fixing the documentation introduction

Website
1

at the beginning of the documentation:-

u will find this:-

This documentation is a crash course in anonymity and security on the Internet. Whonix is a technological means to anonymity, but staying anonymous is not just a technological problem: No tool is enough to keep you safe.

Anonymity is a complex problem without an easy solution, and security is only as strong as its weakest link—often the user. The more you know, the safer you can be. Fortunately, basic knowledge and caution will go far.

true statements , bad to begin with.

it is just like someone saying to the reader:-

these are useful links to keep you safe , but no tool will keep you safe?!!?!?!

No tool is enough to keep you safe.

not good to the new user.

Torproject itself which is the one that whonix depend on it for providing anonymity didnt said these words at it documentations, and i think i know why becuase it gives many wrong interpretations to new/nooby users.

2

Good day,

sorry, but I’d have to disagree there. Yes, it shatters a lot of illusion a new user may have regarding Whonix, but is that a bad thing? I mean, it is true that, if the user makes a mistake, no tool in the world will be able to fix/prevent that. So, telling the user right out of the gate that this is the case, just makes him more conscious in my eyes.

Have a nice day,

Ego

3

yeah but that if the user took it from the point that he should not do a mistake , but the statements doesnt only give this interpretation , it also saying to the user in a way or another:-

“whonix is a safe tool , but it will not protect you” or “whonix is a safe tool , but no tool will protect you”

and the user would be greatly tricked with any third-party proxies/VPN (liars) which they r telling him:-

“use our services and you will be anonymous forever”

these commercial terms/statements going attract the new users regardless if these statements true or not.

im not saying that we should hyperbole the statements regarding whonix and say:

“whonix when you use it , you are fully anonymous no matter what”

no, im just saying we delete or fix the bad feelings of the documentation introduction statements. marketing skills is an important thing even if u r giving ur product for free. and i think this is one of the reasons that Tor reached to this level of users.

4

Good day,

I can absolutley see what you mean by that, though bear with me for a bit. Personally, I feel that honesty, especially when it comes to a topic like anonymity, is the best marketing there is. Sure, some less technically knowlegable people might use a VPN instead because of the straight up lies some of these tell, though that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t warn the people in a way which makes them 100% clear that no matter what they use, they won’t be 100% safe thanks to the person between the chair and the screen. I’d say that rather than changing this, we should make it even more clear then we already do, that, no matter what others may claim, no matter how much you pay for your “premium 2048bit VPN with a special software instead of OpenVPN which allegedly is safer (though it isn’t)”, they’ll always be as unsafe, maybe/probably even unsafer then when using Whonix.

Something along the lines of:

Even though other projects/providers may claim that complete anonymity is possible, that is not the case. This isn’t a problem of Whonix, but just a part of human nature in itself. If someone/something tries to convince you otherwise, it is rather likely that this person/organisation isn’t really acting in your best interest.

Have a nice day,

Ego

5

u r correct regarding that these information r good to be known from the users, but the problem as u c these statements r clashing the marketing area.

like i said Tor project , i2p …etc dont say these things on the top of their documentation. they put these statements within the documentation topics, after they motivate the reader for reading.

so this would be nice:-

This documentation is a crash course in anonymity and security on the Internet. Whonix is a technological means to anonymity, but staying anonymous is not just a technological problem.

Anonymity is a complex problem without an easy solution, and security is only as strong as its weakest link—often the user. The more you know, the safer you can be.

these words r good to go with , and achieving the same meaning without deeply false thoughts.

6

/cc @JasonJAyalaP since he worded that.

7

You guys can see that the problem has many layers. We have a complex tool (Whonix) to solve a not-100%-solvable-problem (anonymity) aimed at average users who have no experience with security.

The VPNs promise everything, and it doesn’t seem to hurt their business after they turn in their users and logs to state authorities. They lie in their marketting because there’s no consequences.

Tor project takes a middle ground. It doesn’t promise “military grade encryption” (as if soldiers will be stationed in your room), but it also doesn’t talk about how hard the problem is. Use our browser and you’re good. The user is unaware of any difficult discussions about javascript enabled by default. Those are for insiders only, talked about in the bug tracker threads (until there’s a javascript exploit).

Whonix does the cautious thing, but risks turning away users: “You want to be a professional boxer, kid? You’re gonna break your orbital bone; get many stitches; work harder than a normal job; get paid less… You’re still here? OK let’s start training.” We also risk making users more paranoid than necessary: “security is hard, there are men in suits around every corner, pretending to read the newspaper…”

An accepted idea in liberational technology is that a false sense of security is worse than not trying. The fact that our users include the most oppressed; the fact that they’re trying to accomplish the most difficult things; the fact that we’re a minimally funded work-in-progress; all makes us very cautious by default – not just for our reputation, but for our users’ safety…

But turning people away is dangerous too! “Whonix is hard; I’ll just use a VPN and hope for the best.”

How do we say “It’s hard, but you can do it”? Should we say “Security takes practice”? And they can follow a guide “Operational Security with Whonix” that educates them before they’re ready to do sensitive work? Should we welcome users with “Security is possible with Whonix!”, but emphasize the need for education and practice? At the same time, others are saying “we’re easy!” and “just boot our OS!”

It’s more than those sentences at the beginning of the wiki. It’s our marketing, it’s our marketing in relation to our “competitors”, it’s our responsibility to our users, it’s honesty, it’s our views on security, it’s our strategy around finding and guiding new users towards operational security and a secure desktop.

In conclusion: I dunno.

8

@JasonJAyalaP

i c and i fully understand this , because i already was thinking in the same idea road.

but i think , it is very good to make the user join the truth side of anonymity and how hard it is by making it looks like easy at the beginning.

its like u r telling ur kid for the first time how he should love joining the school and keep the good studying

so do u tell him at the first moment for e.g:

kid listen whenever u gonna enter that door u wont be able to sleep at ur own request , there will be hard times , maybe a fight with bad kids , and after all of these hard years let say 20 years of studying u dont have a chance to work and having a good life because u gonna be graduated in the middle of crises that no body know when it going to have an end.

what would the kid answer be if he want to join the school or not ?

daddy do u know what Fuck it. im not gonna wast my life on this , but i promise u when i grow up i will be a great pornstar…

so to be honest with u i c Tor project is the best style to go with for the beginners. in the end whonix doesnt provide anonymity by itself , it depends on Tor. and i c its better to attract the users and this will solve this issue u have mentiioned:-

the fact that we’re a minimally funded work-in-progress;

this wont be solvable without more users.

and i think

This documentation is a crash course in anonymity and security on the
Internet. Whonix is a technological means to anonymity, but staying
anonymous is not just a technological problem.
Anonymity is a complex problem without an easy solution, and security
is only as strong as its weakest link—often the user. The more you
know, the safer you can be.

isnt that bad , what do u say ?

9

Good day,

to be honest, I’d have to object with you on there. Comparing adults with children simply doesn’t work in this context. A child will of course be rather easily scared of, if confronted with something, like you proposed. An adult though, not so much. After a certain age, there should be a point where you gain the ability of understanding and judging the things written here correctly. Personally, I don’t think this is what scares people off of Whonix, but rather the hard barrier, called setup and permanent usability. And those are things, which I’m currently trying to solve via the setup and gui projects, which already look really promising indeed and will, at the current speed, be in a releaseable form sooner, rather then latter.

Have a nice day,

Ego

10

to be honest, I’d have to object with you on there.

u already doing this from the first comment :grin:.

After a certain age, there should be a point where you gain the
ability of understanding and judging the things written here correctly.

actually ppl who gonna use a pc and setup virtualizer then install whonix inside it = i consider them perfectly adults.

but tho, the ppl who r mostly r adults and paying for VPNs and Proxies to be in the anonymity farm = they r considered more than a child in the field of technology.

my example wasnt describing a true story of a child and father , but it was metaphorically describing:-

an adult who doesnt has any experience in the field of technology but he want to be anonymous with another adult who has good experience in the field of technology and anonymity , and the one witha good experience describing the anonymity to the beginner rider of anonymity = how he should describe it to him? or what r his first words should be ?

for e.g:-

teacher:- (the one with experience)

u know what son , first listen there is no tool is safe and whoever claim that hes a liar.

student:- (the beginner)

oh thank, u make the road shorter to me , then no need to use whonix because there is no safe tool. so if there will be a decision to make on accepting surveillance or no , i will choose to accept them with no problems since there is no tool is safe on the field of security/anonymity…

in the end we gonna loose the users . share the doubt-ness of whonix protection capabilities , entirely bad idea to start with if anyone would like to be anonymous using whonix. someone would want to start with Tails or just TBB because they r better at describing things so users r going to grow up faster.

because whonix like any tool/OS in the world it is product and the user is the costumer that whonix developers eating/living from, whether u like this conclusion or not it is true one. unless u r billionaire who will keep funding all whonix needs to the end of life.

so i repeat again , im not saying we should say whonix is an angle of anonymity went down from the sky. all what im saying is we need a motivated statements at the cover of the documentation which will motivate the user to read and get involved and interest in whonix.

11

Good day,

I see. Have to say though, that to really get people to prefer Whonix over one of these VPNs, we’d have to not just change the documentation, but rather the way, the whole project presents itself. The homepage would be a good place to start. Once users have conveniently seen the advantages (and Bern explicitly told about the superiority to VPNs, etc) they’d mind such things less. Has actually been discussed before, though without a change.

Have a nice day,

Ego

12

Related:
https://forums.whonix.org/t/new-qubes-website-new-whonix-website

13

true , the style of the webpage and the design should be updated to the modern style. but if we gonna keep the same speech in the new design then we didnt solve the issue of this topic.

change the documentation

the documentation overall is fine , the introduction words to it = very bad to have it there.

ant till now no body changed the words of the introduction…

14

@JasonJAyalaP do u have any objections if u or i changed the introduction ?

i will wait 3 days then i think u dont have problems in changing that.