Tails

#3 Updated by sajolida 2014-06-22 09:31:59

Actually, having a progress bar, like in the Tor launcher would be even
better.

Especially on crappy connections to know if it’s worth waiting :)

#4 Updated by intrigeri 2014-07-19 16:12:31

I’m unsure about having progress information about connecting to the Tor network only: even once Tor is ready, at least for some usecases, one also needs to wait for the time to have been synchronized. So, I’m tempted to rephrase this ticket into “Design a progress indicator while establishing a fully-working Internet connection”, which would cover both (and anything else that the user is supposed to wait for before attempting to connect to online services). Thoughts?

#5 Updated by sajolida 2014-07-21 10:27:33

That makes sense to me. But maybe there is only a misunderstanding on
terminology here, as for me “a connection to Tor” is established once
the “Tor is ready” notification appeared. And that is already after time
synchronization.

But maybe I missed something, could you clarify what else do you mean by
“anything else that the user is supposed to wait for before attempting
to connect to online services”?

#6 Updated by intrigeri 2014-07-21 10:37:23

> That makes sense to me.

OK, good.

> But maybe there is only a misunderstanding on terminology here, as
> for me “a connection to Tor” is established once the “Tor is ready”
> notification appeared. And that is already after
> time synchronization.

Yes and no: it’s after the initial rough time synchronization (via the Tor consensus), but when “Tor is ready”, the finer-grained htpdate time sync’ process is still running, and the user is shown a notification that tells them “Synchronizing the system’s clock” and “Tor needs an accurate clock to work properly, especially for Hidden Services. Please wait…” until htpdate is done.

#8 Updated by intrigeri 2014-08-01 15:07:13

> I didn’t know that even when the “Tor is ready” notification appeared, Tor was not “fully-working” in some cases… Nitpicking aside, can this have concrete implications for the user in terms of usability?

I think there are two possible problems with using Tor before the time is correct:

1. we want all Tails users to have the same clock, as part of the protection against fingerprinting Tails tries to provide;
2. IIRC, accessing hidden services can be problematic when one’s clock is not correct; the notification we display tends to confirm my (poor) memory; sadly, I don’t remember the details.

> - If so, then maybe the “Tor is ready” notification needs to be fixed to appear
> only when “ready” means “fully-working”.

Yes, probably.

> Anyway, I think the idea here is to match the end of the progress bar with the “Tor is ready” notification.

Agreed.