tor-webwml.git

en/volunteer.wml    1) ## translation metadata

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

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

volunteer.html      4) 

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

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

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

volunteer.html     11) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml   29) 

en/volunteer.wml   30) <a id="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>Rewrite TorDNSEL, this time with a spec!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  150) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  151) Priority: <i>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>Mike, Roger, Sebastian</i>
en/volunteer.wml  158) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  159) The <a href="<page tordnsel/index>">Tor DNS Exit List</a> is an
en/volunteer.wml  160) unmaintained Haskell

en/volunteer.wml  161) program that serves three purposes. First, it provides an rbl-style DNS
en/volunteer.wml  162) interface for people to look up whether a given IP address is (or has
en/volunteer.wml  163) recently been) a Tor exit relay. Second, it actively builds circuits over
en/volunteer.wml  164) the Tor network and connects back to itself, to learn the actual exit
en/volunteer.wml  165) IP address of each relay — some Tor relays exit from a different
en/volunteer.wml  166) address than they advertise in their descriptor. Third, it exports a <a
en/volunteer.wml  167) href="http://exitlist.torproject.org/exitAddresses">set of conclusions</a>
en/volunteer.wml  168) so that <a href="https://check.torproject.org/">check.torproject.org</a>
en/volunteer.wml  169) can guess for you whether your browser is configured to point to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml  170) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  171) This project would make use of <a
en/volunteer.wml  172) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>,

en/volunteer.wml  173) a set of Python scripts to interact with Tor,

en/volunteer.wml  174) to figure out how our Tor Exit Checker should actually work, and then
en/volunteer.wml  175) build it — probably in Python since Torflow is in Python. The main
en/volunteer.wml  176) goal is to reduce false positives as much as possible, by making sure
en/volunteer.wml  177) that it learns about new relays as soon as possible, making sure that
en/volunteer.wml  178) the testing phase concludes quickly, and making sure the answers get
en/volunteer.wml  179) passed to the Check script quickly. As a bonus, we should standardize
en/volunteer.wml  180) (specify) the format of the exitAddresses file, and rewrite the <a
en/volunteer.wml  181) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/check/trunk/cgi-bin/TorBulkExitList.py">Tor

en/volunteer.wml  182) Bulk Exit List</a> script to use that file rather than its current <a
en/volunteer.wml  183) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&id=1019">horrible
en/volunteer.wml  184) DNS hacks</a>. As an extra bonus, we should work with Freenode, OFTC,
en/volunteer.wml  185) and/or other IRC networks to make sure that the scripts we offer are
en/volunteer.wml  186) actually the scripts they want, in terms of accurately identifying which
en/volunteer.wml  187) of their users are coming from the Tor network.

en/volunteer.wml  188) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  189) You can fetch the <a href="git://git.torproject.org/git/tordnsel">latest
en/volunteer.wml  190) tordnsel</a> via git.
en/volunteer.wml  191) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  192) 

en/volunteer.wml  193) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  194) <b>Improving Tor's ability to resist censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml  195) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  196) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  197) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  198) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  199) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  200) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  201) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  202) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Steven</i>

en/volunteer.wml  203) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  204) The Tor 0.2.1.x series makes <a

en/volunteer.wml  205) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html">significant

en/volunteer.wml  206) improvements</a> in resisting national and organizational censorship.
en/volunteer.wml  207) But Tor still needs better mechanisms for some parts of its
en/volunteer.wml  208) anti-censorship design.  For example, current Tors can only listen on a
en/volunteer.wml  209) single address/port combination at a time.  There's

en/volunteer.wml  210) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/118-multiple-orports.txt">a

en/volunteer.wml  211) proposal to address this limitation</a> and allow clients to connect
en/volunteer.wml  212) to any given Tor on multiple addresses and ports, but it needs more

en/volunteer.wml  213) work.
en/volunteer.wml  214) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  215) Another area that needs work is our <a
en/volunteer.wml  216) href="http://gitweb.torproject.org//bridgedb.git?a=tree">bridgedb</a>
en/volunteer.wml  217) service. See e.g. <a
en/volunteer.wml  218) href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Dec-2009/msg00000.html">Roger's
en/volunteer.wml  219) or-dev post</a> from December for details &mdash; lots of design work
en/volunteer.wml  220) remains.

en/volunteer.wml  221) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  222) This project involves a lot of research and design. One of the big
en/volunteer.wml  223) challenges will be identifying and crafting approaches that can still
en/volunteer.wml  224) resist an adversary even after the adversary knows the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  225) then trading off censorship resistance with usability and robustness.
en/volunteer.wml  226) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  227) 

en/volunteer.wml  228) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  229) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>

en/volunteer.wml  230) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  231) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  232) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  233) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  234) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  235) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  236) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  237) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Roger, Mike, Karsten</i>
en/volunteer.wml  238) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  239) Right now, Tor relays measure and report their own bandwidth, and Tor
en/volunteer.wml  240) clients choose which relays to use in part based on that bandwidth.
en/volunteer.wml  241) This approach is vulnerable to
en/volunteer.wml  242) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#bauer:wpes2007">attacks where
en/volunteer.wml  243) relays lie about their bandwidth</a>;
en/volunteer.wml  244) to address this, Tor currently caps the maximum bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml  245) it's willing to believe any relay provides.  This is a limited fix, and
en/volunteer.wml  246) a waste of bandwidth capacity to boot.  Instead,
en/volunteer.wml  247) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a more distributed way, perhaps
en/volunteer.wml  248) as described in the
en/volunteer.wml  249) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/author.html#snader08">"A Tune-up for
en/volunteer.wml  250) Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml  251) by Snader and Borisov. One could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml  252) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml  253) dovetail with Tor as deployed in the wild, and determine good ways to
en/volunteer.wml  254) incorporate them into their suggestions Tor network without adding too
en/volunteer.wml  255) much communications overhead between relays and directory
en/volunteer.wml  256) authorities.

en/volunteer.wml  257) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  258) 
en/volunteer.wml  259) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  260) <b>Improving Polipo on Windows</b>

en/volunteer.wml  261) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  262) Priority: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml  263) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  264) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  265) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  266) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  267) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  268) Likely Mentors: <i>Chris</i>

en/volunteer.wml  269) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  270) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml  271) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml  272) Windows. Example topics to tackle include:

en/volunteer.wml  273) <ol><li> the ability to asynchronously query name servers, find the
en/volunteer.wml  274) system nameservers, and manage netbios and dns queries.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  275) <li> manage events and buffers natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes,
en/volunteer.wml  276) Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in Windows it's whatever the config
en/volunteer.wml  277) specifies).</li>
en/volunteer.wml  278) <li> some sort of GUI config and reporting tool, bonus if it has a
en/volunteer.wml  279) systray icon with right clickable menu options. Double bonus if it's
en/volunteer.wml  280) cross-platform compatible.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  281) <li> allow the software to use the Windows Registry and handle proper
en/volunteer.wml  282) Windows directory locations, such as "C:\Program Files\Polipo"</li>
en/volunteer.wml  283) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml  284) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  285) 

en/volunteer.wml  286) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  287) <b>Tor Controller Status Event Interface for Vidalia</b>

en/volunteer.wml  288) <br />

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

en/volunteer.wml  293) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  294) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  295) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml  296) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  297) There are a number of status changes inside Tor of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml  298) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up his Tor as a
en/volunteer.wml  299) relay and Tor decides that its ports are not reachable from outside

en/volunteer.wml  300) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user

en/volunteer.wml  301) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log' window, which they

en/volunteer.wml  302) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml  303) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml  304) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml  305) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  306) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml  307) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml  308) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml  309) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml  310) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  311) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml  312) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml  313) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml  314) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml  315) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe

en/volunteer.wml  316) suggests a remedy for any negative events if they can be corrected by

en/volunteer.wml  317) the user. Of course, this is just an example and one is free to

en/volunteer.wml  318) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml  319) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  320) A person undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout

en/volunteer.wml  321) and some C++ development experience. Previous experience with Qt and

en/volunteer.wml  322) Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but are not required. Some

en/volunteer.wml  323) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml  324) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml  325) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml  326) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml  327) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  328) 

en/volunteer.wml  329) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  330) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>

en/volunteer.wml  331) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  332) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  333) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  334) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  335) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  336) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  337) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  338) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, Erinn</i>

en/volunteer.wml  339) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  340) Tor needs to be far more tested. This is a multi-part effort. To start
en/volunteer.wml  341) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml  342) the areas outside the utility functions. This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml  343) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml  344) as possible from globals.
en/volunteer.wml  345) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  346) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing. We've got
en/volunteer.wml  347) buildbot to automate our regular integration and compile testing already
en/volunteer.wml  348) (though we need somebody to set it up on Windows),
en/volunteer.wml  349) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in <a
en/volunteer.wml  350) href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torflow/trunk/README">TorFlow</a>)
en/volunteer.wml  351) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  352) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml  353) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.
en/volunteer.wml  354) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  355) 
en/volunteer.wml  356) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  357) <b>Help with independent Tor client implementations</b>

en/volunteer.wml  358) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  359) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  360) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  361) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  362) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  363) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  364) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  365) Likely Mentors: <i>Bruce, Nathan</i>

en/volunteer.wml  366) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  367) Others are currently working on Tor clients for Java, Android, and Maemo

en/volunteer.wml  368) environments.  The first step is to get a handle on the current state of

en/volunteer.wml  369) the project in which you are interested in helping; <a

en/volunteer.wml  370) href="http://github.com/brl/JTor">Tor for Java</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  371) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/">Android/Orbot</a>

en/volunteer.wml  372) , or <a href="<page docs/N900>">Tor for Maemo</a>. Check out the
en/volunteer.wml  373) repository and familiarize yourself

en/volunteer.wml  374) with the source code.  Further, support for requesting or even providing
en/volunteer.wml  375) Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required.

en/volunteer.wml  376) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  377) A prospective developer should be able to understand and write new Java

en/volunteer.wml  378) code, including a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml  379) too. One should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml  380) implement code based on it, and refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml  381) when things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml  382) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml  383) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  384) 

en/volunteer.wml  385) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  386) <b>New Torbutton Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml  387) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  388) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  389) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  390) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  391) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  392) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  393) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  394) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  395) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml  396) There are several <a
en/volunteer.wml  397) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=5&amp;type=2">good
en/volunteer.wml  398) feature requests</a> on the Torbutton Flyspray section. In particular, <a
en/volunteer.wml  399) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=523">Integrating
en/volunteer.wml  400) 'New Identity' with Vidalia</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  401) <a href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=940">ways of
en/volunteer.wml  402) managing multiple cookie jars/identities</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  403) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=637">preserving
en/volunteer.wml  404) specific cookies</a> when cookies are cleared,
en/volunteer.wml  405) <a
en/volunteer.wml  406) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=524">better
en/volunteer.wml  407) referrer spoofing</a>, <a
en/volunteer.wml  408) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=564">correct
en/volunteer.wml  409) Tor status reporting</a>, and <a
en/volunteer.wml  410) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?do=details&amp;id=462">"tor://"
en/volunteer.wml  411) and "tors://" urls</a> are all interesting
en/volunteer.wml  412) features that could be added.
en/volunteer.wml  413) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  414) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml  415) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  416) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.

en/volunteer.wml  417) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  418) 

en/volunteer.wml  419) <!-- <li>

en/volunteer.wml  420) <b>New Thandy Features</b>
en/volunteer.wml  421) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  422) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  423) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  424) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  425) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  426) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  427) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  428) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  429) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  430) Additional capabilities are needed for assisted updates of all the Tor
en/volunteer.wml  431) related software for Windows and other operating systems. Some of the
en/volunteer.wml  432) features to consider include:

en/volunteer.wml  433) <ol>
en/volunteer.wml  434) <li> Integration of the <a

en/volunteer.wml  435) href="http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/MeTooCrypto">MeTooCrypto
en/volunteer.wml  436) Python library</a>

en/volunteer.wml  437) for authenticated HTTPS downloads.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  438) <li> Adding a level of indirection

en/volunteer.wml  439) between the timestamp signatures and the package files included in an

en/volunteer.wml  440) update. See the "Thandy attacks / suggestions" thread on or-dev.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  441) <li> Support locale specific installation and configuration of assisted

en/volunteer.wml  442) updates based on preference, host, or user account language settings.
en/volunteer.wml  443) Familiarity with Windows codepages, unicode, and other character sets
en/volunteer.wml  444) is helpful in addition to general win32 and posix API experience and

en/volunteer.wml  445) Python proficiency.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  446) </ol>

en/volunteer.wml  447) </li> -->

en/volunteer.wml  448) 
en/volunteer.wml  449) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  450) <b>Simulator for slow Internet connections</b>
en/volunteer.wml  451) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  452) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  453) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  454) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  455) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  456) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  457) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  458) Likely Mentors: <i>Steven</i>
en/volunteer.wml  459) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  460) Many users of Tor have poor-quality Internet connections, giving low
en/volunteer.wml  461) bandwidth, high latency, and high packet loss/re-ordering. User
en/volunteer.wml  462) experience is that Tor reacts badly to these conditions, but it is
en/volunteer.wml  463) difficult to improve the situation without being able to repeat the
en/volunteer.wml  464) problems in the lab.
en/volunteer.wml  465) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  466) This project would be to build a simulation environment which
en/volunteer.wml  467) replicates the poor connectivity so that the effect on Tor performance
en/volunteer.wml  468) can be measured. Other components would be a testing utility to
en/volunteer.wml  469) establish what are the properties of connections available, and to
en/volunteer.wml  470) measure the effect of performance-improving modifications to Tor.
en/volunteer.wml  471) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  472) The tools used would be up to the student, but dummynet (for FreeBSD)
en/volunteer.wml  473) and nistnet (for Linux) are two potential components on which this
en/volunteer.wml  474) project could be built. Students should be experienced with network
en/volunteer.wml  475) programming/debugging and TCP/IP, and preferably familiar with C and a
en/volunteer.wml  476) scripting language.
en/volunteer.wml  477) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  478) 
en/volunteer.wml  479) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  480) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map in Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml  481) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  482) Priority: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  483) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  484) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  485) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  486) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  487) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  488) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt</i>
en/volunteer.wml  489) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  490) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml  491) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml  492) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml  493) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml  494) poor graphics. Instead, we implemented KDE's Marble widget such
en/volunteer.wml  495) that it gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml  496) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml  497) display additional information. We want to add the ability
en/volunteer.wml  498) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml  499) more Tor exit relays and say, "I want my connections to exit
en/volunteer.wml  500) from here."
en/volunteer.wml  501) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  502) This project will first involve getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  503) and the Marble widget's API. One will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml  504) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml  505) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml  506) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml  507) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  508) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  509) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml  510) required.
en/volunteer.wml  511) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  512) 
en/volunteer.wml  513) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  514) <b>Torbutton equivalent for Thunderbird</b>
en/volunteer.wml  515) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  516) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml  517) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  518) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  519) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  520) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  521) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  522) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike</i>
en/volunteer.wml  523) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  524) We're hearing from an increasing number of users that they want to use
en/volunteer.wml  525) Thunderbird with Tor. However, there are plenty of application-level
en/volunteer.wml  526) concerns, for example, by default Thunderbird will put your hostname in
en/volunteer.wml  527) the outgoing mail that it sends. At some point we should start a new
en/volunteer.wml  528) push to build a Thunderbird extension similar to Torbutton.
en/volunteer.wml  529) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  530) 

en/volunteer.wml  531) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  532) <b>Intermediate Level Network Device Driver</b>
en/volunteer.wml  533) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  534) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml  535) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  536) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  537) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  538) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  539) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  540) Likely Mentors: <i>Martin</i>
en/volunteer.wml  541) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  542) The WinPCAP device driver used by Tor VM for bridged networking does
en/volunteer.wml  543) not support a number of wireless and non-Ethernet network adapters.
en/volunteer.wml  544) Implementation of a intermediate level network device driver for win32
en/volunteer.wml  545) and 64bit would provide a way to intercept and route traffic over such
en/volunteer.wml  546) networks. This project will require knowledge of and experience with
en/volunteer.wml  547) Windows kernel device driver development and testing. Familiarity with
en/volunteer.wml  548) Winsock and Qemu would also be helpful.

en/volunteer.wml  549) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  550) 

en/volunteer.wml  551) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  552) <b>Improve Tor Weather</b>
en/volunteer.wml  553) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  554) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  555) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  556) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  557) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  558) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  559) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  560) Likely Mentors: <i>Christian, Roger</i>

en/volunteer.wml  561) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  562) <a href="https://weather.torproject.org/">Tor weather</a> is a tool
en/volunteer.wml  563) that allows signing up to receive notifications via email when the
en/volunteer.wml  564) tracked Tor relay is down. Currently, it isn't really useful for
en/volunteer.wml  565) people who use the hibernation feature of Tor, or for those who
en/volunteer.wml  566) have to shut down their relay regularly. During the project, Tor

en/volunteer.wml  567) weather could be extended to allow more flexible configurations.

en/volunteer.wml  568) Other enhancements are also possible: Weather could send out warnings

en/volunteer.wml  569) when your relay runs an out-of-date version of Tor, or when its

en/volunteer.wml  570) observed bandwith drops below a certain value. It might also be a
en/volunteer.wml  571) nice tool that allows for checking whether your relay has earned

en/volunteer.wml  572) you a <a href="<page tshirt>">T-Shirt</a>, or sending reminders to
en/volunteer.wml  573) directory authorities that
en/volunteer.wml  574) their keys are about to expire. Be creative, and consider how the
en/volunteer.wml  575) above project to track overall network status can help you get your job
en/volunteer.wml  576) done more quickly! See also its
en/volunteer.wml  577) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/README">README</a>
en/volunteer.wml  578) and <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/weather/trunk/TODO">TODO</a>.

en/volunteer.wml  579) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  580) 

en/volunteer.wml  581) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  582) <b>Better Debian/Ubuntu Packaging for Tor+Vidalia</b>
en/volunteer.wml  583) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  584) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  585) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  586) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  587) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  588) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  589) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  590) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn, Peter</i>
en/volunteer.wml  591) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  592) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml  593) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml  594) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a

en/volunteer.wml  595) <a href="<gitblob>doc/spec/control-spec.txt">ControlPort</a> defined

en/volunteer.wml  596) in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml  597) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml  598) Tor, and Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml  599) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml  600) ports — they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml  601) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  602) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml  603) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml  604) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml  605) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml  606) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml  607) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml  608) then authenticate to Tor using filesystem-based (cookie) authentication
en/volunteer.wml  609) if the user running Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml  610) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  611) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml  612) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml  613) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml  614) make sure they work well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml  615) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml  616) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  617) The next challenge would be to find an intuitive usable way for Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml  618) to be able to change Tor's configuration (torrc) even though it is
en/volunteer.wml  619) located in <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code> and thus immutable. The best
en/volunteer.wml  620) idea we've come up with so far is to feed Tor a new configuration via
en/volunteer.wml  621) the ControlSocket when Vidalia starts, but that's bad because Tor starts
en/volunteer.wml  622) each boot with a different configuration than the user wants. The second
en/volunteer.wml  623) best idea
en/volunteer.wml  624) we've come up with is for Vidalia to write out a temporary torrc file
en/volunteer.wml  625) and ask the user to manually move it to <code>/etc/tor/torrc</code>,
en/volunteer.wml  626) but that's bad because users shouldn't have to mess with files directly.
en/volunteer.wml  627) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  628) A person undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml  629) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml  630) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml  631) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  632) 

en/volunteer.wml  633) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  634) <b>Tor/Polipo/Vidalia Auto-Update Framework</b>
en/volunteer.wml  635) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  636) We're in need of a good authenticated-update framework.
en/volunteer.wml  637) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml  638) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor, using signed statements inside
en/volunteer.wml  639) the Tor directory information. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml  640) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml  641) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml  642) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml  643) user. We should do the fetches via Tor when possible, but also fall back
en/volunteer.wml  644) to direct fetches in a smart way. Time permitting, we would also like
en/volunteer.wml  645) to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml  646) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml  647) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml  648) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  649) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml  650) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml  651) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml  652) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml  653) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml  654) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml  655) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml  656) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml  657) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  658) A person undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml  659) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. One
en/volunteer.wml  660) should also have a good understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml  661) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml  662) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml  663) will be producing a design document to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml  664) with others prior to implementation.

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

en/volunteer.wml  666) 

en/volunteer.wml  667) <li>

en/volunteer.wml  668) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for builds</b>

en/volunteer.wml  669) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  670) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  671) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  672) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  673) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  674) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  675) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  676) Likely Mentors: <i>Erinn</i>
en/volunteer.wml  677) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  678) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml  679) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml  680) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml  681) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  682) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of

en/volunteer.wml  683) the platforms Tor does. See the

en/volunteer.wml  684) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for

en/volunteer.wml  685) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  686) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should

en/volunteer.wml  687) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml  688) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml  689) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml  690) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml  691) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml  692) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but
en/volunteer.wml  693) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml  694) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml  695) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate
en/volunteer.wml  696) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml  697) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml  698) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml  699) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml  700) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.

en/volunteer.wml  701) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  702) 

en/volunteer.wml  703) <!--<li>

en/volunteer.wml  704) <b>Usability testing of Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml  705) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  706) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  707) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  708) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  709) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  710) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  711) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  712) Likely Mentors: <i>Andrew</i>
en/volunteer.wml  713) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  714) Especially the browser bundle, ideally amongst our target demographic.
en/volunteer.wml  715) That would help a lot in knowing what needs to be done in terms of bug
en/volunteer.wml  716) fixes or new features. We get this informally at the moment, but a more
en/volunteer.wml  717) structured process would be better.

en/volunteer.wml  718) </li>-->

en/volunteer.wml  719) 
en/volunteer.wml  720) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  721) <b>An authenticating IRC proxy</b>
en/volunteer.wml  722) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  723) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  724) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  725) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  726) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  727) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml  728) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  729) Likely Mentors: <i>Sebastian, Weasel, Roger</i>
en/volunteer.wml  730) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  731) The world needs an authenticating irc proxy. As we're periodically
en/volunteer.wml  732) reminded from the Penny Arcade web comic, "Internet user + anonymity =
en/volunteer.wml  733) jerk". With respect to websites we're actually doing ok, since websites
en/volunteer.wml  734) can make their users log in and use other application-level authentication
en/volunteer.wml  735) approaches. But IRC servers are much worse off, because most IRC server
en/volunteer.wml  736) code is poorly written: hard to maintain, and harder to modify. Many
en/volunteer.wml  737) IRC networks now block connections from Tor, and we're basically down to
en/volunteer.wml  738) two holdouts (OFTC and Freenode). This state of affairs means that a lot
en/volunteer.wml  739) of people around the world are thinking "I told you so" about anonymity
en/volunteer.wml  740) online, when in fact the problem is simply lack of technology to make the
en/volunteer.wml  741) problem manageable. We need some way to let the IRC networks distinguish
en/volunteer.wml  742) which users have developed a reputation as not being jerks, so they can
en/volunteer.wml  743) treat the two groups separately. There are some really cool research
en/volunteer.wml  744) designs like <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~nymble/">Nymble</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  745) which aim to let websites blacklist users without needing to learn who
en/volunteer.wml  746) they are.  But Nymble is designed around web interactions. We need to
en/volunteer.wml  747) build the glue around the IRC protocol that would let us plug in a project
en/volunteer.wml  748) like Nymble (or a simpler one to start, as a proof-of-concept). One way
en/volunteer.wml  749) to do that would be to build an IRC proxy that knows how to hear from
en/volunteer.wml  750) IRC clients, knows how to talk to IRC servers, and has an additional

en/volunteer.wml  751) layer that requires the users to authenticate.  Some work on this has
en/volunteer.wml  752) begun by other volunteers, see their progress at <a
en/volunteer.wml  753) href="http://github.com/anonirc/orc">http://github.com/anonirc/orc</a>.

en/volunteer.wml  754) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  755) 

en/volunteer.wml  756) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  757) <b>Make torsocks/dsocks work on OS X</b>
en/volunteer.wml  758) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  759) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  760) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  761) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  762) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  763) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml  764) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  765) Likely Mentors: <i>?</i>
en/volunteer.wml  766) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  767) <a href="http://code.google.com/p/torsocks/">Torsocks</a> and <a
en/volunteer.wml  768) href="http://code.google.com/p/dsocks/">dsocks</a> are wrappers that will
en/volunteer.wml  769) run applications, intercept their outgoing network connections, and push
en/volunteer.wml  770) those connections through Tor. The goal is to handle applications that
en/volunteer.wml  771) don't support proxies (or don't supporting them well). To get it right,
en/volunteer.wml  772) they need to intercept many system calls. The syscalls you need to
en/volunteer.wml  773) intercept on Linux differ dramatically from those on BSD. So Torsocks
en/volunteer.wml  774) works fine on Linux, dsocks works ok on BSD (though it may be less
en/volunteer.wml  775) maintained and thus might miss more syscalls), and nothing works well
en/volunteer.wml  776) on both. First, we should patch dsocks to use Tor's <i>mapaddress</i>
en/volunteer.wml  777) commands from the controller interface, so we don't waste a whole
en/volunteer.wml  778) round-trip inside Tor doing the resolve before connecting. Second,
en/volunteer.wml  779) we should make our <i>torify</i> script detect which of torsocks or
en/volunteer.wml  780) dsocks is installed, and call them appropriately. This probably means
en/volunteer.wml  781) unifying their interfaces, and might involve sharing code between them
en/volunteer.wml  782) or discarding one entirely.
en/volunteer.wml  783) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  784) 

en/volunteer.wml  785) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  786) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml  787) <br />
en/volunteer.wml  788) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a
en/volunteer.wml  789) href="<gitblob>doc/roadmaps/2008-12-19-roadmap-full.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml  790) roadmap</a> for more ideas, or just try out Tor, Vidalia, and Torbutton,
en/volunteer.wml  791) and find out what you think needs fixing.

en/volunteer.wml  792) Some of the <a href="<gittree>doc/spec/proposals">current proposals</a>
en/volunteer.wml  793) might also be short on developers.
en/volunteer.wml  794) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  795) 

en/volunteer.wml  796) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml  797) 

en/volunteer.wml  798) <a id="OtherCoding"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  799) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#OtherCoding">Other Coding and Design related ideas</a></h2>

volunteer.html    800) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml  801) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml  802) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml  803) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml  804) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml  805) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml  806) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml  807) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml  808) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml  809) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml  810) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a

en/volunteer.wml  811) <a href="https://svn.torproject.org/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good

en/volunteer.wml  812) start</a> on this in the summer of 2007.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  813) 

en/volunteer.wml  814) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml  815) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml  816) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting

en/volunteer.wml  817) <a href="<page vidalia/index>">Vidalia</a> so it supports the

en/volunteer.wml  818) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  819) 

en/volunteer.wml  820) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml  821) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml  822) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml  823) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml  824) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml  825) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml  826) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml  827) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml  828) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  829) 

en/volunteer.wml  830) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml  831) 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  832) 

volunteer.html    833) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html    834) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml  835) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html    836) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

en/volunteer.wml  837) 

volunteer.html    838) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html    839) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html    840) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html    841) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml  842) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml  843) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml  844) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml  845) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification

en/volunteer.wml  846) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml  847) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  848) 

volunteer.html    849) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html    850) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html    851) first place to start.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  852) 
en/volunteer.wml  853) <li>We need a way to generate the website diagrams (for example, the "How
en/volunteer.wml  854) Tor Works" pictures on the <a href="<page overview>">overview page</a>
en/volunteer.wml  855) from source, so we can translate them as UTF-8 text rather than edit
en/volunteer.wml  856) them by hand with Gimp. We might want to
en/volunteer.wml  857) integrate this as an wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml  858) generated in multiple languages whenever we build the website.</li>
en/volunteer.wml  859) 

en/volunteer.wml  860) <li>How can we make the various LiveCD/USB systems easier
en/volunteer.wml  861) to maintain, improve, and document?  Some examples are <a

en/volunteer.wml  862) href="http://amnesia.boum.org/">amnesia LiveCD/USB</a> and the <a

en/volunteer.wml  863) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>

en/volunteer.wml  864) </li>

en/volunteer.wml  865) 
en/volunteer.wml  866) <li>
en/volunteer.wml  867) Another anti-censorship project is to try to make Tor
en/volunteer.wml  868) more scanning-resistant.  Right now, an adversary can identify <a
en/volunteer.wml  869) href="<gitblob>doc/spec/proposals/125-bridges.txt">Tor bridges</a>
en/volunteer.wml  870) just by trying to connect to them, following the Tor protocol,
en/volunteer.wml  871) and seeing if they respond.  To solve this, bridges could <a
en/volunteer.wml  872) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#tth_sEc9.3">act like
en/volunteer.wml  873) webservers</a> (HTTP or HTTPS) when contacted by port-scanning tools,
en/volunteer.wml  874) and not act like bridges until the user provides a bridge-specific key.
en/volunteer.wml  875) To start, check out Shane Pope's <a
en/volunteer.wml  876) href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37735/index.html">thesis and prototype</a>.
en/volunteer.wml  877) </li>
en/volunteer.wml  878) 

volunteer.html    879) </ol>
volunteer.html    880) 

en/volunteer.wml  881) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml  882) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html    883) <ol>

volunteer.html    884) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html    885) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html    886) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html    887) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html    888) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html    889) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html    890) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html    891) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html    892) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html    893) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html    894) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html    895) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html    896) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html    897) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html    898) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html    899) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html    900) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html    901) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html    902) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html    903) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html    904) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html    905) schemes work better than others?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  906) <li>A related question is: Does running a relay/bridge provide additional
en/volunteer.wml  907) protection against these timing attacks? Can an external adversary that can't

en/volunteer.wml  908) see inside TLS links still recognize individual streams reliably?

en/volunteer.wml  909) Does the amount of traffic carried degrade this ability any? What if the
en/volunteer.wml  910) client-relay deliberately delayed upstream relayed traffic to create a queue
en/volunteer.wml  911) that could be used to mimic timings of client downstream traffic to make it
en/volunteer.wml  912) look like it was also relayed? This same queue could also be used for masking
en/volunteer.wml  913) timings in client upstream traffic with the techniques from <a
en/volunteer.wml  914) href="http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/#ShWa-Timing06">adaptive padding</a>,
en/volunteer.wml  915) but without the need for additional traffic. Would such an interleaving of
en/volunteer.wml  916) client upstream traffic obscure timings for external adversaries? Would the
en/volunteer.wml  917) strategies need to be adjusted for asymmetric links? For example, on
en/volunteer.wml  918) asymmetric links, is it actually possible to differentiate client traffic from
en/volunteer.wml  919) natural bursts due to their asymmetric capacity? Or is it easier than
en/volunteer.wml  920) symmetric links for some other reason?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  921) <li>Repeat Murdoch and Danezis's <a
en/volunteer.wml  922) href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/projects/anon/#torta">attack from
en/volunteer.wml  923) Oakland 05</a> on the current Tor network. See if you can learn why it
en/volunteer.wml  924) works well on some nodes and not well on others. (My theory is that the
en/volunteer.wml  925) fast nodes with spare capacity resist the attack better.) If that's true,
en/volunteer.wml  926) then experiment with the RelayBandwidthRate and RelayBandwidthBurst
en/volunteer.wml  927) options to run a relay that is used as a client while relaying the
en/volunteer.wml  928) attacker's traffic: as we crank down the RelayBandwidthRate, does the
en/volunteer.wml  929) attack get harder? What's the right ratio of RelayBandwidthRate to
en/volunteer.wml  930) actually capacity? Or is it a ratio at all? While we're at it, does a
en/volunteer.wml  931) much larger set of candidate relays increase the false positive rate
en/volunteer.wml  932) or other complexity for the attack? (The Tor network is now almost two
en/volunteer.wml  933) orders of magnitude larger than it was when they wrote their paper.) Be
en/volunteer.wml  934) sure to read <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#clog-the-queue">Don't
en/volunteer.wml  935) Clog the Queue</a> too.</li>

volunteer.html    936) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html    937) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html    938) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html    939) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html    940) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html    941) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html    942) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html    943) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html    944) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html    945) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml  946) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml  947) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml  948) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml  949) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml  950) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml  951) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml  952) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  953) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html    954) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html    955) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html    956) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html    957) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html    958) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html    959) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html    960) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html    961) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html    962) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html    963) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html    964) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html    965) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html    966) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html    967) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html    968) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html    969) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html    970) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html    971) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  972) <li>Our censorship-resistance goals include preventing
en/volunteer.wml  973) an attacker who's looking at Tor traffic on the wire from <a

en/volunteer.wml  974) href="<gitblob>doc/design-paper/blocking.html#sec:network-fingerprint">distinguishing

en/volunteer.wml  975) it from normal SSL traffic</a>. Obviously we can't achieve perfect
en/volunteer.wml  976) steganography and still remain usable, but for a first step we'd like to
en/volunteer.wml  977) block any attacks that can win by observing only a few packets. One of
en/volunteer.wml  978) the remaining attacks we haven't examined much is that Tor cells are 512
en/volunteer.wml  979) bytes, so the traffic on the wire may well be a multiple of 512 bytes.
en/volunteer.wml  980) How much does the batching and overhead in TLS records blur this on the
en/volunteer.wml  981) wire? Do different buffer flushing strategies in Tor affect this? Could
en/volunteer.wml  982) a bit of padding help a lot, or is this an attack we must accept?</li>

volunteer.html    983) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html    984) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html    985) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml  986) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html    987) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html    988) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html    989) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  990) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html    991) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html    992) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

en/volunteer.wml  993) <li>Programs like <a

en/volunteer.wml  994) href="<page torbutton/index>">Torbutton</a> aim to hide

en/volunteer.wml  995) your browser's UserAgent string by replacing it with a uniform answer for
en/volunteer.wml  996) every Tor user. That way the attacker can't splinter Tor's anonymity set
en/volunteer.wml  997) by looking at that header. It tries to pick a string that is commonly used
en/volunteer.wml  998) by non-Tor users too, so it doesn't stand out. Question one: how badly
en/volunteer.wml  999) do we hurt ourselves by periodically updating the version of Firefox
en/volunteer.wml 1000) that Torbutton claims to be? If we update it too often, we splinter the
en/volunteer.wml 1001) anonymity sets ourselves. If we don't update it often enough, then all the
en/volunteer.wml 1002) Tor users stand out because they claim to be running a quite old version
en/volunteer.wml 1003) of Firefox. The answer here probably depends on the Firefox versions seen
en/volunteer.wml 1004) in the wild. Question two: periodically people ask us to cycle through N
en/volunteer.wml 1005) UserAgent strings rather than stick with one. Does this approach help,
en/volunteer.wml 1006) hurt, or not matter? Consider: cookies and recognizing Torbutton users
en/volunteer.wml 1007) by their rotating UserAgents; malicious websites who only attack certain
en/volunteer.wml 1008) browsers; and whether the answers to question one impact this answer.
en/volunteer.wml 1009) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 1010) <li>Right now Tor clients are willing to reuse a given circuit for ten
en/volunteer.wml 1011) minutes after it's first used. The goal is to avoid loading down the
en/volunteer.wml 1012) network with too many circuit extend operations, yet to also avoid having
en/volunteer.wml 1013) clients use the same circuit for so long that the exit node can build a
en/volunteer.wml 1014) useful pseudonymous profile of them. Alas, ten minutes is probably way
en/volunteer.wml 1015) too long, especially if connections from multiple protocols (e.g. IM and
en/volunteer.wml 1016) web browsing) are put on the same circuit. If we keep fixed the overall
en/volunteer.wml 1017) number of circuit extends that the network needs to do, are there more
en/volunteer.wml 1018) efficient and/or safer ways for clients to allocate streams to circuits,
en/volunteer.wml 1019) or for clients to build preemptive circuits? Perhaps this research item
en/volunteer.wml 1020) needs to start with gathering some traces of what connections typical
en/volunteer.wml 1021) clients try to launch, so you have something realistic to try to optimize.
en/volunteer.wml 1022) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 1023) <li>How many bridge relays do you need to know to maintain
en/volunteer.wml 1024) reachability? We should measure the churn in our bridges. If there is
en/volunteer.wml 1025) lots of churn, are there ways to keep bridge users more likely to stay
en/volunteer.wml 1026) connected?
en/volunteer.wml 1027) </li>

volunteer.html   1028) </ol>
volunteer.html   1029) 

en/volunteer.wml 1030) <p>

en/volunteer.wml 1031) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 1032) of these!

en/volunteer.wml 1033) </p>

volunteer.html   1034) 

en/volunteer.wml 1035)   </div><!-- #main -->

volunteer.html   1036)