[[!meta title="Network connection (configuration and startup)"]]

This is about [[!tails_ticket 10491]].

Current issues in Tails
=======================

  - After Tails Greeter, it might be hard for some people to understand where
  to click on the GNOME desktop to connect a Wi-Fi network.

  - It's not possible to go from direct Tor connection to bridge mode in case
  you realize once in the session that you actually need them to connect.

  - It's hard to know whether you need to log in through a captive portal.

  - There's no way of triggering Tor to reconnect after logging in through a
  captive portal.

  - Configuring bridges is done in two steps: (1) activate in the Greeter and
  (2) configure in Tor Launcher. It can be scary for people who cannot afford
  connecting without bridges to postponed the configuration after the session
  is started.

  - Bridges, firewall and proxy have to be configured again each time.

  - There is no visual feedback on whether the connection to Tor is making
  progress.

  - If MAC spoofing fails but I decide that it's OK not to spoof MAC in my
  situation, then I have to reboot Tails all the way.

Open questions
==============

  - What's left from this configuration process on the desktop after Tor is
  started?
    - What do we do with the NetworkManager applet?
    - Do we allow changing or visualizing the current settings?

  - What's the best way of asking for bridges, keeping in mind
    situations where people might be at risk if they don't use them?
    - Lunar's proposal: Say you're at risk in the Greeter, then configure
    bridges in the session.
    - other possibility: Do everything in the session (offline mode and MAC
    spoofing could still be optional settings in the Greeter), if so how?
    - if we have persistent network configuration (for example bridges) per
    local network, then this might conflict (or duplicate) the fact of
    asking about bridges in the Greeter
    - bridges might be needed on a give local network but not on
    another, would it be possible to ask about that *after* selecting
    the local network?

  - Could we, technically speaking, do something more useful about the failure
  of MAC spoofing than disabling the interface? in the Greeter? in the session?
    - Should we ask for confirmation before disabling the interface?

  - How shall we integrate the captive portal browser on the desktop in case we
  need to get back to it (to log in again, to log out)?
    - Lunar's proposal: as a detached windows
    - other possibility: invisible browser by default, can be displayed again somehow

  - Do we want to tell people about entry guards? For example, feedback
    the entry guard to be selected before connecting? Random entry
    guards are bad for security but persistent entry guards can ease
    tracking.

Process
=======

- Original post-its by Lunar:
  - <https://labs.riseup.net/code/attachments/download/1250/2015.10.02.jpg>
  - <https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2015-October/009593.html>

- Digital rewrite by Spencer:
  - <https://labs.riseup.net/code/attachments/download/1251/2015.12.04.png>
  - <https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-ux/2015-December/000812.html>

<a id="iff"></a>

- We had a session at the IFF to gather feedback on mockups. See [[!tails_ticket 11245]].
  - [flowchart behind the mockups](https://labs.riseup.net/code/attachments/download/1293/network-20160306.odg)
  - [mockups](https://tails.boum.org/contribute/how/promote/material/slides/IFF-20160306/)
  - [feedback from post-if notes](https://labs.riseup.net/code/attachments/download/1291/iff-feedback.ods)

Related work
============

  - [[Captive portal detection|detect_captive_portals]]

At Tor:

  - [[UX testing of circumvention features of Tor Browser|https://github.com/lindanlee/circumvention-ux-tor]]
  - <https://github.com/lindanlee/PETS2017-paper/blob/master/lindas-ms-paper/lindas-ms-paper.pdf>

At Whonix:

  - <https://www.whonix.org/blog/connection-bridge-wizard>
