Re: LiveCD / USB for testing

[Roger Dingledine <arma@xxxxxxx>]

On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 05:47:07PM -0500, Pat Double wrote:
> Details at http://www.patdouble.com/torcd.html .

Hi Pat,

This looks neat. I'm travelling currently so can't actually try booting
it, but here are some early thoughts:

- The configuration descriptions are great. They let me actually decide
  what it does and whether it's doing it right. The next step would be to
  post the config files et al for each section, so you can not only read
  the English description of what you did but also fetch it yourself and
  confirm that it's been done right, use it in your own configuration,
  etc. This will be especially useful for the more complex programs that
  have several config files, so we can know what exactly you've modified
  and what you've left alone. I could imagine a few links at the top of
  each description section pointing to the appropriate config files.

- You should probably pick a better name than 'torcd', long-term.
  Everybody seems to want to pick that name for their Tor livecd, and
  things are already confusing enough. :) As an example, blindcoder
  changed his torcd project to "Rockate", a pun on Rock linux and (I
  assume) the translation of Tor as a German word.

- Setting up Tor with its DirPort enabled should be fine if you're
  using Tor 0.1.2.13 or later. This version of Tor is pretty good about
  not advertising its DirPort until it thinks it has enough bandwidth
  to offer.

- Speaking of which, your descriptions of applications don't say which
  versions you're including. Is it Firefox 0.9 or 2.0 or what? :)

- As for the UDP question, my instinct is towards dropping unexpected
  UDP packets. Is your goal to provide an easy anonymizing experience for
  people who otherwise don't much know what they're doing? Or to provide
  a "power livecd" for people who want their applications even when they
  show up at a foreign computer? I guess these are quite different goals,
  and you'll go mad if you try to achieve both at once.

--Roger