunteer.wml 725) intercept on Linux differ dramatically from those on BSD. So Torsocks
en/volunteer.wml 726) works fine on Linux, dsocks works ok on BSD (though it may be less
en/volunteer.wml 727) maintained and thus might miss more syscalls), and nothing works well
en/volunteer.wml 728) on both. First, we should patch dsocks to use Tor's <i>mapaddress</i>
en/volunteer.wml 729) commands from the controller interface, so we don't waste a whole
en/volunteer.wml 730) round-trip inside Tor doing the resolve before connecting. Second,
en/volunteer.wml 731) we should make our <i>torify</i> script detect which of torsocks or
en/volunteer.wml 732) dsocks is installed, and call them appropriately. This probably means
en/volunteer.wml 733) unifying their interfaces, and might involve sharing code between them
en/volunteer.wml 734) or discarding one entirely.
en/volunteer.wml 735) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 736) 

en/volunteer.wml 737) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 738) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml 739) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 740) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a
en/volunteer.wml 741) href="<gitblob>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml 742) roadmap</a> for more ideas, or just try out Tor, Vidalia, and Torbutton,
en/volunteer.wml 743) and find out what you think needs fixing.

en/volunteer.wml 744) Some of the <a href="<gittree>doc/spec/proposals">current proposals</a>
en/volunteer.wml 745) might also be short on developers.
en/volunteer.wml 746) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 747) 

en/volunteer.wml 748) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml 749) 

en/volunteer.wml 750) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 751) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html   752) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml 753) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml 754) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml 755) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml 756) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml 757) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml 758) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml 759) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml 760) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml 761) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml 762) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml 763) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml 764) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 765) 

en/volunteer.wml 766) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 767) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml 768) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml 769) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml 770) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 771) 

en/volunteer.wml 772) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml 773) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml 774) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml 775) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml 776) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml 777) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml 778) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml 779) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml 780) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 781) 

en/volunteer.wml 782) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml 783) 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 784) 

volunteer.html   785) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html   786) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml 787) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html   788) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml 789) 

volunteer.html   790) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html   791) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html   792) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html   793) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml 794) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml 795) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml 796) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml 797) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification

en/volunteer.wml 798) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml 799) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 800) 

volunteer.html   801) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html   802) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html   803) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 804) 
en/volunteer.wml 805) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml 806) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml 807) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml 808) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml 809) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml 810) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 811) 

en/volunteer.wml 812) <li>How can we make the various LiveCD/USB systems easier
en/volunteer.wml 813) to maintain, improve, and document?  Some examples are <a

en/volunteer.wml 814) href="http://amnesia.boum.org/">amnesia LiveCD/USB</a> and the <a

en/volunteer.wml 815) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>

en/volunteer.wml 816) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 817) 
en/volunteer.wml 818) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 819) Another anti-censorship project is to try to make Tor
en/volunteer.wml 820) more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify <a
en/volunteer.wml 821) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>
en/volunteer.wml 822) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol,
en/volunteer.wml 823) and seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could <a
en/volunteer.wml 824) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like
en/volunteer.wml 825) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml 826) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml 827) To start, check out Shane Pope's <a
en/volunteer.wml 828) href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37735/index.html">thesis and prototype</a>.
en/volunteer.wml 829) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 830) 

volunteer.html   831) </ol>
volunteer.html   832) 

en/volunteer.wml 833) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 834) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html   835) <ol>

volunteer.html   836) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html   837) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html   838) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html   839) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html   840) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html   841) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html   842) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html   843) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html   844) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html   845) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html   846) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html   847) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html   848) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html   849) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html   850) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html   851) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html   852) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html   853) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html   854) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html   855) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html   856) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html   857) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 858) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml 859) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml 860) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml 861) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml 862) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml 863) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml 864) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml 865) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml 866) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 867) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml 868) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml 869) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml 870) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml 871) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml 872) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 873) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml 874) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml 875) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml 876) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml 877) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml 878) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml 879) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml 880) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml 881) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml 882) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml 883) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml 884) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml 885) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml 886) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml 887) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html   888) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html   889) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html   890) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html   891) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html   892) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html   893) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html   894) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html   895) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html   896) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html   897) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 898) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml 899) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml 900) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml 901) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml 902) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml 903) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml 904) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 905) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html   906) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html   907) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html   908) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html   909) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html   910) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html   911) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html   912) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html   913) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html   914) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html   915) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html   916) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html   917) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html   918) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html   919) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html   920) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html   921) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html   922) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html   923) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 924) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml 925) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml 926) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml 927) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml 928) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml 929) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml 930) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml 931) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml 932) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml 933) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml 934) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html   935) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html   936) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html   937) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml 938) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html   939) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html   940) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html   941) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 942) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html   943) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html   944) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 945) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml 946) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml 947) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml 948) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml 949) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml 950) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml 951) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml 952) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml 953) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml 954) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml 955) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml 956) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml 957) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml 958) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml 959) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 960) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 961) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 962) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 963) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 964) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 965) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 966) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 967) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 968) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 969) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 970) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 971) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 972) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 973) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 974) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 975) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 976) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 977) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 978) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 979) </li>

volunteer.html   980) </ol>
volunteer.html   981) 

en/volunteer.wml 982) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 983) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 984) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 985) </p>

volunteer.html   986) 

en/volunteer.wml 987)   </div><!-- #main -->

volunteer.html   988)