[tor-bugs] #2905 [Vidalia]: Adapt Vidalia UI to allow users to avoid connecting to the public tor network

[Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki]

#2905: Adapt Vidalia UI to allow users to avoid connecting to the public tor
network
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 Reporter:  anonym   |          Owner:  chiiph         
     Type:  defect   |         Status:  new            
 Priority:  major    |      Milestone:  Vidalia: 0.2.13
Component:  Vidalia  |        Version:  Vidalia 0.2.10 
 Keywords:  bridges  |         Parent:                 
   Points:           |   Actualpoints:                 
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Comment(by chiiph):

 Replying to [comment:10 anonym]:
 > "Then start tor"? In the Tails scenario, Tor is already started as a
 system wide instance. We really do not want Vidalia to start/stop Tor in
 Tails for a number of reasons.

 If tor started and Vidalia was attached to it, it isn't possible (from
 release 0.2.12 and on) to stop tor, so this is covered.

 >
 > If by "then start tor" you meant that Vidalia will feed the bridges to
 Tor so it can connect, ok. But what if the user instead opens the Vidalia
 settings and just presses save without adding a bridge? My understanding
 is that UseBridges will be set to 0.

 Yes, that's what's going to happen.

 >That's the part which seems risky to me.

 There's always so much you can do for the user. If you show them the
 dialog and how to use it, and they don't, well, it's their choice.
 Right now, the user gets notified about this particular situation, what we
 can do is make the notification (currently a warning), be a question like:
 "You haven't added any bridges, if you hit Yes here you will be disabling
 the use of bridges. Is that what you really want to do?" Yes|No. How does
 that sound?

 >It also seems inconsistent that the user cannot achieve those settings
 her/himself through by using vidalia's settings, but must hack them via
 vidalia.conf.

 To produce the situation where UseBridge=1 with no bridges, yes, the user
 must "hack" that by editing vidalia.conf, because we don't want the user
 to be able to produce that situation. And in this case, it's something
 that you will allow in TAILS and the user doesn't need to edit anything.

 >
 > In any case, to me it seems fragile that both torrc and vidalia.conf has
 to be configured in order to get what we want.

 Yes, it's something that needs a lot of fixing, there are settings that
 are kept only in vidalia.conf, and other only in torrc, and some in both.

 > > I'm not aware of how to start tor in an idle state, could you
 elaborate?
 >
 > With "idle state" I meant the state that occurs when Tor has
 UseBridges=1 and no bridges configured. Per the new behaviour in Tor from
 #2355, Tor will not connect to anything, hence it "idles". Sorry if I was
 unclear.

 Yeah, when I hit "Submit" I thought about that state. But thanks for
 clarifying.

 >
 > > With "creates the situation in the settings" you mean "disables
 bridges"?
 >
 > No. The user checks the "My ISP blocks..." box but do not add any
 bridges. That situation.
 >
 > > And say we have all those notifications, how does the user finds
 bridges?
 >
 > Since the network settings will be opened and the bridge part will be
 shown, there's the "How else can I find bridges" link to the relevant part
 of the help.

 Yes, but what I meant was: the user will need to access some content
 online in some form (twitter, mail, hit the find bridges button, etc). And
 that access will be either done through "regular" tor, or by a clean
 navigation. Either way, if the user is inside a country where using tor is
 something that risks your life, I don't see any good way of avoiding
 ringing any bells.
 On the other hand, if the user has a friend, and he/she gaves the user the
 bridge, it will be pretty clear that she doesn't have to click "Ok" in the
 settings panel without adding it first.
 The problem with anonymity is that the user at some point needs to
 understand what do to. Otherwise we might aswell consider as risky the
 situation where the user disables TorButton and clicks on a link in
 another app that uses Firefox to open it.
 Anyway, I think I've gotten derailed here :) but what I mean is that we
 have to find a middle point, no solution will be perfect. Or may be I'm
 really wrong.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/2905#comment:11>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
The Tor Project: anonymity online