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volunteer.html     3) 

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

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

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

volunteer.html    10) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

volunteer.html    24) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  44) </li>

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  52) </li>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

volunteer.html    70) <ol>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

en/volunteer.wml  96) <li>

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

en/volunteer.wml  98) <br />

en/volunteer.wml  99) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 100) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 101) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 102) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 103) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 104) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 105) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 106) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 107) We're in need of a good updating framework. 

en/volunteer.wml 108) Vidalia already has the ability to notice when the user is running an
en/volunteer.wml 109) outdated or unrecommended version of Tor. Currently, Vidalia simply pops
en/volunteer.wml 110) up a little message box that lets the user know they should manually
en/volunteer.wml 111) upgrade. The goal of this project would be to extend Vidalia with the
en/volunteer.wml 112) ability to also fetch and install the updated Tor software for the
en/volunteer.wml 113) user. Time permitting, we would also like to be able to update other
en/volunteer.wml 114) applications included in the bundled installers, such as Polipo and
en/volunteer.wml 115) Vidalia itself.
en/volunteer.wml 116) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 117) To complete this project, the student will first need to first investigate
en/volunteer.wml 118) the existing auto-update frameworks (e.g., Sparkle on OS X) to evaluate
en/volunteer.wml 119) their strengths, weaknesses, security properties, and ability to be
en/volunteer.wml 120) integrated into Vidalia. If none are found to be suitable, the student
en/volunteer.wml 121) will design their own auto-update framework, document the design, and
en/volunteer.wml 122) then discuss the design with other developers to assess any security
en/volunteer.wml 123) issues. The student will then implement their framework (or integrate
en/volunteer.wml 124) an existing one) and test it.
en/volunteer.wml 125) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 126) A student undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 127) experience. Previous experience with Qt is helpful, but not required. The
en/volunteer.wml 128) student should also have a basic understanding of common security
en/volunteer.wml 129) practices, such as package signature verification. Good writing ability
en/volunteer.wml 130) is also important for this project, since a vital step of the project
en/volunteer.wml 131) will be producing a design document for others to review and discuss
en/volunteer.wml 132) with the student prior to implementation.
en/volunteer.wml 133) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 134) 
en/volunteer.wml 135) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 136) <b>An Improved and More Usable Network Map</b>

en/volunteer.wml 137) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 138) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 139) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 140) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 141) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 142) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 143) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 144) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 145) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 146) One of Vidalia's existing features is a network map that shows the user
en/volunteer.wml 147) the approximate geographic location of relays in the Tor network and
en/volunteer.wml 148) plots the paths the user's traffic takes as it is tunneled through the
en/volunteer.wml 149) Tor network. The map is currently not very interactive and has rather
en/volunteer.wml 150) poor graphics. Instead, we would like to leverage KDE's Marble widget
en/volunteer.wml 151) that gives us a better quality map and enables improved interactivity,
en/volunteer.wml 152) such as allowing the user to click on individual relays or circuits to
en/volunteer.wml 153) display additional information. We might also consider adding the ability
en/volunteer.wml 154) for users to click on a particular relay or a country containing one or
en/volunteer.wml 155) more Tor exit relays and say, ``I want my connections to foo.com to exit
en/volunteer.wml 156) from here.''
en/volunteer.wml 157) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 158) This project will first involve the student getting familiar with Vidalia
en/volunteer.wml 159) and the Marble widget's API. The student will then integrate the widget
en/volunteer.wml 160) into Vidalia and customize Marble to be better suited for our application,
en/volunteer.wml 161) such as making circuits clickable, storing cached map data in Vidalia's
en/volunteer.wml 162) own data directory, and customizing some of the widget's dialogs.
en/volunteer.wml 163) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 164) A student undertaking this project should have good C++ development
en/volunteer.wml 165) experience. Previous experience with Qt and CMake is helpful, but not
en/volunteer.wml 166) required.
en/volunteer.wml 167) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 168) 
en/volunteer.wml 169) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 170) <b>Better Debian Packaging and Debian Packaging Support</b>

en/volunteer.wml 171) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 172) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 173) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 174) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 175) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 176) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 177) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 178) Likely Mentors: <i>Weasel, Matt, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 179) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 180) Vidalia currently doesn't play nicely on Debian and Ubuntu with the
en/volunteer.wml 181) default Tor packages. The current Tor packages automatically start Tor
en/volunteer.wml 182) as a daemon running as the debian-tor user and (sensibly) do not have a
en/volunteer.wml 183) CntrolPort defined in the default torrc. Consequently, Vidalia will try
en/volunteer.wml 184) to start its own Tor process since it could not connect to the existing
en/volunteer.wml 185) Tor, and then Vidalia's Tor process will then exit with an error message
en/volunteer.wml 186) the user likely doesn't understand since Tor cannot bind its listening
en/volunteer.wml 187) ports--they're already in use by the original Tor daemon.
en/volunteer.wml 188) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 189) The current solution involves either telling the user to stop the
en/volunteer.wml 190) existing Tor daemon and let Vidalia start its own Tor process, or
en/volunteer.wml 191) explaining to the user how to set a control port and password in their
en/volunteer.wml 192) torrc. A better solution on Debian would be to use Tor's ControlSocket,
en/volunteer.wml 193) which allows Vidalia to talk to Tor via a Unix domain socket, and could
en/volunteer.wml 194) possibly be enabled by default in Tor's Debian packages. Vidalia can
en/volunteer.wml 195) then authenticate to Tor using cookie authentication if the user running
en/volunteer.wml 196) Vidalia is also in the debian-tor group.
en/volunteer.wml 197) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 198) This project will first involve adding support for Tor's ControlSocket
en/volunteer.wml 199) to Vidalia. The student will then develop and test Debian and Ubuntu
en/volunteer.wml 200) packages for Vidalia that conform to Debian's packaging standards and
en/volunteer.wml 201) making sure it works well with the existing Tor packages. We can also
en/volunteer.wml 202) set up an apt repository to host the new Vidalia packages.
en/volunteer.wml 203) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 204) A student undertaking this project should have prior knowledge of
en/volunteer.wml 205) Debian package management and some C++ development experience. Previous
en/volunteer.wml 206) experience with Qt is helpful, but not required.
en/volunteer.wml 207) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 208) 
en/volunteer.wml 209) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 210) <b>Tor Status Event Interface</b>

en/volunteer.wml 211) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 212) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 213) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 214) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 215) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 216) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 217) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 218) Likely Mentors: <i>Matt, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 219) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 220) There are a number of status changes of which the user may need

en/volunteer.wml 221) to be informed. For example, if the user is trying to set up a Tor
en/volunteer.wml 222) relay and Tor decides the user's relay is not reachable from outside
en/volunteer.wml 223) the user's network, we should alert the user. Currently, all the user
en/volunteer.wml 224) gets is a couple log messages in Vidalia's 'message log', which they
en/volunteer.wml 225) likely never see since they don't receive a notification that something
en/volunteer.wml 226) has gone wrong. Even if the user does actually look at the message log,
en/volunteer.wml 227) most of the messages make little sense to the novice user.
en/volunteer.wml 228) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 229) Tor has the ability to inform Vidalia of many such status changes, and
en/volunteer.wml 230) we recently implemented support for a couple of these events. Still,
en/volunteer.wml 231) there are many more status events the user should be informed of and we
en/volunteer.wml 232) need a better UI for actually displaying them to the user.
en/volunteer.wml 233) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 234) The goal of this project then is to design and implement a UI for
en/volunteer.wml 235) displaying Tor status events to the user. For example, we might put a
en/volunteer.wml 236) little badge on Vidalia's tray icon that alerts the user to new status
en/volunteer.wml 237) events they should look at. Double-clicking the icon could bring up a
en/volunteer.wml 238) dialog that summarizes recent status events in simple terms and maybe
en/volunteer.wml 239) suggests a remedy for any negative statuses if they can be corrected by
en/volunteer.wml 240) the user. Of course, this is just an example and the student is free to
en/volunteer.wml 241) suggest another approach.
en/volunteer.wml 242) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 243) A student undertaking this project should have good UI design and layout
en/volunteer.wml 244) experience and some C++ development experience. Previous experience
en/volunteer.wml 245) with Qt and Qt's Designer will be very helpful, but not required. Some
en/volunteer.wml 246) English writing ability will also be useful, since this project will
en/volunteer.wml 247) likely involve writing small amounts of help documentation that should
en/volunteer.wml 248) be understandable by non-technical users. Bonus points for some graphic
en/volunteer.wml 249) design/Photoshop fu, since we might want/need some shiny new icons too.
en/volunteer.wml 250) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 251) 

en/volunteer.wml 252) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 253) <b>A Translation Wiki</b>

en/volunteer.wml 254) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 255) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 256) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 257) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 258) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 259) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 260) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 261) Likely Mentors: <i>Jacob, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 262) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 263) We require a way to edit and translate sections of the website —
en/volunteer.wml 264) possibly resulting in a patch for the official svn tree. The current
en/volunteer.wml 265) "cost" of publication of website changes is quite high even for English
en/volunteer.wml 266) language users. They need to check out our template files, translate them
en/volunteer.wml 267) and send us the translation. For a single word change or any type of
en/volunteer.wml 268) minor change, the page may never be corrected or translated.  It would
en/volunteer.wml 269) be nice to have a wiki that was specifically geared towards translation
en/volunteer.wml 270) and would somehow track the upstream (English) versions to indicate when
en/volunteer.wml 271) a fresh translation is needed. This seems mostly like a job for a wiki
en/volunteer.wml 272) integrator or wiki software author. Certainly the person would need to
en/volunteer.wml 273) be interested in human languages and translation. They should at least
en/volunteer.wml 274) be minimally familiar with what Tor is but would not have to interact
en/volunteer.wml 275) with the software, only the documentation on the website.
en/volunteer.wml 276) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 277) 
en/volunteer.wml 278) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 279) <b>Improvements on our active browser configuration tester</b> - 
en/volunteer.wml 280) <a href="https://check.torproject.org">https://check.torproject.org</a>

en/volunteer.wml 281) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 282) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 283) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 284) Effort Level: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 285) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 286) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 287) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 288) Likely Mentors: <i>Jacob, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 289) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 290) We currently have a functional web page to detect if Tor is working. It
en/volunteer.wml 291) is has a few places where it falls short. It requires improvements with
en/volunteer.wml 292) regard to default languages and functionality. It currently only responds
en/volunteer.wml 293) in English. In addition, it is a hack of a perl script that should have
en/volunteer.wml 294) never seen the light of day. It should probably be rewritten in python
en/volunteer.wml 295) with multi-lingual support in mind. It currently uses the Tor DNS exit
en/volunteer.wml 296) list and should continue to do so in the future. It may result in certain
en/volunteer.wml 297) false positives and these should be discovered, documented, and fixed
en/volunteer.wml 298) where possible. Anyone working on this project should be interested in
en/volunteer.wml 299) DNS, basic perl or preferably python programming skills and will have
en/volunteer.wml 300) to interact minimally with Tor to test their code.
en/volunteer.wml 301) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 302) 
en/volunteer.wml 303) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 304) <b>Improvements on our DNS Exit List service</b> - 
en/volunteer.wml 305) <a href="http://exitlist.torproject.org">http://exitlist.torproject.org</a>

en/volunteer.wml 306) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 307) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 308) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 309) Effort Level: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 310) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 311) Skill Level: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 312) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 313) Likely Mentors: <i>Jacob, Tup, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 314) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 315) The exitlist software is written by our fabulous anonymous

en/volunteer.wml 316) contributer Tup. It's a DNS server written in Haskell that supports part of our <a

en/volunteer.wml 317) href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/trunk/doc/contrib/torel-design.txt">exitlist
en/volunteer.wml 318) design document</a>. Currently, it's functional and it is used by
en/volunteer.wml 319) check.torproject.org and other users. The issues that are outstanding
en/volunteer.wml 320) are mostly aesthetic. This wonderful service could use a much better
en/volunteer.wml 321) website using the common Tor theme. It would be best served with better
en/volunteer.wml 322) documentation for common services that use an RBL. It could use more
en/volunteer.wml 323) publicity. A person working on this project should be interested in DNS,
en/volunteer.wml 324) basic RBL configuration for popular services, and writing documentation.
en/volunteer.wml 325) The person would require minimal Tor interaction &mdash; testing their
en/volunteer.wml 326) own documentation at the very least. Furthermore, it would be useful

en/volunteer.wml 327) if they were interested in Haskell and wanted to implement more of the

en/volunteer.wml 328) torel-design.txt suggestions.
en/volunteer.wml 329) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 330) 
en/volunteer.wml 331) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 332) <b>Testing integration of Tor with web browsers for our end users</b>

en/volunteer.wml 333) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 334) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 335) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 336) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 337) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 338) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 339) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 340) Likely Mentors: <i>Jacob, Mike, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 341) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 342) The Tor project currently lacks a solid test to ensure that a
en/volunteer.wml 343) user has a properly configured web browser. It should test for as
en/volunteer.wml 344) many known issues as possible. It should attempt to decloak the
en/volunteer.wml 345) user in any way possible.  Two current webpages that track these
en/volunteer.wml 346) kinds of issues are run by Greg and HD Moore. Greg keeps a nice <a
en/volunteer.wml 347) href="http://pseudo-flaw.net/tor/torbutton/">list of issues along
en/volunteer.wml 348) with their proof of concept code, bug issues, etc</a>. HD Moore runs
en/volunteer.wml 349) the <a href="http://metasploit.com/research/misc/decloak/">metasploit
en/volunteer.wml 350) decloak website</a>. A person interested in attacking Tor could start
en/volunteer.wml 351) by collecting as many workable and known methods for decloaking a
en/volunteer.wml 352) Tor user. The person should be familiar with the common pitfalls but
en/volunteer.wml 353) possibly have new methods in mind for implementing decloaking issues. The
en/volunteer.wml 354) website should ensure that it tells a user what their problem is. It
en/volunteer.wml 355) should help them to fix the problem or direct them to the proper support
en/volunteer.wml 356) channels. The person should be closely familiar with using Tor and how
en/volunteer.wml 357) to prevent Tor leakage.
en/volunteer.wml 358) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 359) 

en/volunteer.wml 360) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 361) <b>Improving our ability to be resistant to censorship</b>
en/volunteer.wml 362) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 363) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 364) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 365) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 366) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 367) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 368) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 369) Likely Mentors: <i>Roger, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 370) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 371) Tor needs even better censorship resistance mechanisms.  There are
en/volunteer.wml 372) several mechanisms that can help.  Tor should be able listen on multiple
en/volunteer.wml 373) addresses and ports, and allow clients to connect to all of them.
en/volunteer.wml 374) Tor should be able to appear like a webserver (HTTP or HTTPS) when
en/volunteer.wml 375) contacted by port-scanning tools.
en/volunteer.wml 376) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 377) 
en/volunteer.wml 378) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 379) <b>Libevent and Tor integration improvements</b>
en/volunteer.wml 380) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 381) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 382) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 383) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 384) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 385) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 386) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 387) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 388) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 389) Tor should make better use of the more recent features of Niels Provos's
en/volunteer.wml 390) Libevent library.  Libevent already provides HTTP and socket buffers;
en/volunteer.wml 391) Tor's code for those could be replaced.  We'll need to improve libevent's
en/volunteer.wml 392) code as needed; particularly, to add good openssl support on top of
en/volunteer.wml 393) libevent's buffer abstraction.
en/volunteer.wml 394) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 395) 
en/volunteer.wml 396) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 397) <b>Tuneup Tor!</b>
en/volunteer.wml 398) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 399) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 400) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 401) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 402) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 403) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 404) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 405) Likely Mentors: <i>Roger, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 406) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 407) Tor should possibly measure bandwidth in a distributed way, as in the
en/volunteer.wml 408) <a href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/">"A Tuneup for Tor"</a> paper
en/volunteer.wml 409) by Snader and Borisov.  A student could use current testing code to
en/volunteer.wml 410) double-check this paper's findings and verify the extent to which they
en/volunteer.wml 411) dovetail with Tor in the wild, and determine good ways to incorporate them
en/volunteer.wml 412) into the Tor network without adding undesirable n^2 traffic properties
en/volunteer.wml 413) at the directory authorities.
en/volunteer.wml 414) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 415) 

en/volunteer.wml 416) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 417) <b>Improving the Tor QA process: Continuous Integration for Windows builds</b>
en/volunteer.wml 418) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 419) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 420) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 421) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 422) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 423) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 424) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 425) Likely Mentors: <i>Jacob, Phobos, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 426) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 427) It would be useful to have automated build processes for Windows and
en/volunteer.wml 428) probably other platforms. The purpose of having a continuous integration
en/volunteer.wml 429) build environment is to ensure that Windows isn't left behind for any of
en/volunteer.wml 430) the software projects used in the Tor project or its accompanying.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 431) Buildbot may be a good choice for this as it appears to support all of
en/volunteer.wml 432) the platforms Tor does. See the 
en/volunteer.wml 433) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuildBot">wikipedia entry for 
en/volunteer.wml 434) buildbot</a>.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 435) There may be better options and the person undertaking this task should
en/volunteer.wml 436) evaluate other options. Any person working on this automatic build
en/volunteer.wml 437) process should have experience or be willing to learn how to build all
en/volunteer.wml 438) of the respective Tor related code bases from scratch. Furthermore, the
en/volunteer.wml 439) person should have some experience building software in Windows
en/volunteer.wml 440) environments as this is the target audience we want to ensure we do not
en/volunteer.wml 441) leave behind. It would require close work with the Tor source code but

en/volunteer.wml 442) probably only in the form of building, not authoring.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 443) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing for all platforms.
en/volunteer.wml 444) We've got buildbot (except on Windows &mdash; as noted above) to automate 
en/volunteer.wml 445) our regular integration and compile testing already,
en/volunteer.wml 446) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 447) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 448) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test
en/volunteer.wml 449) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.<br />

en/volunteer.wml 450) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 451) 

en/volunteer.wml 452) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 453) <b>Improve our unit testing process</b>
en/volunteer.wml 454) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 455) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 456) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 457) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 458) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 459) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 460) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 461) Likely Mentors: <i>Nick, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 462) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 463) Tor needs to be far more tested.  This is a multi-part effort.  To start
en/volunteer.wml 464) with, our unit test coverage should rise substantially, especially in
en/volunteer.wml 465) the areas outside the utility functions.  This will require significant
en/volunteer.wml 466) refactoring of some parts of Tor, in order to dissociate as much logic
en/volunteer.wml 467) as possible from globals.<br />
en/volunteer.wml 468) Additionally, we need to automate our performance testing.  We've got

en/volunteer.wml 469) buildbot (except on Windows — see above) to automate our regular 
en/volunteer.wml 470) integration and compile testing already,

en/volunteer.wml 471) but we need to get our network simulation tests (as built in torflow)
en/volunteer.wml 472) updated for more recent versions of Tor, and designed to launch a test
en/volunteer.wml 473) network either on a single machine, or across several, so we can test

en/volunteer.wml 474) changes in performance on machines in different roles automatically.<br />

en/volunteer.wml 475) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 476) 

en/volunteer.wml 477) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 478) <b>Help revive the Java community around Tor</b>
en/volunteer.wml 479) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 480) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 481) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 482) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 483) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 484) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 485) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 486) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 487) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 488) Reanimate one of the approaches to implement a Tor client in Java,
en/volunteer.wml 489) e.g. the <a href="http://onioncoffee.sourceforge.net/">OnionCoffee
en/volunteer.wml 490) project</a>, and make it run on <a
en/volunteer.wml 491) href="http://code.google.com/android/">Android</a>. The first step
en/volunteer.wml 492) would be to port the existing code and execute it in an Android
en/volunteer.wml 493) environment. Next, the code should be updated to support the newer Tor
en/volunteer.wml 494) protocol versions like the <a href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/dir-spec.txt">v3
en/volunteer.wml 495) directory protocol</a>. Further, support for requesting or even
en/volunteer.wml 496) providing Tor hidden services would be neat, but not required. The
en/volunteer.wml 497) student should be able to understand and write new Java code, including

en/volunteer.wml 498) a Java cryptography API. Being able to read C code would be helpful,

en/volunteer.wml 499) too. The student should be willing to read the existing documentation,
en/volunteer.wml 500) implement code based on it, and, if required, refine the documentation
en/volunteer.wml 501) if things are underdocumented. This project is mostly about coding and
en/volunteer.wml 502) to a small degree about design.
en/volunteer.wml 503) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 504) 
en/volunteer.wml 505) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 506) <b>Become the PuppeTor Master</b>
en/volunteer.wml 507) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 508) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 509) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 510) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 511) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 512) Skill Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 513) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 514) Likely Mentors: <i>Roger, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 515) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 516) Write a tool that runs automatic system tests in addition
en/volunteer.wml 517) to the existing unit tests. The Java-based Tor simulator <a
en/volunteer.wml 518) href="https://tor-svn.freehaven.net/svn/puppetor/trunk/">PuppeTor</a>
en/volunteer.wml 519) might be a good start for starting up a private Tor network, using it
en/volunteer.wml 520) for a while, and verifying that at least parts of it are working. This
en/volunteer.wml 521) project requires to conceive a blueprint for performing system tests
en/volunteer.wml 522) of private Tor networks, before starting to code. Typical types of
en/volunteer.wml 523) tests range from performing single requests over the private network to
en/volunteer.wml 524) manipulating exchanged messages and see if nodes handle corrupt messages
en/volunteer.wml 525) appropriately. The student should be able to obtain a good understanding
en/volunteer.wml 526) of how Tor works and what problems and bugs could arise to design good
en/volunteer.wml 527) test cases. Understanding the existing Tor code and documentation is
en/volunteer.wml 528) vital. If PuppeTor is used, the student should also be able to understand
en/volunteer.wml 529) and possibly extend an existing Java application. This project is partly
en/volunteer.wml 530) about design and partly about coding.
en/volunteer.wml 531) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 532) 
en/volunteer.wml 533) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 534) <b>Bring moniTor to life</b>
en/volunteer.wml 535) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 536) Priority: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 537) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 538) Effort Level: <i>Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 539) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 540) Skill Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>
en/volunteer.wml 541) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 542) Likely Mentors: <i>Karsten, Jacob, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 543) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 544) Implement a <a href="http://www.ss64.com/bash/top.html">top-like</a>
en/volunteer.wml 545) management tool for Tor relays. The purpose of such a tool would be
en/volunteer.wml 546) to monitor a local Tor relay via its control port and include useful
en/volunteer.wml 547) system information of the underlying machine. When running this tool, it
en/volunteer.wml 548) would dynamically update its content like top does for Linux processes.
en/volunteer.wml 549) <a href="http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Jan-2008/msg00005.html">This
en/volunteer.wml 550) or-dev post</a> might be a good first read. The student should be familiar
en/volunteer.wml 551) with or willing to learn about administering a Tor relay and configuring
en/volunteer.wml 552) it via its control port. As an initial prototype is written in Python,
en/volunteer.wml 553) some knowledge about writing Python code would be helpful, too. This
en/volunteer.wml 554) project is for the one part about identifying requirements to such a
en/volunteer.wml 555) tool and designing its interface; but on the other part, the project
en/volunteer.wml 556) also requires a lot of coding.
en/volunteer.wml 557) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 558) 

en/volunteer.wml 559) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 560) <b>Tor Exit Scanner Improvements</b>
en/volunteer.wml 561) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 562) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 563) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 564) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 565) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 566) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 567) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 568) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike Perry</i>
en/volunteer.wml 569) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 570) The Tor exit node scanner 'SoaT', part of the <a
en/volunteer.wml 571) href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/torflow/">Torflow project</a>, is
en/volunteer.wml 572) currently written in rather rickety perl and relies on MD5sums of
en/volunteer.wml 573) entire documents in order to determine if exit nodes are modifying
en/volunteer.wml 574) content. The problem with this is threefold: 1) Perl sucks at life.
en/volunteer.wml 575) 2) The scanner can't verify pages that are dynamic, and attackers can
en/volunteer.wml 576) focus malicious content injection on only those dynamic pages. 3)
en/volunteer.wml 577) Pages change after a while (or based on GeoIP) and begin generating
en/volunteer.wml 578) false positives.
en/volunteer.wml 579) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 580) Ideally, soat.pl would be reimplemented in a sane language with a
en/volunteer.wml 581) robust html parser library (since the rest of Torflow is in Python,
en/volunteer.wml 582) that would be nice, but not required), and calculate signatures only for
en/volunteer.wml 583) tags and content likely to be targeted by a malicious attacker (script
en/volunteer.wml 584) tags, object links, images). It should also be robust in the face of
en/volunteer.wml 585) changes to content outside of Tor, and ultimately even GeoIP localized
en/volunteer.wml 586) content.
en/volunteer.wml 587) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 588) This scanner would likely be run by the directory authorities and
en/volunteer.wml 589) report its results to the control port via the AuthDirBadExit config
en/volunteer.wml 590) setting.
en/volunteer.wml 591) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 592) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 593) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 594) <b>Tor Node Scanner Improvements</b>
en/volunteer.wml 595) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 596) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 597) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 598) Effort Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 599) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 600) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 601) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 602) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike Perry</i>
en/volunteer.wml 603) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 604) Similar to the exit scanner (or perhaps even during exit scanning),
en/volunteer.wml 605) statistics can be gathered about the reliability of nodes. Nodes that
en/volunteer.wml 606) fail a certain percentage of their circuits should not be used for
en/volunteer.wml 607) Guard status, and perhaps should have their reported bandwidth
en/volunteer.wml 608) penalized by some ratio as well, or just get marked as Invalid. In
en/volunteer.wml 609) addition, nodes that exhibit a very low average stream capacity but
en/volunteer.wml 610) advertise a very high node bandwidth can also be marked as Invalid.
en/volunteer.wml 611) Much of this statistics gathering is already done, it just needs to be
en/volunteer.wml 612) transformed into something that can be reported to the Directory
en/volunteer.wml 613) Authorities to blacklist/penalize nodes in such a way that clients
en/volunteer.wml 614) will listen.
en/volunteer.wml 615) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 616) In addition, these same statistics can be gathered about the traffic
en/volunteer.wml 617) through a node. Events can be added to the <a
en/volunteer.wml 618) href="https://www.torproject.org/svn/torctl/doc/howto.txt">Tor Control
en/volunteer.wml 619) Protocol</a> to
en/volunteer.wml 620) report if a circuit extend through the node succeeds or fails, and
en/volunteer.wml 621) passive statistics can be gathered on both bandwidth and reliability
en/volunteer.wml 622) of other nodes via a node-based monitor using these events. Such a
en/volunteer.wml 623) scanner which would also report information on oddly-behaving nodes to
en/volunteer.wml 624) the Directory Authorities, but a communication channel for this
en/volunteer.wml 625) currently does not exist and would need to be developed as well.
en/volunteer.wml 626) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 627) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 628) <b>Tor path selection improvements</b>
en/volunteer.wml 629) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 630) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 631) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 632) Effort Level: <i>Low to Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 633) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 634) Skill Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 635) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 636) Likely Mentors: <i>Roger, Nick, Mike</i>

en/volunteer.wml 637) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 638) Some simple improvements can be made to Tor's path selection to vastly
en/volunteer.wml 639) improve Tor speed. For instance, some of the (unofficial) <a
en/volunteer.wml 640) href="http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/FireFoxTorPerf">Tor
en/volunteer.wml 641) Performance Recommendations</a> on the wiki are to increase the number of
en/volunteer.wml 642) guards and decrease the CircuitBuildTimeout. Ideally, the client would
en/volunteer.wml 643) learn these values by gathering statistics on circuit construction
en/volunteer.wml 644) time (and/or using values gained from Torflow), and set the timeouts
en/volunteer.wml 645) low enough such that some high percentile (75%, 90%, 1-stddev?) of
en/volunteer.wml 646) circuits succeed, yet extremely slow nodes are avoided. This would
en/volunteer.wml 647) involve some statistics gathering+basic research, and some changes to 
en/volunteer.wml 648) Tor path selection code.
en/volunteer.wml 649) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 650) In addition, to improve path security, some elements from the <a
en/volunteer.wml 651) href="http://www.torproject.org/svn/trunk/doc/spec/proposals/115-two-hop-paths.txt">Two
en/volunteer.wml 652) Hop Paths proposal</a> could be done as part of this (since it will
en/volunteer.wml 653) likely touch the same code anyways), regardless of the adoption of

en/volunteer.wml 654) that proposal. In particular, clients probably should avoid guards thatseem to

en/volunteer.wml 655) fail an excessive percentage of their circuits through them, and non-bridged
en/volunteer.wml 656) clients should issue a warn if they are only able toconnect to a limited set
en/volunteer.wml 657) of guard nodes.
en/volunteer.wml 658) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 659) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 660) <b>Torbutton improvements</b>
en/volunteer.wml 661) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 662) Priority: <i>Medium</i>

en/volunteer.wml 663) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 664) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 665) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 666) Skill Level: <i>High</i>

en/volunteer.wml 667) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 668) Likely Mentors: <i>Mike Perry</i>
en/volunteer.wml 669) <br/>
en/volunteer.wml 670) 
en/volunteer.wml 671) Torbutton has a number of improvements that can be made in the post-1.2
en/volunteer.wml 672) timeframe. Most of these are documented as feature requests in the <a
en/volunteer.wml 673) href="https://bugs.torproject.org/flyspray/index.php?tasks=all&project=5">Torbutton
en/volunteer.wml 674) flyspray section</a>. Good examples include: stripping off node.exit on http
en/volunteer.wml 675) headers, more fine-grained control over formfill blocking, improved referrer
en/volunteer.wml 676) spoofing based on the domain of the site (a-la refspoof extension), tighter
en/volunteer.wml 677) integration with Vidalia for reporting Tor status, a New Identity button with
en/volunteer.wml 678) Tor integration and multiple identity management, and anything else you might
en/volunteer.wml 679) think of. 
en/volunteer.wml 680) 
en/volunteer.wml 681) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 682) 
en/volunteer.wml 683) This work would be independent coding in Javascript and the fun world of <a
en/volunteer.wml 684) href="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">XUL</a>,
en/volunteer.wml 685) with not too much involvement in the Tor internals.
en/volunteer.wml 686) 
en/volunteer.wml 687) </li>

en/volunteer.wml 688) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 689) <b>Help track the overall Tor Network status</b>
en/volunteer.wml 690) Torstatus. Set up an automated system for tracking network health

en/volunteer.wml 691) over time, graphing it, etc. Better metrics for assessing network

en/volunteer.wml 692) health and growth. Make it short and simple. Unbloated and easy to audit.
en/volunteer.wml 693) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 694) 

en/volunteer.wml 695) <li>vidalia and upnp</li>
en/volunteer.wml 696) <li>nymble</li>

en/volunteer.wml 697) 
en/volunteer.wml 698) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 699) <b>Porting Polipo to Windows</b>
en/volunteer.wml 700) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 701) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 702) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 703) Effort Level: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 704) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 705) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 706) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 707) Likely Mentors: <i>Roger, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 708) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 709) Help port <a
en/volunteer.wml 710) href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</a> to
en/volunteer.wml 711) Windows. 1) handle spaces in path names and understand the filesystem
en/volunteer.wml 712) namespace &mdash; namespace meaning where application data, personal data,
en/volunteer.wml 713) and program data typically reside in various versions of Windows. 2) the
en/volunteer.wml 714) ability to handle ipv6 communications. 3) the ability to asynchronously
en/volunteer.wml 715) query name servers, find the system nameservers, and manage netbios
en/volunteer.wml 716) and dns queries. 4) use native regex capabilities of Windows, rather
en/volunteer.wml 717) than using 3rd party GNU regex libraries. 5) manage events and buffers
en/volunteer.wml 718) natively (i.e. in Unix-like OSes, Polipo defaults to 25% of ram, in
en/volunteer.wml 719) Windows it's whatever the config specifies). 6) some sort of GUI config
en/volunteer.wml 720) and reporting tool, bonus if it has a systray icon with right clickable
en/volunteer.wml 721) menu options. Double bonus if it's cross-platform compatible.
en/volunteer.wml 722) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 723) 
en/volunteer.wml 724) <li>

en/volunteer.wml 725) <b>Make our diagrams beautiful and automated</b>

en/volunteer.wml 726) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 727) Priority: <i>High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 728) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 729) Effort Level: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 730) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 731) Skill Level: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 732) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 733) Likely Mentors: <i>Roger, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 734) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 735) a way to generate the website diagrams from source, so we can translate
en/volunteer.wml 736) them as utf-8 text rather than with gimp. (svg? or imagemagick?)
en/volunteer.wml 737) integrate this with a wml file so translations are easy and images are
en/volunteer.wml 738) generated in multiple languages at web publish
en/volunteer.wml 739) </li>
en/volunteer.wml 740) 

en/volunteer.wml 741) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 742) <b>Improve the LiveCD offerings for the Tor community</b>
en/volunteer.wml 743) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 744) Priority: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 745) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 746) Effort Level: <i>Low</i>
en/volunteer.wml 747) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 748) Skill Level: <i>Medium to High</i>
en/volunteer.wml 749) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 750) Likely Mentors: <i>Roger, others</i>
en/volunteer.wml 751) <br />

en/volunteer.wml 752) How can we make the <a

en/volunteer.wml 753) href="http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/">Incognito LiveCD</a>
en/volunteer.wml 754) easier to maintain, improve, and document?</li>
en/volunteer.wml 755) <li>We need a distributed testing framework. We have unit tests,
en/volunteer.wml 756) but it would be great to have a script that starts up a Tor network, uses
en/volunteer.wml 757) it for a while, and verifies that at least parts of it are working.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 758) 

en/volunteer.wml 759) <li>
en/volunteer.wml 760) <b>Bring up new ideas!</b>
en/volunteer.wml 761) <br />
en/volunteer.wml 762) Don't like any of these? Look at the <a

en/volunteer.wml 763) href="<svnsandbox>doc/design-paper/roadmap-future.pdf">Tor development

en/volunteer.wml 764) roadmap</a> for more ideas.<br /><br />
en/volunteer.wml 765) Don't see your idea here? We probably need it anyway! Contact

en/volunteer.wml 766) us and find out.</li>
en/volunteer.wml 767) </ol>
en/volunteer.wml 768) 

en/volunteer.wml 769) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Coding">Coding and Design</a></h2>

volunteer.html   770) <ol>

en/volunteer.wml 771) <li>Tor relays don't work well on Windows XP. On

en/volunteer.wml 772) Windows, Tor uses the standard <tt>select()</tt> system

en/volunteer.wml 773) call, which uses space in the non-page pool. This means

en/volunteer.wml 774) that a medium sized Tor relay will empty the non-page pool, <a

en/volunteer.wml 775) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/WindowsBufferProblems">causing

en/volunteer.wml 776) havoc and system crashes</a>. We should probably be using overlapped IO

en/volunteer.wml 777) instead. One solution would be to teach <a
en/volunteer.wml 778) href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">libevent</a> how to use
en/volunteer.wml 779) overlapped IO rather than select() on Windows, and then adapt Tor to

en/volunteer.wml 780) the new libevent interface. Christian King made a
en/volunteer.wml 781) <a href="https://tor-svn.freehaven.net/svn/libevent-urz/trunk/">good
en/volunteer.wml 782) start</a> on this last summer.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 783) <li>We need to actually start building our <a href="<page
en/volunteer.wml 784) documentation>#DesignDoc">blocking-resistance design</a>. This involves

en/volunteer.wml 785) fleshing out the design, modifying many different pieces of Tor, adapting
en/volunteer.wml 786) <a href="http://vidalia-project.net/">Vidalia</a> so it supports the
en/volunteer.wml 787) new features, and planning for deployment.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 788) <li>We need a flexible simulator framework for studying end-to-end
en/volunteer.wml 789) traffic confirmation attacks. Many researchers have whipped up ad hoc
en/volunteer.wml 790) simulators to support their intuition either that the attacks work
en/volunteer.wml 791) really well or that some defense works great. Can we build a simulator
en/volunteer.wml 792) that's clearly documented and open enough that everybody knows it's
en/volunteer.wml 793) giving a reasonable answer? This will spur a lot of new research.
en/volunteer.wml 794) See the entry <a href="#Research">below</a> on confirmation attacks for
en/volunteer.wml 795) details on the research side of this task &mdash; who knows, when it's
en/volunteer.wml 796) done maybe you can help write a paper or three also.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 797) <li>Tor 0.1.1.x and later include support for hardware crypto accelerators

en/volunteer.wml 798) via OpenSSL. Nobody has ever tested it, though. Does somebody want to get

volunteer.html   799) a card and let us know how it goes?</li>

volunteer.html   800) <li>Perform a security analysis of Tor with <a
volunteer.html   801) href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing">"fuzz"</a>. Determine

en/volunteer.wml 802) if there are good fuzzing libraries out there for what we want. Win fame by

volunteer.html   803) getting credit when we put out a new release because of you!</li>

volunteer.html   804) <li>Tor uses TCP for transport and TLS for link
volunteer.html   805) encryption. This is nice and simple, but it means all cells
volunteer.html   806) on a link are delayed when a single packet gets dropped, and
volunteer.html   807) it means we can only reasonably support TCP streams. We have a <a

en/volunteer.wml 808) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#TransportIPnotTCP">list

en/volunteer.wml 809) of reasons why we haven't shifted to UDP transport</a>, but it would
en/volunteer.wml 810) be great to see that list get shorter. We also have a proposed <a

en/volunteer.wml 811) href="<svnsandbox>doc/spec/proposals/100-tor-spec-udp.txt">specification
en/volunteer.wml 812) for Tor and

en/volunteer.wml 813) UDP</a> &mdash; please let us know what's wrong with it.</li>

volunteer.html   814) <li>We're not that far from having IPv6 support for destination addresses
volunteer.html   815) (at exit nodes). If you care strongly about IPv6, that's probably the
volunteer.html   816) first place to start.</li>

volunteer.html   817) </ol>
volunteer.html   818) 

en/volunteer.wml 819) <a id="Research"></a>
en/volunteer.wml 820) <h2><a class="anchor" href="#Research">Research</a></h2>

volunteer.html   821) <ol>

volunteer.html   822) <li>The "website fingerprinting attack": make a list of a few
volunteer.html   823) hundred popular websites, download their pages, and make a set of
volunteer.html   824) "signatures" for each site. Then observe a Tor client's traffic. As
volunteer.html   825) you watch him receive data, you quickly approach a guess about which
volunteer.html   826) (if any) of those sites he is visiting. First, how effective is
volunteer.html   827) this attack on the deployed Tor codebase? Then start exploring
volunteer.html   828) defenses: for example, we could change Tor's cell size from 512
volunteer.html   829) bytes to 1024 bytes, we could employ padding techniques like <a
volunteer.html   830) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#timing-fc2004">defensive dropping</a>,
volunteer.html   831) or we could add traffic delays. How much of an impact do these have,
volunteer.html   832) and how much usability impact (using some suitable metric) is there from
volunteer.html   833) a successful defense in each case?</li>

volunteer.html   834) <li>The "end-to-end traffic confirmation attack":
volunteer.html   835) by watching traffic at Alice and at Bob, we can <a
volunteer.html   836) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#danezis:pet2004">compare
volunteer.html   837) traffic signatures and become convinced that we're watching the same
volunteer.html   838) stream</a>. So far Tor accepts this as a fact of life and assumes this
volunteer.html   839) attack is trivial in all cases. First of all, is that actually true? How
volunteer.html   840) much traffic of what sort of distribution is needed before the adversary
volunteer.html   841) is confident he has won? Are there scenarios (e.g. not transmitting much)
volunteer.html   842) that slow down the attack? Do some traffic padding or traffic shaping
volunteer.html   843) schemes work better than others?</li>

volunteer.html   844) <li>The "routing zones attack": most of the literature thinks of
volunteer.html   845) the network path between Alice and her entry node (and between the
volunteer.html   846) exit node and Bob) as a single link on some graph. In practice,
volunteer.html   847) though, the path traverses many autonomous systems (ASes), and <a
volunteer.html   848) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#feamster:wpes2004">it's not uncommon
volunteer.html   849) that the same AS appears on both the entry path and the exit path</a>.
volunteer.html   850) Unfortunately, to accurately predict whether a given Alice, entry,
volunteer.html   851) exit, Bob quad will be dangerous, we need to download an entire Internet
volunteer.html   852) routing zone and perform expensive operations on it. Are there practical
volunteer.html   853) approximations, such as avoiding IP addresses in the same /8 network?</li>

en/volunteer.wml 854) <li>Other research questions regarding geographic diversity consider
en/volunteer.wml 855) the tradeoff between choosing an efficient circuit and choosing a random

en/volunteer.wml 856) circuit. Look at Stephen Rollyson's <a

en/volunteer.wml 857) href="http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/ugResearch/uploads/7/ImprovingTor.pdf">position
en/volunteer.wml 858) paper</a> on how to discard particularly slow choices without hurting

en/volunteer.wml 859) anonymity "too much". This line of reasoning needs more work and more
en/volunteer.wml 860) thinking, but it looks very promising.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 861) <li>Tor doesn't work very well when relays have asymmetric bandwidth

volunteer.html   862) (e.g. cable or DSL). Because Tor has separate TCP connections between
volunteer.html   863) each hop, if the incoming bytes are arriving just fine and the outgoing
volunteer.html   864) bytes are all getting dropped on the floor, the TCP push-back mechanisms
volunteer.html   865) don't really transmit this information back to the incoming streams.
volunteer.html   866) Perhaps Tor should detect when it's dropping a lot of outgoing packets,
volunteer.html   867) and rate-limit incoming streams to regulate this itself? I can imagine
volunteer.html   868) a build-up and drop-off scheme where we pick a conservative rate-limit,
volunteer.html   869) slowly increase it until we get lost packets, back off, repeat. We
volunteer.html   870) need somebody who's good with networks to simulate this and help design
volunteer.html   871) solutions; and/or we need to understand the extent of the performance
volunteer.html   872) degradation, and use this as motivation to reconsider UDP transport.</li>
volunteer.html   873) <li>A related topic is congestion control. Is our
volunteer.html   874) current design sufficient once we have heavy use? Maybe
volunteer.html   875) we should experiment with variable-sized windows rather
volunteer.html   876) than fixed-size windows? That seemed to go well in an <a
volunteer.html   877) href="http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/hpn-ssh/theory.php">ssh
volunteer.html   878) throughput experiment</a>. We'll need to measure and tweak, and maybe
volunteer.html   879) overhaul if the results are good.</li>

volunteer.html   880) <li>To let dissidents in remote countries use Tor without being blocked
volunteer.html   881) at their country's firewall, we need a way to get tens of thousands of
volunteer.html   882) relays, not just a few hundred. We can imagine a Tor client GUI that

en/volunteer.wml 883) has a "Tor for Freedom" button at the top that opens a port and relays a

volunteer.html   884) few KB/s of traffic into the Tor network. (A few KB/s shouldn't be too
volunteer.html   885) much hassle, and there are few abuse issues since they're not being exit
volunteer.html   886) nodes.) But how do we distribute a list of these volunteer clients to the
volunteer.html   887) good dissidents in an automated way that doesn't let the country-level
volunteer.html   888) firewalls intercept and enumerate them? Probably needs to work on a

en/volunteer.wml 889) human-trust level. See our <a href="<page documentation>#DesignDoc">early
en/volunteer.wml 890) blocking-resistance design document</a> and our
en/volunteer.wml 891) <a

en/volunteer.wml 892) href="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#BlockingResistance">FAQ

en/volunteer.wml 893) entry</a> on this, and then read the <a
en/volunteer.wml 894) href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/topic.html#Communications_20Censorship">censorship
en/volunteer.wml 895) resistance section of anonbib</a>.</li>

volunteer.html   896) <li>Tor circuits are built one hop at a time, so in theory we have the
volunteer.html   897) ability to make some streams exit from the second hop, some from the
volunteer.html   898) third, and so on. This seems nice because it breaks up the set of exiting

en/volunteer.wml 899) streams that a given relay can see. But if we want each stream to be safe,

volunteer.html   900) the "shortest" path should be at least 3 hops long by our current logic, so
volunteer.html   901) the rest will be even longer. We need to examine this performance / security
volunteer.html   902) tradeoff.</li>

en/volunteer.wml 903) <li>It's not that hard to DoS Tor relays or directory authorities. Are client

volunteer.html   904) puzzles the right answer? What other practical approaches are there? Bonus
volunteer.html   905) if they're backward-compatible with the current Tor protocol.</li>

volunteer.html   906) </ol>
volunteer.html   907) 

en/volunteer.wml 908) <a href="<page contact>">Let us know</a> if you've made progress on any
en/volunteer.wml 909) of these!

volunteer.html   910) 

en/volunteer.wml 911)   </div><!-- #main -->

volunteer.html   912) 

en/volunteer.wml 913) #include <foot.wmi>