BridgeDB: Users try to add obfsbridges to their normal TBB

Phoul told me today that some users get bridges from the new BridgeDB page, and then try to add them to a normal Tor Browser Bundle (that doesn't understand PTs).

This means that those users completely ignored 'Step 1: Get the Pluggable Transports Tor Browser Bundle'. Can we help those users out somehow?

We could force users to download the bundle by making BridgeDB a wizard that actually requires you to do step 1 before proceeding to step 2. I'm not sure if this is a good idea though. It might infuriate users who know what they are doing.

added component::circumvention/bridgedb important owner::isis priority::high pt resolution::fixed status::closed torlaucher type::task ui usability labels

I was worried about this. Some users may not realize the TBB is different from the PTTBB. I don't know the best way to help them differentiate them but you're right that we shouldn't have them download the PTTBB each time they want bridges.

What if we add another paragraph on the bridges.html page that says something similar to "If you are not certain you downloaded the PTTBB, please download it now and then add these bridges using the following instructions." which is followed by 'To use the above lines, go to Vidalia's Network settings page, and click "My ISP blocks connections...'.

This isn't a great solution and it won't help users who think they know what they're doing (and therefore won't read the directions), but maybe it will help the new users who only assumed they had the PTTBB when they read Step 1.

This having been said, do we know which type of user is having trouble with this?

Trac:
Status: new to needs_information

It appears to be mostly new users who have never used bridges before encountering this issue.

However, there have also been a few long time bridge users confused by this. I believe it is because they were following their old process of visiting bridges.torproject.org and throwing whatever it spat out into Vidalia.

Trac:
Cc: sysrqb to sysrqb, admin@insecure-complexity.com

Best is to add support for obfs3 transport to default TBB.

Trac:
Username: hsn

Replying to hsn:

Best is to add support for obfs3 transport to default TBB.

Or, the default TBB is PTTBB? It is via bridges.torproject.org. What about the download page?

Or, we differentiate between bridges and obfsbridges via some clickable UI element?

yes, this is even better. drop TBB entirely and replace it with PTTBB

Trac:
Username: hsn

Replying to aagbsn:

Replying to hsn:

Best is to add support for obfs3 transport to default TBB.

Or, the default TBB is PTTBB? It is via bridges.torproject.org. What about the download page?

Current non-PT-TBB is the "official" TBB. Maybe talking with mikeperry about merging the two once 3.0 stabilizes is a good idea. I don't know the current plan.

Or, we differentiate between bridges and obfsbridges via some clickable UI element?

The idea of the new interface is that it's as simple as possible. Your idea sounds a lot like #9127 (moved) but in terms of default behavior it was assumed that is will be best for bridgedb to distribute PTs by default because, in general, that's what censored users actually need. Making it more difficult to give users what they need didn't seem wise. So the plan is to return all PTs that the current PTTBB supports. This works great, but only if the user is actually using the most recent PTTBB and not the TBB.

Replying to sysrqb:

What if we add another paragraph on the bridges.html page that says something similar to "If you are not certain you downloaded the PTTBB, please download it now and then add these bridges using the following instructions." which is followed by 'To use the above lines, go to Vidalia's Network settings page, and click "My ISP blocks connections...'.

Is there an easy way to help users figure out if they have TBB or PTTBB? We should have a warning on step 2 which says that (1) you will need PTTBB, and (2) if you are trying to use TBB for this, you will see the following error..

Trac:

Front page mockup

Trac:

Bridges mockup

Replying to runa:

Is there an easy way to help users figure out if they have TBB or PTTBB?

As far as I know, there is not obvious indication which version the user has.

We should have a warning on step 2 which says that (1) you will need PTTBB, and (2) if you are trying to use TBB for this, you will see the following error..

I think I covered both of these in the mockup, please provide comments/critiques. The wording may need to be revised, so please suggest new messages, also.

On bug9156_bridges.png, below the box with bridges, please add a description of what the user will see if she tries to add these to TBB and not PTTBB. After that, you can follow with the sentence about downloading PTTBB.

Also see #6724 (closed) for another reason that you would get "Error parsing Bridge address".

Replying to asn:

Also see #6724 (closed) for another reason that you would get "Error parsing Bridge address".

Actually, are we sure that a user gets "Error parsing Bridge address" when he inserts an obfsuscated Bridge line in a torrc without a corresponding ClientTransportPlugin line? I thought the user was only supposed to get the weird "We were supposed to connect to bridge..." message.

IMO, the new messages are a bit hacky and don't look particularly nice, but they will probably help users do the right thing.

After fixing them up based on Runa's comments, I'd suggest to deploy them and see what happens. If in the future we find a more elegant solution we can take them down.

Replying to asn:

Replying to asn:

Also see #6724 (closed) for another reason that you would get "Error parsing Bridge address".

Actually, are we sure that a user gets "Error parsing Bridge address" when he inserts an obfsuscated Bridge line in a torrc without a corresponding ClientTransportPlugin line? I thought the user was only supposed to get the weird "We were supposed to connect to bridge..." message.

Oh hm, I guess I screwed that up. When I first tested this, I added 'bridge obfs3 x.x.x.x:y' and I got "[Warning] Error parsing Bridge address 'obfs3'" followed by "[Warning] Controller gave us config lines that didn't validate: Bridge line did not parse. See logs for details."

However, when I added 'obfs3 x.x.x.x:y' I received "We were supposed to connect to bridge 'x.x.x.x:y' using pluggable transport 'obfs3', but we can't find a pluggable transport proxy supporting 'obfs3'. This can happen if you haven't provided a ClientTransportPlugin line, or if your pluggable transport proxy stopped running."

phoul, when users have this problem, what do they see?

Replying to asn:

IMO, the new messages are a bit hacky and don't look particularly nice, but they will probably help users do the right thing.

I agree, and I think these should only be temporary, until the two bundles are merged or we find another solution.