[Freedombox-discuss] Initial User Experience (was: Tor .onion domains)

Michael Blizek michi1 at michaelblizek.twilightparadox.com
Tue May 10 17:40:22 UTC 2011


Hi!

On 21:18 Mon 09 May     , Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
...
> You envision a handbook that instructs the user to type in a specific IP 
> number, which somehow ensures it is the correct box?

This point can be pretty tricky: Which IP does the device actually have? Does
it get a random one via DHCP? How should the user find/know the address?

Maybe it is better to create a cross-os client program for managing
freedomboxes. Then we can use LAN broadcasts to find the boxes. We could also
do proper crypto so that we are really sure that there is no man-in-the-middle
when do connect remotely. And we have do a real UI with good integration and
not another slow, crippled and broken web "UI".

> How does it affect user experience if the nickname of the box resolves 
> of an .onion vs. an ip number?!?

The user experience does not change. But the security does. If we are talking
about frontend whishes, we need to make sure that the backend can back it up.

> > > > You could ask the user questions like:
> > > > [ ] I want to stay in contact with friends
> > > > [ ] I want to publish
> > > > [ ] ...
> > > 
> > > Yes.  Looks quite close to what I proposed.
> > 
> > The difference between first asking for a name and then asking what 
> > the user wants to do and the other way round looks pretty big to me.
> 
> How is that a big difference, when it is *not* a dns name but a nickname 
> we are talking about?!?

Then let's say the user is *not* asked for a nickname. Instead we use a
default nickname called "root" for management. Adding users is only needed,
if either the user wants to drop privileges or if multiple users want to share
a physical FB. None of these nicks are exposed. If any service wants to
display a nickname to friends/the public, the service will ask for a nickname
itself. A single user on the freedombox can have multiple nicknames as far as
permissions by the admin allows.

	-Michi
-- 
programing a layer 3+4 network protocol for mesh networks
see http://michaelblizek.twilightparadox.com




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