Author: mttp Date: 2013-12-13 20:12:11 +0000 (Fri, 13 Dec 2013) New Revision: 26478 Modified: website/trunk/docs/en/faq.wml Log: 6 new FAQ entires. Modified: website/trunk/docs/en/faq.wml =================================================================== --- website/trunk/docs/en/faq.wml 2013-12-13 13:34:03 UTC (rev 26477) +++ website/trunk/docs/en/faq.wml 2013-12-13 20:12:11 UTC (rev 26478) @@ -158,6 +158,20 @@ <li><a href="#ProvideAHiddenService">How do I provide a hidden service</a></li> </ul> + <p>Development</p> + <ul> + <li><a href="#WhoIsResponsible">Who is responsible for Tor?</a></li> + <li><a href="#VersionNumbers">What do these weird version numbers + mean?</a></li> + <li><a href="#PrivateTorNetwork">How do I set up my own private + Tor network?</a></li> + <li><a href="#UseTorWithJava">How can I make my Java program use the + Tor network?</a></li> + <li><a href="#WhatIsLibevent">What is Libevent?</a></li> + <li><a href="#MyNewFeature">What do I need to do to get a new feature + into Tor?</a></li> + </ul> + <p>Anonymity and Security:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#WhatProtectionsDoesTorProvide">What protections does Tor @@ -544,7 +558,7 @@ <a id="Forum"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#Forum">Is there a Tor forum?</a></h3> - <p>We have <a href="https://tor.stackexchange.com/">a StackExchange + <p>We have a <a href="https://tor.stackexchange.com/">StackExchange page</a> that is currently in public beta. </p> @@ -2742,24 +2756,213 @@ <hr> + <a id="WhoIsResponsible"></a> + <h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhoIsResponsible">Who is responsible + for Tor?</a></h3> + + <p> + <a href="http://www.freehaven.net/~arma/cv.html">Roger Dingledine</a> and + <a href="http://www.wangafu.net/~nickm/">Nick Mathewson</a> are the main + developers of Tor. You can read more at + <a href="https://www.torproject.org/about/corepeople">Tor's People + page</a>. + </p> + + <hr> + + <a id="VersionNumbers"></a> + <h3><a class="anchor" href="#VersionNumbers">What do these weird + version numbers mean?</a></h3> + + <p> + Versions of Tor before 0.1.0 used a strange and hard-to-explain version scheme. Let's forget about those. + </p> + <p> + Starting with 0.1.0, versions all look like this: + MAJOR.MINOR.MICRO(.PATCHLEVEL)(-TAG). The stuff in parenthesis is + optional. MAJOR, MINOR, MICRO, and PATCHLEVEL are all numbers. Only one + release is ever made with any given set of these version numbers. The + TAG lets you know how stable we think the release is: "alpha" is pretty + unstable; "rc" is a release candidate; and no tag at all means that we + have a final release. If the tag ends with "-cvs", you're looking at + a development snapshot that came after a given release. + </p> + <p> + So for example, we might start a development branch with (say) + 0.1.1.1-alpha. The patchlevel increments consistently as the status + tag changes, for example, as in: 0.1.1.2-alpha, 0.1.1.3-alpha, + 0.1.1.4-rc, 0.1.1.5-rc, etc. Eventually, we would release 0.1.1.6. + The next stable release would be 0.1.1.7. + </p> + <p> + Why do we do it like this? Because every release has a unique + version number, it is easy for tools like package manager to tell + which release is newer than another. The tag makes it easy for users + to tell how stable the release is likely to be. + </p> + + <hr> + + <a id="PrivateTorNetwork"></a> + <h3><a class="anchor" href="#PrivateTorNetwork">How do I set up my + own private Tor network?</a></h3> + + <p> + If you want to experiment locally with your own network, or you're + cut off from the Internet and want to be able to mess with Tor still, + then you may want to set up your own separate Tor network. + </p> + <p> + To set up your own Tor network, you need to run your own authoritative + directory servers, and your clients and relays must be configured so + they know about your directory servers rather than the default public + ones. + </p> + <p> + Apart from the somewhat tedious method of manually configuring a couple + of directory authorities, relays and clients there are two separate + tools that could help. One is Chutney, the other is Shadow. + </p> + <p> + <a href="https://gitweb.torproject.org/chutney.git">Chutney</a> is a + tool for configuring, controlling and running tests on a + testing Tor network. It requires that you have Tor and Python (2.5 or + later) installed on your system. You can use Chutney to create a testing + network by generating Tor configuration files (torrc) and necssary keys + (for the directory authorities). Then you can let Chutney start your Tor + authorities, relays and clients and wait for the network to bootstrap. + Finally, you can have Chutney run tests on your network to see which + things work and which do not. Chutney is typically used for running a + testing network with about 10 instances of Tor. Every instance of Tor + binds to one or two ports on localhost (127.0.0.1) and all Tor + communication is done over the loopback interface. The <a + href="https://gitweb.torproject.org/chutney.git/blob/HEAD:/README">Chutney + README</a> is a good starting point for getting it up and running. + </p> + <p> + <a href="https://github.com/shadow/shadow">Shadow</a> is a network + simulator that can run Tor through its Scallion plug-in. Although + it's typically used for running load and performance tests on + substantially larger Tor test networks than what's feasible with + Chutney, it also makes for an excellent debugging tool since you can + run completely deterministic experiments. A large Shadow network is on + the size of thousands of instances of Tor, and you can run experiments + out of the box using one of Shadow's several included scallion experiment + configurations. Shadow can be run on any linux machine without root, + and can also run on EC2 using a pre-configured image. Also, Shadow + controls the time of the simulation with the effect that + time-consuming tests can be done more efficiently than in an + ordinary testing network. The <a + href="https://github.com/shadow/shadow/wiki">Shadow wiki</a> and + <a href="http://shadow.github.io/">Shadow website</a> are + good places to get started. + </p> + + <hr> + + <a id="UseTorInJava"></a> + <h3><a class="anchor" href="UseTorInJava">How can I make my Java + program use the Tor Network?</a></h3> + + <p> + The newest versions of Java now have SOCKS4/5 support built in. + Unfortunately, the SOCKS interface is not very well documented and + may still leak your DNS lookups. The safest way to use Tor is to + interface the SOCKS protocol directly or go through an application-level + proxy that speaks SOCKS4a. For an example and libraries that implement + the SOCKS4a connection, go to Joe Foley's TorLib in the <a + href="http://web.mit.edu/foley/www/TinFoil/">TinFoil Project</a>. + </p> + + <p> + A fully Java implementation of the Tor client is now available as <a + href="http://www.subgraph.com/orchid.html">Orchid</a>. We still consider + Orchid to be experimental, so use with care. + </p> + + <hr> + + + <a id="WhatIsLibevent"></a> + <h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhatIsLibevent">What is Libevent?</a></h3> + + <p> + When you want to deal with a bunch of net connections at once, you + have a few options: + </p> + <p> + One is multithreading: you have a separate micro-program inside the + main program for each net connection that reads and writes to the + connection as needed.This, performance-wise, sucks. + </p> + <p> + Another is asynchronous network programming: you have a single main + program that finds out when various net connections are ready to + read/write, and acts accordingly. + </p> + <p> + The problem is that the oldest ways to find out when net connections + are ready to read/write, suck. And the newest ways are finally fast, + but are not available on all platforms. + </p> + <p> + This is where Libevent comes in and wraps all these ways to find + out whether net connections are ready to read/write, so that Tor + (and other programs) can use the fastest one that your platform + supports, but can still work on older platforms (these methods are + all different depending on the platorm) So Libevent presents a + consistent and fast interface to select, poll, kqueue, epoll, + /dev/poll, and windows select. + </p> + <p> + However, On the the Win32 platform (by Microsoft) the only good + way to do fast IO on windows with hundreds of sockets is using + overlapped IO, which is grossly unlike every other BSD sockets + interface. + </p> + <p>Libevent has <a href="http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/">its + own website</a>. + </p> + <hr> + + <a id="MyNewFeature"></a> + <h3><a class="anchor" href="#MyNewFeature">What do I need to do to get + a new feature into Tor?</a></h3> + + <p> + For a new feature to go into Tor, it needs to be designed (explain what + you think Tor should do), argued to be secure (explain why it's better + or at least as good as what Tor does now), specified (explained at the + byte level at approximately the level of detail in tor-spec.txt), and + implemented (done in software). + </p> + + <p> + You probably shouldn't count on other people doing all of these steps + for you: people who are skilled enough to do this stuff generally + have their own favorite feature requests. + </p> + + <hr> + <a id="WhatProtectionsDoesTorProvide"></a> <h3><a class="anchor" href="#WhatProtectionsDoesTorProvide">What protections does Tor provide?</a></h3> <p> - Internet communication is based on a store-and-forward model that - can be understood in analogy to postal mail: Data is transmitted in - blocks called IP datagrams or packets. Every packet includes a source - IP address (of the sender) and a destination IP address (of the - receiver), just as ordinary letters contain postal addresses of sender - and receiver. The way from sender to receiver involves multiple hops of - routers, where each router inspects the destination IP address and - forwards the packet closer to its destination. Thus, every router - between sender and receiver learns that the sender is communicating - with the receiver. In particular, your local ISP is in the position to - build a complete profile of your Internet usage. In addition, every - server in the Internet that can see any of the packets can profile your - behaviour. + Internet communication is based on a store-and-forward model that + can be understood in analogy to postal mail: Data is transmitted in + blocks called IP datagrams or packets. Every packet includes a source + IP address (of the sender) and a destination IP address (of the + receiver), just as ordinary letters contain postal addresses of sender + and receiver. The way from sender to receiver involves multiple hops of + routers, where each router inspects the destination IP address and + forwards the packet closer to its destination. Thus, every router + between sender and receiver learns that the sender is communicating + with the receiver. In particular, your local ISP is in the position to + build a complete profile of your Internet usage. In addition, every + server in the Internet that can see any of the packets can profile your + behaviour. </p> <p>