Safe operating system guide: error setting up jabber

[phantastic4012]

Hi.

Working my way through the safer operating system guide, stuck at 2 points in the guide, i’ll create a seperate thread for the other issue.

The issue im having is when i attempt to create and account using pidgin internet messager.

Im following the guide to the letter, but when i get to step 10, and attempt to add the account to the server, i don’t get a security certificate warning as displayed in the guide, but it skips this and asks me to enter the username and password i just entered.

When i do this, the chat window displays that myusername@jabber.calyxinstitute.disabled, with 2 options available, modify account or re-enable.

If i try again the loop continues. I’ve checked, double checked and triple checked the guide and what im inputting and all is exactly as the guide instructs.

I tried quitting and trying again, and when im asked to enter my password and username, i get a ‘registration failed’ not acceptable pop up

Any pointers please?

[phantastic4012]

Update:

ran the following command:

sudo apt-get purge pidgin
then
sudo apt-get install pidgin

tried again and voila!, setup successfull.

Probably shouldn’t be bothered since i’ve done what t, but im interested as to why this may have happened?

[0brand]

Hi phantastic4012

As I mentioned in your other post, the “Safe Operating System Guide” is not part of the Whonix documentation. The Whonix team puts a lot of work into maintaining the documentation to ensure it is up to date with the lastest anonymity/security best practices. Also included in the docs is advice on what software you should and should not use including this excerpt taken from the wiki Chat .

Pidgin supports most protocols. However do not use it. It has a very bad security track record with many remotely exploitable bugs - a result of being written in C and containing many legacy protocols. There is no reason to use it when Tor Messenger is now available.

[torjunkie]

As I mentioned in your other post, the “Safe Operating System Guide” is not part of the Whonix documentation.

Doesn’t the guy who wrote that guide comment in Whonix forums occasionally?

A lot of it seems a very simple overview for Whonix, although bits and pieces could be cherry-picked and slipped into the Whonix wiki e.g. using a password manager and so on.

I wonder whether he’d be interested in that, or whether we could get permission to holus bolus rip off his stuff (including pics) where useful, with attribution as appropriate.

[0brand]

Hi torjunkie

I hope I didn’t make it seem as though Safe Operating Guide didn’t have anything of value. I should have clarified that I just don’t know if it does. When in doubt, default to Whonix wiki.

[phantastic4012]

I apologised in other thread, my apologies again.

I stupidly assumed because it was in the guide it was all relevant.

Really sorry again.

[tempest]

it’s released entirely in the public domain, @torjunkie. if you want to rip pieces of it for any wiki purposes, please feel free. attribution not even required.

as for pidgin still being used in it, tor messenger still has a bug that results in a crash if one tries to click on any of the “file,” “tool” or “help” menus that happens regularly for me in whonix. read it’s a kde issue. haven’t found a persistent fix.

a newer version is currently in the works. so, tor messenger will be visited again. would love to dump pidgin.