Re: [Tails-ux] Terminology for the web assistant: different …

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Author: intrigeri
Date:  
To: Tails user experience & user interface design
Subject: Re: [Tails-ux] Terminology for the web assistant: different kinds of Tails
Hi,

sajolida wrote (07 May 2015 09:23:00 GMT) :
> intrigeri:
>> Just my 2 bits of technical/roadmap background info: it *might* become
>> the case that very important Tails features depend on persistence
>> being setup, e.g. https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/7675 ("Persist
>> entropy pool seeds")


> What do you mean by "important" and "depend" here?


Here we go:

> Will Tails not work properly without them?


No.

> Will Tails be less secure that it is today without them?


No, but the current situation is pretty shitty in this respect, so
being as secure (without that future persistence feature) as Tails is
today doesn't mean much.

> Will people who activated them benefit from additional security?


Yes.

> I'm thinking also about a possible persistent Tor state. That is not
> necessarily something visible, but that makes Tails to connect faster to
> Tor and a bit safer because you're keeping your entry guards. Would this
> be in the same family of features?


Exactly.

>> -- although it's not clear yet what we'll do, and
>> it might be that we want to actually persist that piece of data even
>> without persistence being set up, somehow (yes, I know).
>>
>> I've no idea if/how such a change impacts the discussion we're having
>> here, I'll let you folks judge.


> The question that we need to answer here is whether the fact that those
> new features exist (most probably in persistence but maybe outside) will
> affect what we advertise as "Tails" and "Tails with persistence". I
> understand better their implications to be sure about that.


> Note that this might as well affect our setup tools. Because if it
> suddenly becomes insecure or buggy to use Tails without persistence,
> then we should do better at enforcing setting up persistence during the
> installation process.


Indeed.

> And also what about people using DVDs?


I've no idea. Perhaps we'll have to ask for user input when no
persistent entropy pool seed is found.

> Or, how are we going to explain to people that they need
> a passphrase for something that doesn't protect any user
> visible data?


I don't understand what this passphrase would be used for.

> Thanks for raising this issue, and make sure to bring this discussion up
> again at some point to talk about the other UX side-effects that this
> might have (apart from terminology).


Sure!

Cheers,
--
intrigeri