[OTR-users] Opinions on proposed "unknown fingerprint" behaviour?

[Benjamin C. Wiley Sittler]

Ian Goldberg <ian at cypherpunks.ca> wrote:

> The largest usability issue with OTR right now seems to me to be what
> happens when you try to talk to someone for the first time.  Each side
> having to actively accept the other's fingerprint leads to all sorts of
> weird behaviours when one side accepts, and then starts typing before
> the other side accepts.  [Len's bug #1198389 is related to this, as
> well.]  There's also been call for removing the "Private connection
> established" dialog completely.
>
> So what would people think about this:
>
> - When you receive a new fingerprint, you're notified of this fact (with
>   a dialog box), but it's automatically accepted right away.  [Noting
>   that approximately everyone just clicks "OK" anyway, this doesn't
>   change the usual behaviour.]
>
> - If you *don't* want to accept the fingerprint, you'd have to delete it
>   from your "known fingerprints" list.  Like today, I don't intend for
>   there to be a "known bad fingerprints" list.  [Another option would be
>   for the above dialog to continue to have "accept / not accept"
>   buttons, and clicking the latter would cause the fingerprint to be
>   deleted from the known fingerprints list (it would have been added the
>   moment the dialog popped up).]
>
> - The "private connection established" dialog goes away (or is made
>   optional), but the fingerprint and secure session id that are in there
>   now must still be accessible somehow (clicking the "OTR: Private"
>   button, maybe?).
>
> So, comments?
>
> Thanks,
>
>    - Ian
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Great! Will this mean I can once again use otrproxy with an ncurses aim
client over ssh, without needing to worry about bringing up VNC to accept
a conversation every time one of my buddies with OTR tries to chat?

If so, I'm all for it... seems much easier than the wxcurses path I was on
previously...

-Be n