Re: [Tails-dev] Please review MAC address spoofing documenta…

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Author: intrigeri
Date:  
To: The Tails public development discussion list
Subject: Re: [Tails-dev] Please review MAC address spoofing documentation
Hi,

sajolida@??? wrote (01 Mar 2014 19:18:22 GMT) :
> I reworked the documentation for MAC address spoofing. The freeze is in
> 4 days, so we're even in time for a bit of review.


Congrats! Here are a few comments and suggestions:

* Perhaps "What is a MAC address?" instead of "What are
MAC addresses?"
* I would perhaps use "network interface" instead of "network card".
* s/your laptop/the same laptop/
* s/being a Tails users/being a Tails user/
* It's not put clearly what conclusion the reader is supposed to draw
from "Someone observing the traffic coming out of your computer on
the local network can probably suspect you of being a Tails users,
as explained in our documentation on network fingerprint", once
combined with "Having such a unique identifier used on the local
network can harm your privacy".
* "MAC address spoofing hides the serial number of your network card,
and so to some extend, who you are, to the local network." <-- maybe
make it clear that this is true if you're using Tails, and not
in general?
* "it might also cause connectivity problems or suspicious network
activity": well, spoofing a MAC address does not by itself cause
suspicious network activity, it instead makes network activity look
suspicious. Not sure if this can be clarified easily, your call.
* s/according to your situation/depending on your situation/ would
seem clearer to me ("according to" has various meanings).
* "a free Wi-Fi" does not make much sense to me, as "a Wi-Fi" does not
mean much; perhaps "a Wi-Fi hotspot" instead?
* FWIW, people who congratuled me directly for the Unsafe Browser
feature were talking of McDonald's, not airports. Instead of "in an
airport", I'd rather see an example less targeted at the class of
people who can afford flying; maybe more people could easily relate
to "in a fast-food restaurant" (even if that's also a strong
cultural marker).
* In "It also hides the fact that you are the one running Tails on
this network.", I'd rather not imply that only one person is running
Tails on this network. "... that *you* are running Tails", instead?
* "your anonymity on Internet" <-- isn't our doc standardized on "the
Internet"?
* It strikes me as odd that this documentation only mentions leaking
MAC addresses on the LAN, and has nothing about its broadcasting in
the air when using Wi-Fi. Is this on purpose?
* In "It can even look suspicious to the network administrators to have
an unknown MAC address used on that network.": s/to have/to see/,
and maybe s/used/being used/.
* This documentation does not explain *how* to disable MAC spoofing.
* In the navigation path (next / previous links), I think I would
group the 2 options that are about networking (MAC spoofing and
bridges), and the 2 options that are about local stuff
(administration password, camouflage), to avoid some context
switches to the user.
* "Using your own computer on a restricted network where you had to
register with your identity or credit card. In this case, you
already revealed your geographical location to the local network by
other means." <--- right, but you perhaps have not revealed them
what specific computer you own / are carrying. Besides, that's
a list of cases when MAC spoofing can be problematic, and this
bullet point does not explain what would be the problem.
* "in your hardware or its drivers" <--- maybe replace "its drivers"
with "in Linux"?
* I would rewrite "if your local network has a restricted access based
on" into "if access to your local network is restricted based on".
* I would rewrite "the number of your SIM card (IMSI)" into "the
identifier of your SIM card (IMSI)"
* Regarding "to the phone network", I think it should be made clearer
if we mean "to the mobile phone company" (there's probably a more
idiomatic way to put it, btw), and/or to other participants to this
specific mobile phone network, or what.
* Regarding Intel AMT, I think it should be mentioned as one example
of a broader technology (out-of-band administration): there are
other implementations.

Cheers,
--
intrigeri
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