write an actual research page for us (baa86e9fd) - tor-webwml.git

en/research.wml

@@ -9,10 +9,111 @@
 <h2>Tor: Research</h2>
 <hr />
 
-<p>Read <a
-href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/topic.html#Anonymous_20communication">these
-papers</a> (especially the ones in boxes) to get up to speed on anonymous
-communication systems.</p>
+<p>
+Many people around the world are doing research on how to improve the Tor
+design, what's going on in the Tor network, and more generally on attacks
+and defenses for anonymous communication systems. This page summarizes
+the resources we provide to help make your Tor research more effective.
+The best way to reach us about research is through the <a href="<page
+contact>">tor-assistants</a> list.
+</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>
+<b>Data.</b>
+We've been <a href="http://metrics.torproject.org/data.html">collecting
+data to learn more about the Tor network</a>: how many relays and
+clients there are in the network, what capabilities they have, how
+fast the network is, how many clients are connecting via bridges,
+what traffic exits the network, etc. We are also developing
+tools to process these huge data archives and come up with
+<a href="http://metrics.torproject.org/graphs.html">useful
+statistics</a>.  For example, we provide a <a
+href="https://gitweb.torproject.org//ernie.git?a=blob_plain;f=doc/manual.pdf">tool
+called Ernie</a> that can import relay descriptors into a local database
+to perform analyses. Let us know what other information you'd like to
+see, and we can work with you to help make sure it gets collected safely
+and robustly.
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<b>Analysis.</b>
+If you're investigating Tor, or solving a Tor-related problem,
+<i>_please_</i> talk to us somewhere along the way &mdash; the earlier
+the better. These days we review too many conference paper submissions
+that make bad assumptions and end up solving the wrong problem. Since
+the Tor protocol and the Tor network are both moving targets, measuring
+things without understanding what's going on behind the scenes is going
+to result in bad conclusions. In particular, different groups often
+unwittingly run a variety of experiments in parallel, and at the same
+time we're constantly modifying the design to try new approaches. If
+you let us know what you're doing and what you're trying to learn,
+we can help you understand what other variables to expect and how to
+interpret your results.
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<b>Measurement and attack tools.</b>
+We're building a <a
+href="http://metrics.torproject.org/tools.html">repository</a> of tools
+that can be used to measure, analyze, or perform attacks on Tor. Many
+research groups end up needing to do similar measurements (for example,
+change the Tor design in some way and then see if latency improves),
+and we hope to help everybody standardize on a few tools and then make
+them really good. Also, while there are some really neat Tor attacks
+that people have published about, it's hard to track down a copy of
+the code they used. Let us know if you have new tools we should list,
+or improvements to the existing ones. The more the better, at this stage.
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<b>In-person help.</b>
+If you're doing interesting and important Tor research and need help
+understanding how the Tor network or design works, interpreting your
+data, crafting your experiments, etc, we can send a Tor researcher to
+your doorstep. As you might expect, we don't have a lot of free time;
+but making sure that research is done in a way that's useful to us is
+really important. So let us know, and we'll work something out.
+</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<a id="Groups"></a>
+<h2><a class="anchor" href="#Ideas">Research Groups</a></h2>
+
+<p>Interested to find other anonymity researchers? Here are some
+research groups you should take a look at.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Ian Goldberg's <a href="http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/">CrySP</a> group
+at Waterloo.
+</li>
+<li><a href="http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~hopper/">Nick Hopper</a>'s
+group at UMN.
+</li>
+<li><a href="http://www.hatswitch.org/~nikita/">Nikita Borisov</a>'s
+group at Illinois.
+</li>
+<li>Matt Wright's <a href="http://isec.uta.edu/">iSec</a> group at
+UTA.
+</li
+</ul>
+
+<a id="Ideas"></a>
+<h2><a class="anchor" href="#Ideas">Research Ideas</a></h2>
+
+<p>
+If you're interested in anonymity research, you must make it to the
+<a href="http://petsymposium.org/">Privacy Enhancing Technologies
+Symposium</a>. Everybody who's anybody in the anonymity research world
+will be there. The 2010 conference is in Berlin in July. Stipends are
+available for people whose presence will benefit the community.
+</p>
+
+<p>To get up to speed on anonymity research, read <a
+href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/">these papers</a> (especially the
+ones in boxes).</p>
 
 <p>We need people to attack the system, quantify defenses,
 etc. See the "Research" section of the


...	...	@@ -9,10 +9,111 @@
9	9	<h2>Tor: Research</h2>
10	10	<hr />
11	11
12		-<p>Read <a
13		-href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/topic.html#Anonymous_20communication">these
14		-papers</a> (especially the ones in boxes) to get up to speed on anonymous
15		-communication systems.</p>
	12	+<p>
	13	+Many people around the world are doing research on how to improve the Tor
	14	+design, what's going on in the Tor network, and more generally on attacks
	15	+and defenses for anonymous communication systems. This page summarizes
	16	+the resources we provide to help make your Tor research more effective.
	17	+The best way to reach us about research is through the <a href="<page
	18	+contact>">tor-assistants</a> list.
	19	+</p>
	20	+
	21	+<ul>
	22	+
	23	+<li>
	24	+<b>Data.</b>
	25	+We've been <a href="http://metrics.torproject.org/data.html">collecting
	26	+data to learn more about the Tor network</a>: how many relays and
	27	+clients there are in the network, what capabilities they have, how
	28	+fast the network is, how many clients are connecting via bridges,
	29	+what traffic exits the network, etc. We are also developing
	30	+tools to process these huge data archives and come up with
	31	+<a href="http://metrics.torproject.org/graphs.html">useful
	32	+statistics</a>. For example, we provide a <a
	33	+href="https://gitweb.torproject.org//ernie.git?a=blob_plain;f=doc/manual.pdf">tool
	34	+called Ernie</a> that can import relay descriptors into a local database
	35	+to perform analyses. Let us know what other information you'd like to
	36	+see, and we can work with you to help make sure it gets collected safely
	37	+and robustly.
	38	+</li>
	39	+
	40	+<li>
	41	+<b>Analysis.</b>
	42	+If you're investigating Tor, or solving a Tor-related problem,
	43	+<i>_please_</i> talk to us somewhere along the way — the earlier
	44	+the better. These days we review too many conference paper submissions
	45	+that make bad assumptions and end up solving the wrong problem. Since
	46	+the Tor protocol and the Tor network are both moving targets, measuring
	47	+things without understanding what's going on behind the scenes is going
	48	+to result in bad conclusions. In particular, different groups often
	49	+unwittingly run a variety of experiments in parallel, and at the same
	50	+time we're constantly modifying the design to try new approaches. If
	51	+you let us know what you're doing and what you're trying to learn,
	52	+we can help you understand what other variables to expect and how to
	53	+interpret your results.
	54	+</li>
	55	+
	56	+<li>
	57	+<b>Measurement and attack tools.</b>
	58	+We're building a <a
	59	+href="http://metrics.torproject.org/tools.html">repository</a> of tools
	60	+that can be used to measure, analyze, or perform attacks on Tor. Many
	61	+research groups end up needing to do similar measurements (for example,
	62	+change the Tor design in some way and then see if latency improves),
	63	+and we hope to help everybody standardize on a few tools and then make
	64	+them really good. Also, while there are some really neat Tor attacks
	65	+that people have published about, it's hard to track down a copy of
	66	+the code they used. Let us know if you have new tools we should list,
	67	+or improvements to the existing ones. The more the better, at this stage.
	68	+</li>
	69	+
	70	+<li>
	71	+<b>In-person help.</b>
	72	+If you're doing interesting and important Tor research and need help
	73	+understanding how the Tor network or design works, interpreting your
	74	+data, crafting your experiments, etc, we can send a Tor researcher to
	75	+your doorstep. As you might expect, we don't have a lot of free time;
	76	+but making sure that research is done in a way that's useful to us is
	77	+really important. So let us know, and we'll work something out.
	78	+</li>
	79	+
	80	+</ul>
	81	+
	82	+<a id="Groups"></a>
	83	+<h2><a class="anchor" href="#Ideas">Research Groups</a></h2>
	84	+
	85	+<p>Interested to find other anonymity researchers? Here are some
	86	+research groups you should take a look at.</p>
	87	+
	88	+<ul>
	89	+<li>Ian Goldberg's <a href="http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/">CrySP</a> group
	90	+at Waterloo.
	91	+</li>
	92	+<li><a href="http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~hopper/">Nick Hopper</a>'s
	93	+group at UMN.
	94	+</li>
	95	+<li><a href="http://www.hatswitch.org/~nikita/">Nikita Borisov</a>'s
	96	+group at Illinois.
	97	+</li>
	98	+<li>Matt Wright's <a href="http://isec.uta.edu/">iSec</a> group at
	99	+UTA.
	100	+</li
	101	+</ul>
	102	+
	103	+<a id="Ideas"></a>
	104	+<h2><a class="anchor" href="#Ideas">Research Ideas</a></h2>
	105	+
	106	+<p>
	107	+If you're interested in anonymity research, you must make it to the
	108	+<a href="http://petsymposium.org/">Privacy Enhancing Technologies
	109	+Symposium</a>. Everybody who's anybody in the anonymity research world
	110	+will be there. The 2010 conference is in Berlin in July. Stipends are
	111	+available for people whose presence will benefit the community.
	112	+</p>
	113	+
	114	+<p>To get up to speed on anonymity research, read <a
	115	+href="http://freehaven.net/anonbib/">these papers</a> (especially the
	116	+ones in boxes).</p>
16	117
17	118	<p>We need people to attack the system, quantify defenses,
18	119	etc. See the "Research" section of the
19	120