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volunteer.html     4) 

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

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

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

volunteer.html    11) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

volunteer.html    32) <ol>

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  48) </li>

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  56) </li>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  69) <li>Create a video about your positive uses of Tor.  Some have already started on <a href="http://tinyvid.tv">TinyVid</a>.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  70) <li>Create a poster, or a set of posters, around a theme, such as "Tor for Freedom!"</li>
en/volunteer.wml  71) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml  72) 

en/volunteer.wml  73) <a id="Documentation"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  74) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Documentation">Documentation</a></h2>

volunteer.html    75) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  76) <li>Please help Matt Edman with the documentation and how-tos for his

en/volunteer.wml  77) Tor controller,

en/volunteer.wml  78) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a>.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  79) <li>Evaluate and document

en/volunteer.wml  80) <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/wiki/TheOnionRouter/TorifyHOWTO">our

en/volunteer.wml  81) list of programs</a> that can be configured to use Tor.</li>

volunteer.html    82) <li>We need better documentation for dynamically intercepting

en/volunteer.wml  83) connections and sending them through Tor. tsocks (Linux), dsocks (BSD),

en/volunteer.wml  84) and freecap (Windows) seem to be good candidates, as would better
en/volunteer.wml  85) use of our new TransPort feature.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  86) <li>We have a huge list of <a href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/SupportPrograms">potentially useful

volunteer.html    87) programs that interface to Tor</a>. Which ones are useful in which
volunteer.html    88) situations? Please help us test them out and document your results.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  89) <li>Help translate the web page and documentation into other
en/volunteer.wml  90) languages. See the <a href="<page translation>">translation

en/volunteer.wml  91) guidelines</a> if you want to help out. We especially need Arabic or
en/volunteer.wml  92) Farsi translations, for the many Tor users in censored areas.</li>

volunteer.html    93) </ol>
volunteer.html    94) 

en/volunteer.wml  95) <a id="Coding"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  96) <a id="Summer"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  97) <a id="Projects"></a>

en/volunteer.wml  98) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Projects">Good Coding Projects</a></h2>

en/volunteer.wml  99) 
en/volunteer.wml 100) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 101) You may find some of these projects to be good <a href="<page

en/volunteer.wml 102) gsoc>">Google Summer of Code 2010</a> ideas. We have labelled each idea

en/volunteer.wml 103) with how useful it would be to the overall Tor project (priority), how
en/volunteer.wml 104) much work we expect it would be (effort level), how much clue you should
en/volunteer.wml 105) start with (skill level), and which of our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 106) people>#Core">core developers</a> would be good mentors.
en/volunteer.wml 107) If one or more of these ideas looks promising to you, please <a
en/volunteer.wml 108) href="<page contact>">contact us</a> to discuss your plans rather than
en/volunteer.wml 109) sending blind applications. You may also want to propose your own project
en/volunteer.wml 110) idea which often results in the best applications.

en/volunteer.wml 111) </p>
en/volunteer.wml 112) 

en/volunteer.wml 113) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml 114) 

en/volunteer.wml 115) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 116) <b>Tor Browser Bundle for Linux/Mac OS X</b>

en/volunteer.wml 117) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 118) Priority: <i>High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 119) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 120) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 121) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 122) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 123) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 124) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven, Andrew, Jacob</i>

en/volunteer.wml 125) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 126) The Tor Browser Bundle incorporates Tor, Firefox, Polipo, and the Vidalia user
en/volunteer.wml 127) interface (and optionally the <a href="http://pidgin.im/">Pidgin</a> Instant Messaging client). Components are pre-configured to operate in a secure way, and it has very few dependencies on the

en/volunteer.wml 128) installed operating system. It has therefore become one of the most
en/volunteer.wml 129) easy to use, and popular, ways to use Tor on Windows.
en/volunteer.wml 130) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 131) However, there is currently no working package for Linux and Mac OS

en/volunteer.wml 132) X, so this project would be to implement Tor Browser Bundle for these
en/volunteer.wml 133) platforms. This will involve modifications to Vidalia (C++), possibly
en/volunteer.wml 134) Firefox (C) then creating and testing the launcher on a range of

en/volunteer.wml 135) operating system versions and configurations to verify portability.  Some work on this was completed as part of the Google Summer of Code 2009.  

en/volunteer.wml 136) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 137) Students should be familiar with application development on one or
en/volunteer.wml 138) preferably both of Linux and Mac OS X, and be comfortable with C/C++
en/volunteer.wml 139) and shell scripting.
en/volunteer.wml 140) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 141) Part of this project could be usability testing of Tor Browser Bundle,
en/volunteer.wml 142) ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml 143) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml 144) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml 145) structured process would be better.
en/volunteer.wml 146) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 147) 

en/volunteer.wml 148) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 149) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</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>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 156) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml 158) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 159) It would be great to set up an automated system for tracking network
en/volunteer.wml 160) health over time, graphing it, etc. Part of this project would involve
en/volunteer.wml 161) inventing better metrics for assessing network health and growth. Is the
en/volunteer.wml 162) average uptime of the network increasing? How many relays are qualifying
en/volunteer.wml 163) for Guard status this month compared to last month? What's the turnover
en/volunteer.wml 164) in terms of new relays showing up and relays shutting off? Periodically
en/volunteer.wml 165) people collect brief snapshots, but where it gets really interesting is
en/volunteer.wml 166) when we start tracking data points over time.
en/volunteer.wml 167) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 168) Data could be collected from the Tor Network Scanners in <a
en/volunteer.wml 169) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>, from

en/volunteer.wml 170) the server descriptors that each relay publishes, and from other
en/volunteer.wml 171) sources. Results over time could be integrated into one of the <a
en/volunteer.wml 172) href="https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/">Tor Status</a> web pages, or be
en/volunteer.wml 173) kept separate. Speaking of the Tor Status pages, take a look at Roger's
en/volunteer.wml 174) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jan-2008/msg00300.html">Tor
en/volunteer.wml 175) Status wish list</a>.
en/volunteer.wml 176) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 177) 
en/volunteer.wml 178) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 179) <b>Improving Tor's ability to resist censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml 180) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 181) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 182) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 183) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 184) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 185) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 186) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 187) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Steven</i>

en/volunteer.wml 188) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 189) The Tor 0.2.1.x series makes <a

en/volunteer.wml 190) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html">significant

en/volunteer.wml 191) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml 192) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its
en/volunteer.wml 193) anti-censorship design.  For example, current Tors can only listen on a
en/volunteer.wml 194) single address/port combination at a time.  There's

en/volunteer.wml 195) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a

en/volunteer.wml 196) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml 197) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more
en/volunteer.wml 198) work.  Another anti-censorship project (far more difficult) is to try
en/volunteer.wml 199) to make Tor more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify

en/volunteer.wml 200) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>

en/volunteer.wml 201) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol, and
en/volunteer.wml 202) seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could

en/volunteer.wml 203) <a href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like

en/volunteer.wml 204) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml 205) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml 206) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 207) This project involves a lot of research and design. One of the big
en/volunteer.wml 208) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml 209) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 210) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml 211) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 212) 
en/volunteer.wml 213) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 214) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>

en/volunteer.wml 215) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 216) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 217) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 218) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 219) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 220) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 221) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 222) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike, Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml 223) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 224) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml 225) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml 226) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml 227) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml 228) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml 229) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml 230) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml 231) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,
en/volunteer.wml 232) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml 233) as described in the
en/volunteer.wml 234) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml 235) Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml 236) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml 237) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml 238) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml 239) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too
en/volunteer.wml 240) much communications overhead between relays and directory
en/volunteer.wml 241) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml 242) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 243) 
en/volunteer.wml 244) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 245) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml 246) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 247) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 248) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 249) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 250) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 251) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 252) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 253) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin, Chris</i>

en/volunteer.wml 254) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 255) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml 256) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml 257) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:
en/volunteer.wml 258) 1) the ability to asynchronously
en/volunteer.wml 259) query name servers, find the system nameservers, and manage netbios
en/volunteer.wml 260) and dns queries.
en/volunteer.wml 261) 2) manage events and buffers
en/volunteer.wml 262) natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes, Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in
en/volunteer.wml 263) Windows it's whatever the config specifies). 3) some sort of GUI config
en/volunteer.wml 264) and reporting tool, bonus if it has a systray icon with right clickable
en/volunteer.wml 265) menu options. Double bonus if it's cross-platform compatible.

en/volunteer.wml 266) 4) allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml 267) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"

en/volunteer.wml 268) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 269) 

en/volunteer.wml 270) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 271) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface</b>

en/volunteer.wml 272) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 273) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 274) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 275) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 276) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 277) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 278) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 279) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 280) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 281) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml 282) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml 283) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml 284) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml 285) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml 286) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml 287) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml 288) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml 289) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 290) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml 291) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml 292) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml 293) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml 294) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 295) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml 296) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml 297) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml 298) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml 299) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml 300) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml 301) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml 302) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml 303) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 304) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml 305) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml 306) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml 307) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml 308) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml 309) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml 310) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml 311) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 312) 

en/volunteer.wml 313) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 314) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>

en/volunteer.wml 315) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 316) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 317) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 318) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 319) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 320) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 321) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 322) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml 323) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 324) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml 325) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml 326) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml 327) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml 328) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml 329) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 330) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml 331) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml 332) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml 333) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml 334) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml 335) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 336) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 337) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml 338) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 339) 
en/volunteer.wml 340) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 341) <b>Help with independent Tor client implementations</b>

en/volunteer.wml 342) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 343) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 344) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 345) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 346) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 347) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 348) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 349) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Nick</i>
en/volunteer.wml 350) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 351) We're currently working on Tor clients for Java, Android, and Maemo
en/volunteer.wml 352) environments.  The first step is to get a handle on the current state of
en/volunteer.wml 353) the project in which you are interested in helping; Tor for Java,
en/volunteer.wml 354) Android/Orbot, or Tor for Maemo. Check out the repository and
en/volunteer.wml 355) familiarlize yourself with the source code.  Further, support for requesting or even

en/volunteer.wml 356) providing Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 357) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 358) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java

en/volunteer.wml 359) code, including a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml 360) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml 361) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml 362) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml 363) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml 364) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 365) 
en/volunteer.wml 366) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 367) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 368) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 369) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 370) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 371) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 372) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 373) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 374) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 375) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 376) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml 377) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml 378) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml 379) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml 380) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml 381) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 382) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml 383) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 384) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml 385) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml 386) <a
en/volunteer.wml 387) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml 388) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml 389) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml 390) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml 391) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml 392) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml 393) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml 394) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 395) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml 396) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 397) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.
en/volunteer.wml 398) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 399) 
en/volunteer.wml 400) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 401) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml 402) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 403) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 404) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 405) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 406) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 407) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 408) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 409) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 410) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 411) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml 412) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml 413) features to consider include:
en/volunteer.wml 414) 1) Integration of the <a
en/volunteer.wml 415) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml 416) Python library</a>
en/volunteer.wml 417) for authenticated HTTPS downloads. 2) Adding a level of indirection
en/volunteer.wml 418) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an
en/volunteer.wml 419) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.
en/volunteer.wml 420) 3) Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted
en/volunteer.wml 421) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml 422) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml 423) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and
en/volunteer.wml 424) Python proficiency.
en/volunteer.wml 425) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 426) 
en/volunteer.wml 427) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 428) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml 429) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 430) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 431) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 432) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 433) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 434) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 435) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 436) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml 437) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 438) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml 439) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml 440) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml 441) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml 442) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml 443) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 444) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml 445) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml 446) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml 447) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml 448) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml 449) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 450) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml 451) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml 452) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml 453) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml 454) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml 455) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 456) 
en/volunteer.wml 457) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 458) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 459) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 460) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 461) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 462) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 463) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 464) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 465) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 466) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml 467) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 468) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml 469) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml 470) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml 471) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml 472) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml 473) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml 474) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml 475) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml 476) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml 477) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml 478) from here."
en/volunteer.wml 479) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 480) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 481) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml 482) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml 483) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml 484) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml 485) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 486) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 487) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml 488) required.
en/volunteer.wml 489) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 490) 
en/volunteer.wml 491) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 492) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml 493) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 494) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 495) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 496) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 497) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 498) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 499) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 500) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml 501) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 502) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml 503) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml 504) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml 505) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml 506) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml 507) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 508) 
en/volunteer.wml 509) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 510) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</b>
en/volunteer.wml 511) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 512) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 513) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 514) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 515) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 516) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 517) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 518) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml 519) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 520) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml 521) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml 522) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml 523) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml 524) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml 525) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml 526) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.
en/volunteer.wml 527) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 528) 

en/volunteer.wml 529) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 530) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml 531) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 532) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 533) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 534) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 535) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 536) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 537) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 538) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml 539) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 540) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml 541) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml 542) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml 543) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml 544) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml 545) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml 546) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml 547) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml 548) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml 549) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml 550) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml 551) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml 552) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml 553) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml 554) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml 555) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml 556) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml 557) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 558) 

en/volunteer.wml 559) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 560) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml 561) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 562) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a

en/volunteer.wml 563) href="<gitblob>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml 564) roadmap</a> for more ideas.

en/volunteer.wml 565) Some of the <a href="<gittree>doc/spec/proposals/">current proposals</a>

en/volunteer.wml 566) might also be short on developers.
en/volunteer.wml 567) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 568) 
en/volunteer.wml 569) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 570) <b>Better Debian/Ubuntu Packaging for Tor+Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml 571) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 572) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml 573) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml 574) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a

en/volunteer.wml 575) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined

en/volunteer.wml 576) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml 577) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml 578) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml 579) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml 580) ports — they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml 581) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 582) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml 583) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml 584) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml 585) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml 586) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml 587) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml 588) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml 589) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml 590) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 591) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml 592) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml 593) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml 594) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml 595) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml 596) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 597) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 598) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml 599) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml 600) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml 601) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts
en/volunteer.wml 602) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml 603) best idea
en/volunteer.wml 604) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml 605) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml 606) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml 607) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 608) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml 609) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml 610) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 611) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 612) 
en/volunteer.wml 613) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 614) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml 615) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 616) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml 617) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml 618) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml 619) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml 620) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml 621) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml 622) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml 623) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml 624) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml 625) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml 626) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml 627) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml 628) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 629) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml 630) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml 631) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml 632) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml 633) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 634) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml 635) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml 636) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml 637) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 638) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 639) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml 640) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml 641) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml 642) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml 643) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml 644) with others prior to implementation.
en/volunteer.wml 645) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 646) 

en/volunteer.wml 647) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 648) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for builds</b>

en/volunteer.wml 649) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 650) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml 651) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml 652) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml 653) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 654) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml 655) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml 656) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml 657) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 658) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml 659) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml 660) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml 661) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml 662) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml 663) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml 664) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml 665) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 666) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml 667) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml 668) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml 669) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 670) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 671) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 672) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml 673) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 674) 

en/volunteer.wml 675) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 676) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml 677) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 678) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 679) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 680) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 681) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 682) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 683) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 684) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml 685) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 686) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml 687) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml 688) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml 689) structured process would be better.
en/volunteer.wml 690) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 691) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml 692) 

en/volunteer.wml 693) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 694) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html   695) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml 696) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml 697) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml 698) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml 699) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml 700) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml 701) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml 702) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml 703) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml 704) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml 705) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml 706) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml 707) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 708) 

en/volunteer.wml 709) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 710) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml 711) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml 712) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml 713) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 714) 

en/volunteer.wml 715) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml 716) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml 717) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml 718) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml 719) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml 720) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml 721) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml 722) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml 723) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 724) 

en/volunteer.wml 725) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml 726) 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 727) 

volunteer.html   728) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html   729) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml 730) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html   731) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml 732) 

volunteer.html   733) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html   734) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html   735) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html   736) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml 737) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml 738) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml 739) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml 740) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification

en/volunteer.wml 741) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml 742) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 743) 

volunteer.html   744) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html   745) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html   746) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 747) 
en/volunteer.wml 748) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml 749) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml 750) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml 751) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml 752) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml 753) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 754) 
en/volunteer.wml 755) <li>How can we make the <a
en/volunteer.wml 756) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>
en/volunteer.wml 757) easier to maintain, improve, and document?</li>

volunteer.html   758) </ol>
volunteer.html   759) 

en/volunteer.wml 760) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 761) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html   762) <ol>

volunteer.html   763) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html   764) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html   765) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html   766) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html   767) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html   768) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html   769) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html   770) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html   771) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html   772) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html   773) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html   774) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html   775) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html   776) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html   777) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html   778) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html   779) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html   780) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html   781) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html   782) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html   783) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html   784) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 785) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml 786) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml 787) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml 788) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml 789) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml 790) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml 791) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml 792) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml 793) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 794) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml 795) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml 796) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml 797) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml 798) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml 799) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 800) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml 801) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml 802) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml 803) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml 804) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml 805) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml 806) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml 807) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml 808) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml 809) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml 810) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml 811) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml 812) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml 813) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml 814) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html   815) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html   816) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html   817) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html   818) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html   819) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html   820) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html   821) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html   822) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html   823) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html   824) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 825) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml 826) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml 827) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml 828) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml 829) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml 830) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml 831) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 832) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html   833) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html   834) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html   835) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html   836) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html   837) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html   838) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html   839) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html   840) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html   841) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html   842) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html   843) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html   844) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html   845) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html   846) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html   847) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html   848) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html   849) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html   850) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 851) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml 852) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml 853) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml 854) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml 855) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml 856) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml 857) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml 858) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml 859) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml 860) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml 861) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html   862) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html   863) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html   864) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml 865) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html   866) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html   867) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html   868) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 869) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html   870) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html   871) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 872) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml 873) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml 874) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml 875) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml 876) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml 877) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml 878) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml 879) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml 880) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml 881) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml 882) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml 883) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml 884) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml 885) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml 886) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 887) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 888) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 889) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 890) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 891) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 892) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 893) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 894) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 895) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 896) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 897) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 898) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 899) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 900) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 901) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 902) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 903) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 904) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 905) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 906) </li>

volunteer.html   907) </ol>
volunteer.html   908) 

en/volunteer.wml 909) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 910) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 911) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 912) </p>

volunteer.html   913) 

en/volunteer.wml 914)   </div><!-- #main -->

volunteer.html   915) 

en/volunteer.wml 916) #include <foot.wmi>