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

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On 11-05-09 at 08:23pm, Michael Blizek wrote:
> On 19:49 Mon 09 May     , Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> ...
> > > - or none if the user wants to be invisible.
> > 
> > If the user wants to be invisible then the user will avoid [c], and 
> > possibly [b] as well.
> ...
> > > It is not having a domain which is dangerous. But having a dyndns name 
> > > which links your name with your IP address is. The user may think he 
> > > is at least somewhat anonymous due to a dynamic IP.
> > 
> > I wrote "name" (not "dns").  A relationship *must* be established 
> > between the box and you(r laptop or cellphone or whatever).  I propose 
> > as user expecience for that to baptize the box.
> 
> It makes a bit more sense now. However, I still do not not see what 
> the user would have to do, if he does not want to connect to the box 
> from outside the LAN. He could connect to e.g. 192.168.1.171 (as 
> written in the handbook - he has to do this the first time anyway). 
> Why does the user have to enter a name in this case?
> 
> The next question is then how should the name look? Should it resolve 
> to an IP? Then we have the same problem as with DNS. This name would 
> have to be e.g. an .onion address to be safe. But I guess this is not 
> what you had in mind...

I deliberately do not "have in mind" at all.

You want .onion.  Fine - I don't care (for this discussion)!

Can we now please get back to talking user experience design?

You envision a handbook that instructs the user to type in a specific IP 
number, which somehow ensures it is the correct box?



> > I deliberately avoid the underlying technical details (tying a name 
> > to a cryptography token) as I want to discuss User Experience here, 
> > not technical implementation.  Think "WebID" everywhere I write 
> > "name" if you really really must have a concrete example, but please 
> > stick to general principles, not specific implementations, in this 
> > discussion: Some followers on this list are UX designers, that are 
> > helped if such discussions are uncluttered from noisy details about 
> > other aspects.
> 
> The problem with this is that the "noisy details" can make big 
> differences...

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


> I do *not* want FB to get it the way if a user wants to publish 
> something. But I also do not want it to promote things which can be 
> dangerous without warning - or even do them silently. This is a fine 
> line.

So we perfectly agree?



> > > 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?!?


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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