Hi Jake, > > Understanding is the key to security, not convenience. That being > > said, TorBirdy is both convenient and great. I'm not sure that's > > it's ready for primetime yet, but I do try to test and feed back > > (using another nym ...) and definitely see the value. > > > > Happy to help. :) > > Is there anything in specific that you feel that we should address?
It's a bit difficult to describe succinctly, but I'll try to relay my thoughts ... It's about the indications that you are actually using Tor. I've been using Tor since before TBB, probably since before Vidalia, and one of the great features of TBB is that on start-up it tells you that you're successfully using Tor. And the occasional failure due to not recognising the exit node you've come from is handy for making you stop, think, check the IP address, and make sure you still have an understanding of how Tor works. And then there's the fact that pages load a little slower over Tor, not intolerably slow but still noticeably slow. So you know that you're using Tor. TorBirdy doesn't give this indication ... it looks like regular Thunderbird, and email loads in the background and is just there when you need it. Sending is a little slower and so you could infer that Tor is in use, but you really want to know that when you start up, and before the automatic fetch begins. I'm not sure how I would fix these issues. Trying to have TorBirdy do something to test Tor is in use for IMAP/POP/SMTP connections would be quite difficult, if possible at all. But if you could do it and notify the user before the fetch began then that would simulate some of what TBB does. Other indicators such as a change to the skin would be a useful indicator that you're using the right software, but still doesn't actually test the network. So I can't solve the problems, just point out that, from my perspective, it's those visual clues that give confidence that your connections are protected that are missing from the current TorBirdy. Alternatively, if there was a way to detect that Tor was not in use and then stop and alert the user would also be suitable. Otherwise, all the technical aspects appear to work exactly as expected ... I'm very happy to use it. Thanks for the good work! -- kat _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list [email protected] https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
