Re: [Tails-dev] keeping up with pluggable transports by usin…

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Author: intrigeri
Date:  
To: The Tails public development discussion list
Subject: Re: [Tails-dev] keeping up with pluggable transports by using TBB's Tor and tor-launcher
Hi,

Patrick Schleizer wrote (15 Nov 2014 15:38:09 GMT) :
> Idea:


> - Come with a recent release of original TBB from TPO installed by
> default with every new release of Tails/Whonix.


> - Use the TBB, tor-launcher add-on and pluggable transports from TBB as
> the new "system Tor".


Indeed, this would allow us to stay on top of things, and probably
make the UX clearer, since we would support just the same set of PTs
as Tor Browser supports. I must say it's quite tempting.

OTOH, given the amount of complicated stuff we already need to get the
Tor Browser itself properly integrated in Tails, I'm not too thrilled
at the idea of seeing more and more kludges added to do the same for
PTs... but maybe an actual implementation wouldn't be that scary, and
my fear would be proved to be irrational.

> Seems like an approach that needs low maintenance from distribution
> developers (Debian/Tails/Whonix) as well as from tor-launcher/TBB
> developers? Needs no extraction of stuff like meek, flashproxy,
> scramblesuit for packaging (policy conform) for Debian.


Unless I'm mistaken, the server-side of these PTs needs to be in
Debian anyway, so that people running Debian-based distros can
actually provide bridges supporting these PTs. And then, while one is
at it, I suspect that maintaining and packaging the client-side while
one is at it doesn't involve much more effort. So, I'm not convinced
by this specific argument.

> This requires tor-launcher having a features such as:


I'm afraid I don't understand why we would need any such changes
for Tails. May you please clarify?

Cheers,
--
intrigeri