Hi,

September was again more busy than average to respect the timeline of Project 101 (Tor VPN) and Tails releases.

Tor VPN =======

- I analyzed the usability test of Tor VPN 0.6.2 that I did in August.

https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/ux/research/-/issues/69

In short, the usability of Tor VPN 0.6.2 is decent when people don't need to use a bridge, but very bad when Tor is blocked. None of the participant managed to use a bridge on their own.

The main issues are unclear system status and confusing network model.

Quotes:

“Tor is like a bridge.“ — P5

“I'm looking for bridges that make it like if I were in Switzerland.“ — P4

“It should say: You are being blocked! With Tor you can bypass this censorship using a bridge.“ ­— P6

Summary of findings:

https://gitlab.torproject.org/-/project/92/uploads/1fba8220a110622d852bf4486...

List of all issues:

https://nc.torproject.net/s/fXbRYw76pTXJZym

Video clips:

https://nc.torproject.net/f/645757

- I created GitLab issues to document the most severe issues:

Improve feedback while "Connecting" https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/181

Clarify connection status on all screens https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/182

Allow changing exit location from Configure menu https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/185

Improve discoverability of the list of countries https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/186

Clarify what can be tapped in the Bridges screen https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/187

Remove the need to press Enter when entering a bridge line https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/188

Clarify which bridge is being used (eg. after Bridge Bot) https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/189

Improve discoverability of the circuit view https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/190

Allow configuring only a single bridge https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/193

Rethink how the different relays are named https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/194

Clarify just enough about the network model https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/195

Don't allow changing exit location unless already connected https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/vpn/-/issues/196

Report loss of connectivity to the Tor network https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/onionmasq/-/issues/110

- I started brainstorming solutions to all of these issues with Duncan and the rest of the UX team.

Tails =====

I wrote some documentation to help users with recent issues:

- Shim SBAT verification error (#20471)

https://tails.net/news/version_6.7/#sbat

- Provide fsck from Welcome Screen when the file system of the Persistent Storage is corrupted (#15451)

https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/merge_requests/1586

This one was a LOT of work to figure out which data forensics path we should recommend to users and document the main ones step-by-step.