[tor-bugs] #4069 [Tor Support]: Develop a short overview and walk-through of using Tor for new users

Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki torproject-admin at torproject.org
Tue Oct 11 13:00:35 UTC 2011


#4069: Develop a short overview and walk-through of using Tor for new users
-------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  runa         |          Owner:  runa
     Type:  task         |         Status:  new 
 Priority:  normal       |      Milestone:      
Component:  Tor Support  |        Version:      
 Keywords:               |         Parent:      
   Points:               |   Actualpoints:      
-------------------------+--------------------------------------------------

Comment(by runa):

 Replying to [comment:15 arma]:
 > Replying to [comment:9 runa]:
 > > If you want to comment on the contents of this manual, please do so
 today.
 >
 > Thoughts, from higher priority to lower priority.
 >
 > A) "If Tor still doesn't work, it's likely that your Internet Service
 > Provider (ISP) is blocking Tor." I think we should try to clarify the
 > countries in which this is true. To my knowledge the country where it
 > is true is China; it is not true outside of China -- and *in* China,
 > the bridges you get from bridgedb probably aren't going to work for
 > you anyway.

 Why mention the country if we're talking about one single country where
 bridges probably aren't going to work anyway? Also, I would rather not
 have to update the document every time we learn about a country where you
 need to use a bridge.

 > https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#DoesntWork needs a rewrite now that
 > TBB is our favored install, but it has some good suggestions for what to
 > do if Tor still doesn't work. Smart ones include "look at your Vidalia
 > message log window" and "are you running a security or antivirus tool
 > that is breaking Tor's ability to use the network".

 I've created #4219 for the website FAQ, and I have updated the manual with
 some tips for debugging Tor. I have also mentioned emailing community-
 support with relevant parts of the log so that we can help debug.

 > I think we probably want to include bridges and the open proxy config
 > suggestions as a separate section ("be prepared for when your government
 > tries to block Tor"), and focus on giving people debugging tips if their
 > Tor doesn't work, rather than telling them to use a bridge.

 Fixed.

 > In the bridge section, we should also tell them to expect to have to
 fetch
 > a new set of bridges every few days since the ones they get will go down
 > (we tell them to set several, but we should explicitly tell them they'll
 > want to build a habit of fetching new ones).

 Fixed.

 > B) Some points are not currently accurate, e.g. 1) you say that gettor
 > works with macosx, yet currently it doesn't because the bundle is too
 > big for all common mailservers. 2) "All you need to do is join the HTML5
 > trial" is not true right now either, since Torbutton somehow prevents
 > the join cookie from sticking.

 For (1): I moved the "Cannot get the package from GetTor" section up to
 the section that talks about how to get packages Tor via email.

 For (2): Ah, I guess that's #3347. What should we tell the users? Use the
 HTML5 trial, but you will need to rejoin every time?

 > If we're planning to roll this out to people asap, should we try to make
 > it accurate for now, and then plan to change it later once we make
 things
 > work better?

 I'm going to "accurate for now, we can always update it later".

 > C) Littler things:
 >
 > In the "How Tor works" section, you say 'server' in many cases where
 we've
 > chosen in all the other docs to say 'relay'. We originally opted away
 > from server because it gives people an image of a huge centralized IBM
 > machine maintained by The Tor Project rather than a computer somewhere.

 I know that we normally use the world "relay" instead of "server".
 However, a word like "relay" does not make much sense to non-tech users,
 and it can be difficult to translate. I figured "server" would be easier
 to understand/translate in a short manual for new Tor users.

 > "It is technically possible to use Tor with other browsers, but by doing
 > so you may open yourself up to potential attacks." doesn't need the
 'may'.

 Fixed.

 > D) The section on checking the signature doesn't teach the user anything
 > about what GPG actually does. We might as well just ship them SHA-1
 hashes
 > of the download files. We should plan to clean up the verifying-
 signatures
 > page to explain trust chains, and extract key points from it into an
 > updated version of this text. That process shouldn't block getting this
 > document out the door though.

 It doesn't give users a long explanation, but it does say that checking
 the signature is a way of verifying that you have the right version of Tor
 and that it hasn't been tampered with. I agree that we should update the
 verifying-signatures page, and I've created #4218 for this task. Once
 that's done, I'll update the user manual with key points.

 I'll wait for you and Andrew to comment before I ask people to start
 translating. I want to be able to ship this manual to everyone who
 requests a package from the 17th, and I also want us to have a Farsi
 translation by then.

 We can still discuss and edit the manual after that, but I'd rather not
 make too many changes to the document once people have started to
 translate.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4069#comment:17>
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