953719 - Private chat mode (temporarily disable logging) - NOT about OTR and the like

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Instantbird Graveyard :: Other, enhancement)

Description

[Benedikt Pfeifer]

*** Original post on bio 274 at 2009-11-13 21:01:00 UTC ***

The preferences dialog allow to enable/disable logging of chats.

Idea: add a menu item that easily allows to switch off logging temporarily (privacy mode).

Comment 1

[Benedikt Pfeifer]

*** Original post on bio 274 at 2010-06-13 13:07:16 UTC ***

Maybe it could use the privatebrowsing methods as in Firefox. This would allow/require extensions/plugins to respect the setting not to record anything when Instantbird would be in private mode.

Some reading on private browsing: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Supporting_private_browsing_mode

Comment 2

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

*** Original post on bio 274 at 2010-06-13 13:13:59 UTC ***

I think we need to be extra careful here with the word "Privacy".

There are 2 very different things that people could understand by "private mode":
 - privacy with regards to other users of the same computer. A mode for this implies not letting any traces on the hard disk of the computer, and this is very similar to the private browsing mode of Firefox. (By the way, this doesn't mean that we should not store anything, but any storage should happen online, for example using something like weave). It seems to me that this is what you are talking about here.
 - privacy with regards to other users of the network/or the Internet: in this case, this means providing end to end encryption. Something we probably need to add at some point.

Comment 3

[Instantbot]

*** Original post on bio 274 by Phillip <philliptemple AT yahoo.co.uk> at 2011-06-16 09:47:19 UTC ***

It might be an idea to toggle per buddy. You may wish to log a business contact, but not a personal one.

For private conversations, interfacing to OTR might be best. It would be good if instantbird can recognise another person using instantbird and auto-use OTR.

When installing instantbird, it can auto-generate a private symmetric key. Part of the installation procedure it asks "Do you wish to password protect your data?". If you say no it uses "" as the password. This password is used to encrypt the private key. The key should encrypt the password file that stores all the IM user login/passwords + OTR session keys. Ideally it would encrypt the logs also but this is a little more coding.

Phillip.

Comment 4

[Instantbot]

*** Original post on bio 274 by harlock <harlock AT tlen.pl> at 2011-06-22 06:26:53 UTC ***

I think better idea is OTR encryption.

Comment 5

[Benedikt Pfeifer]

*** Original post on bio 274 at 2011-06-30 09:52:20 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #4)
> I think better idea is OTR encryption.

For OTR and encrypted connections see bug 954310 (bio 877).

Comment 6

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

On the behalf of Florian:
Closing bugs related to the Instantbird UI as WONTFIX, as the development of the standalone chat client Instantbird has stopped. Instantbird users are encouraged to migrate to Thunderbird. The user interface of instant messaging in Thunderbird will feel familiar, as the Thunderbird IM support started as a fork of Instantbird.