Re: Proposal: Tor User Agent Carousel (TUAC)

[or-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

lxixnxenoise@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> - What is Tor User Agent Carousel? (TUAC)
> It's an idea I'm proposing as a feature to be added to Tor Button, Tork,
> Vidalia, or perhaps just a plugin for Firefox. It would allow the Tor user
> to configure when their browser's user agent changes and how often, either
> by randomly timed (role of the dice sort of time period) intervals or a
> user defined set time (week,day,hour,seconds,etc.). TUAC would read the
> user agents from a text file containing a list of user agents which the
> user may add to with their own custom strings at any time. The rotation of
> the user agent would be at random every time, or perhaps there could be an
> additional choice for the user to select between several user agents (from
> within the text file containing a list of user agents) to rotate between
> in addition to the random feature.

Why give the user any "options" on what UA to send? It makes Tor users
easier to track than if they all just looked the same (particularly
for high traffic sites). Remember that those that want to track can
get the list of exit-nodes with minimal effort.

What's needed in my opinion is an appropriate standard for all to
follow, with no "randomness" or options.

The JAP/Jondos project has such a standard for their users, see:

https://www.jondos.de/en/anontest

Something like that seems like a better idea to me. Torbutton seems
closest to such a standard currently.

Of course, not everyone uses Firefox, so there should be instructions
and easy to use tools for making other browsers (IE, Opera, Lynx ..)
look as similar as possible.

> - Isn't this a silly idea? How does this help anything?
> First, I believe this is a feature every tor user should have as an
> option, regardless of what some naysayer may have to say about it, not
> everyone likes or uses every feature any software product offers them, but
> without additional features they would have less to choose from.

Sure, make such a feature, but personally I hope users will avoid
it. It seems to make matters worse, not better..

I think that you are concerned about an important subject, but
misguided.