Re: [Tails-dev] Disabling suspend on lid close? (#11052)

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Autore: sajolida
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To: The Tails public development discussion list
Vecchi argomenti: Re: [Tails-dev] Disabling suspend on lid close? (#11502)
Oggetto: Re: [Tails-dev] Disabling suspend on lid close? (#11052)
Topi Toosi:
> Just an outsider opinion:
>
> When suspending works only via the button a user has the choice of
> closing the lid and not suspending the device. This choice is currently
> not available.
>
> Leaving aside the question of what would be the most reasonable default
> there should at least be an option for choosing the more secure behavior.
>
> Almost all hardware that Tails currently runs on is after all
> susceptible to cold boot attacks.


Hi Topi, thanks for chiming in!

You're right that the current situation leaves the user without choice
and I don't think that this was mentioned so far in this discussion.

Now, giving the user the choice also often implies asking the user to do
more work (at least understanding the choice to be made and making it)
or comes with other trade-offs.

So far, the proposal to give the more secure choice of not suspending is
to not suspending by default when closing the lid.

It means that everybody who do want to suspend will have a more complex
procedure to put their laptops in their bag (click suspend before
closing the lid). If you're trained to only close the lid to put your
laptop in your bag (like me) and you forget to suspend, you might end up
with an overheating laptop (hardware damage) or run out of battery (data
loss). I would definitely loose data sometimes :)

If those who are fine with the current situation are the vast majority,
then we might be degrading the experience for most.

I'm not saying this to discard the idea of giving the choice but to
contrast it with the potential cost of this choice. Now, we might find a
different way of giving the choice against cold-boot attacks without
degrading the experience for busy and distracted users.

--
sajolida