[tor-talk] Torproject frontpage content

[Paul Syverson]

On Sat, Mar 08, 2014 at 11:24:12AM -0500, Andrew Lewman wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 08, 2014 at 05:00:04AM -0500, grarpamp at gmail.com wrote 0.9K bytes in 0 lines about:
> : Noticed that the frontpage mentions location/anonymity
> : but doesn't actually say anything about encryption shielding
> : your thoughts and interactions from your first hop ISP/employer/wifi/etc.
> : Location is a big part, but the encryption is equally worthy of mention.
> : ie: 'why anonymity matters' has two parts... location and encryption.
> : 'from learning what sites you visit' doesn't tell the full story, it needs
> : a layman 'what you / your party says' component.
> : Keep in mind that many people don't 'get' or like anonymity, but they
> : do get keeping convo private from nearby peepers before coming to
> : understanding the greater anon thing.
> 
> Thanks for the feedback, submit a patch?

A caveat: the frontpage needs to concisely hit just the most salient
points. It is a well-known problem that many (most?) users first
encountering Tor think that it encrypts the whole internet. And my
experience is that mentioning encryption briefly is more likely to
reinforce that thinking than it is to elucidate. There is a link right
below "What is Tor?"  to "Learn more about Tor" that takes you to a
page that goes into more detail, including your points above.  I
actually think that is preferable to adding more clarification to the
frontpage. A _well designed_ user study might tell us more about how
different options are perceived. In the meantime we have competing
intuitions.

aloha,
Paul