Thanks for pointing that out. Room for improvement here.
As a general rule:
When using apt-get and .onion one should always be using tor+http whether inside or outside of Whonix. Non-critical (as per footnotes in link below).
Onionizing Repositories: Difference between revisions - Whonix - template deprecation isn’t ideal. If tor+http doesn’t work on plain Debian, then we need to update the instructions for plain Debian. The fix would be “install apt-transport-tor beforehand” most likely. tor+http isn’t developed by Whonix, apt-transport-tor implements it. Could you revert that please?
In that apt-transport-tor stuff, I had also changed one of the weird onions (earth… .onion) to the proper Debian security one? Check that was correct also.
BTW Can Whonix builds etc. borrow any settings from this hardening list?
The compile time hardening stuff has to be implemented by Debian. It’s related to compiled code. Whonix can’t recompile all of Debian. In the few places where Whonix is using compiled code we enable all compile time hardening.
Well looks like I was wrong. Not sure why but the window to add user rule set now drops down when I click on “see more”. Previously this was now showing up.
Updated the page. They were relatively safe edits imo. So pushed to live wiki.
The period of when a project is new and lots of people suggesting all kinds of major changes (marry with Tails, why not use OpenBSD) is long over. Most geeks wanting all sorts of obscure things such as secondary DNS are onboarded already.
Moving most if not all of its contents to where these would fit better or even new pages if needed. Some under /Dev.
Agree the FAQ is a bit sloppy at present and needs lots of bits being cut and pasted to other pages with a “see here:” link to those relevant sections. Other priorities as I see it:
Whonix 14 Updates & Whonix 15 release notes (should be 1-2 months and Whonix 15 will be available across all platforms). If you want to list a bunch (all) of the resolved bug links there, that would help (I’ll do the rest)
A number of templates now have outdated links e.g. to the old mega large security guides → Needs a proactive manual check x250 templates or so. Yah!
Encrypted email entry is pointing to dead VFEmail. Needs text changes and a lot of pic upgrades to account for that.
Continual rephrasing, link checking, updates of instructions, updated output, updated info etc. from Anonymous Email section down - although we’ve achieved lots of fixes and improvements in various sections/areas further down the page already. (PS take mig5 off the current maintainer list?)
The first 9 sections up to and including Anonymous Browsing are now in a reasonable, functional, up-to-date state IMO.
Other observations - the text generally looks better when:
no abbreviated words e.g. “devs”
avoiding abbreviated forms e.g. “it’s”, “they’re” etc. Full form is better
avoiding # presentation e.g. [[Multiple_Whonix-Gateway#KVM]]
stating things affirmatively, rather than in third person i.e. avoiding “users” & passive language
avoiding personal pronouns in general (I, you, we, she/he, they, us etc.) e.g. “If you want to set a …” → “To set a …”, “If you are getting an error when …” → “If an error appears when …” etc.
consistency in boxing & numbering long instructions
consistency in spacing
info boxes generally at the top of each section it applies to
Just gives it a more professional feel IMO.
PS I think the Tor devs hiding away NoScript from taskbar is a mistake. Better to have visual confirmation and I have seen attacks in the wild that enable it automatically - you wouldn’t know if it was tucked away… which reminds me that moving NoScript icon into taskbar is probably fingerprintable(?).
We can even try without “see here”. For example I doubt anyone is going to miss Whonix ™ Source Code Introduction which was never a FAQ to being with. We can add the “see here” when things actually become FAQ. The only way I see to clean sweep the FAQ.
Sorry, I am kinda overworked with stuff like server maintenance. Very invisible but also very important. So this won’t happen.
Anyone come up with better ideas for naming Tor Browser without Tor. Almost finished writing Qubes doc enhancement. It would be good to at least append something to the name.
Tor Browser without Tor (Security focused clearnet browser)
Tor Browser without Tor (Hardened clearnet browser )
Thanks for doing this, a refresh is a good idea. A scientific approach to repopulation might be: If forum comments on a solitary thread related to a reasonable FAQ issue >= 25 (30?) and comments are not just ignorant trolling (or related to existing entries), then seriously consider a new entry.
Doesn’t have to be war and peace. Some distro FAQ entries are a few lines and to the point. Otherwise the FAQ will become obese in size again later on.
Tails FAQ can be an inspriation - brief, pretty and relevant.
Thanks for your work on this. I agree that “…without Tor” thing doesn’t look good.
I like the naming ideas. The only issue with “clearnet browser” might be the fact Tor Browser is not evident in the title i.e. some might confuse with another browser (?) when skimming the ToC.
Specifically, the subheading “Reducing the fingerprint of the text-based web browser w3m”. The title gives that name of the app and a little information on the purpose of the tutorial. We could could do something similar with Tor Browser without Tor? Meaning "Tor Browser without Tor…something…something"