Re: [tor-talk] TAILS: Please include a real IRC client (Pidgin sucks!)

[Douglas Lucas <dal@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Tor user and list lurker here. Pidgin for Linux does not[1] have
out-of-the-box support for IRC SASL authentication, which is important
to have (for example, [2]). (There are two Pidgin patches[3, 4] for SASL
authentication support, but they are beyond my skill level to implement,
which means they are out of reach for many, many people.) Thus I agree:
Tails should have a proper IRC client!

:-Douglas

1. http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/13270
2. http://pirateirc.net/post/14352148374/new-server-6lqaoo6bwnx5qmx6-onion
3. http://developer.pidgin.im/attachment/ticket/13270/pidgin-sasl.patch
4. http://developer.pidgin.im/attachment/ticket/13270/13270.patch



On 08/11/2012 04:43 AM, pwnsauce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Please show your support and petition the Tails team to add a real IRC client, other than the multipurpose Pidgin client.
> 
> The discussion so far:
> https://tails.boum.org/forum/IRC_Client:_Please_include_something_other_than_Pidgin/
> 
> or if the thread vanishes, create a new one:
> https://tails.boum.org/forum/
> 
> Here is the story so far:
> 
> ======================================
> 
> IRC Client: Please include something other than Pidgin
> 
> Pidgin may work well for IMs and OTR, but it is disgusting as an IRC client.
> 
> Please add a real client for IRC, thanks.
> 
> ======================================
> 
> What do you mean by real client? Why disgusting? What functions does pidgin not include that are necessary? While Tails should strive to become intention-complete it would not do for it to become bloatware.
> 
> Comment by Anonymous â Fri 10 Aug 2012 01:14:20 PM CEST
> ======================================
> 
> "What do you mean by real client?"
> 
> A client designed for IRC and not for multipurpose activities. It wouldn't require too much extra space to include irssi or weechat.
> 
> Some of the other, more newb friendly options require KDE libs, so I guess those wouldn't be an option.
> 
> "What functions does pidgin not include that are necessary?"
> 
> In addition to (pidgin) having a number of curious security related fixes in the past, it doesn't appear to be designed for a comfortable look and feel for the purposes of IRC, IMO it's a multi-purpose mess.
> 
> "While Tails should strive to become intention-complete it would not do for it to become bloatware."
> 
> Exactly why I suggested irssi or weechat.
> 
> If you can include OpenOffice, video and audio editing tools on a privacy and security LiveCD, there should be room for a properly designed IRC client.
> 
> If it's bloat you're concerned with, you'd strip a number of programs which have no reason being in such a distro and allow the .iso to fit on a blank CD-R 700MB instead of users wasting a good blank DVD-R.
> 
> Regarding 'bloat', most of the programs including codecs, extra language formats, OpenOffice/video & audio editing, and many other utilities I'll never use I strip out by marking them in Synaptic once with each new version (of Tails), saving these markings to a single file which I reload and auto remove unwanted packages with each fresh boot, removing most of what is presented which IMO doesn't and shouldn't belong on a LiveCD like this. Bloat? Were this such a terrible issue, the .iso would be much, much smaller.
> 
> I've heard excuses here before about bloatware and lack of manpower, but the less packages (especially large ones like OpenOffice) you have on a system, the less work the maintainers of a distro have to perform, and the less security issues for each extra package.
> 
> While I appreciate the effort of Tails developers, I'm close to creating and posting my own Tails based distro, using openbox without the non-essential utilities. The users can add extra programs when they want, right? So the 'bloat' is already here. I won't start on the many kernel modules (like hamradio, can, batman, and others) this distro does not need. How many of your users have reported using Tails (tor) over ham radio? What of the can module(s), are you serious?
> 
> Because of the 'trust no one' philosophy, I would be the only maintainer of this modified openbox Tails distro. As much as people bitch about OpenBSD's main man, there's something to be said for his devotion to security which is lacking in a lot of Linux distributions, but that's another tired battle.
> 
> One of the tiny oversights include this in my polipo logs following my time/location configuration:
> 
> Connect to weather.noaa.gov:80 failed: General SOCKS server failure
> Connect to weather.noaa.gov:80 failed: SOCKS error: TTL expired
> Connect to weather.noaa.gov:80 failed: Connection refused
> Connect to weather.noaa.gov:80 failed: Connection refused
> 
> It may not be connecting, or maybe it is, but it shouldn't exist, especially not for checking a .gov domain! What's next, a .mil domain?
> 
> There should be no option to use a browser or anything else outside of tor mode, users could add this option themselves or boot from some other LiveCD.
> 
> Whisperback is an insult and one I quickly discovered and marked for removal. (and manually removing the remaining config file and key) A preloaded browser page including a link to the forum is all that is required.
> 
> Cups and all its friends shouldn't exist. There have been a number of vulns with cups and why it's included baffles me. The avahi 'bonjour' is also another non-essential I strip.
> 
> Tails doesn't need a sound recorder and if compromised this could prove fatal to security/privacy.
> 
> I would remove usb installation options and anything persistent. For a distro with security/privacy aims, it should be boot to a Live RO medium and never retain settings of any sort! What if a user were to snag a rootkit or any other type of malware? The limited reach of chkrootkit and rkhunter and tools like it do not detect the many threats being added to malware cache sites globally. The Evil Maid Attack, which you can Google, is another threat.
> 
> Comment by Anonymous â Sat 11 Aug 2012 05:49:46 AM CEST
> ======================================
> eof
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