[tor-dev] Easy research tasks

[Vignesh Prabhu]

Hi,

Nick Mathewson:
> Some of the project ideas towards the bottom of
> https://www.torproject.org/getinvolved/volunteer are easy, and some
> have research. Maybe there's something there?
> 
> (Check before embarking on anything complicated there; that list
> hasn't got a thorough cleaning in a while)

I hope this is not a diversion to the original topic. I am also looking
at TOR network as my research topic for my Masters. It will be great if
someone can show me some directions to continue. Following are the areas
that I am currently exploring:

1) IPv6 and its impact on TOR Network.
  i) How does it impact if say users use PI to run relays on IPv6 from
their homes.
  ii) Looking at Anycast and seeing if it will help to replace 'family'
in the TOR relay list. (Nickm on IRC suggested to look first at what are
the properties for a relay distribution mechanism, Please do share any
existing document if any exists for this already.)
With my limited search on IPv6+TOR, I havent found any research papers
on this yet. Is it because this is completely new or is it because it is
very naive or obvious. I did find the implementation wiki page on how to
run TOR relay on IPv6 but no research papers.

2) Website Finger Printing attacks practicality
Based on the paper, "A Critical Evaluation of Website Fingerprinting
Attacks"[1], the authors do provide strong reasons as to why Website
Fingerprinting attacks are not practical even in case of targetted attacks.
3) Exposing Malicious TOR Exit Relays
The authors of the paper, "Spoiled Onions: Exposing Malicious Tor Exit
Relays"[2] discuss novel ways to expose Malicious TOR Exit Relays. Have
there been any further work on this?
4) Recently I was fortunate enough to meet Smari McCarthy from the
MailPile Team[3] and he introduced me to SMTorP[4], SMTP over TOR
protocol that his team has come up with. It seems very interesting to
look at it in depth and find its pros and cons.

These are the current ideas that I have been hanging with for couple of
months now. It will be really helpful if someone can share pointers on
any of them.

[1] - https://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~sa499/papers/ccs-webfp-final.pdf
[2] - https://www.petsymposium.org/2014/papers/Winter.pdf
[3] - https://www.mailpile.is/
[4] - https://github.com/mailpile/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP

Regards,

Vignesh Prabhu