Document construction

[Lefty-Insider]

First of all, I would like to say that I fully appreciate the effort of the writer(s) who brilliantly put this document together. As near as I can tell they remain unidentified and go unpraised. But I just did here. Because it is a many days long slog to work my way through this document, if I actually make it, my first comments are not regarding content but on User Interface or UI. These comments reflect the pdf version read in (a communications crippled) Adobe Acrobat in Read Mode zoomed to fill the 24 inch portrait screen at a 1080x1920 resolution. This being probably one of the most ideal screen reading environments currently available. Many people including myself, have difficulty reading long documents on a screen and typically print them out. This should be taken into serious consideration here.

The writer is clearly a technologist and not a typographer or graphic design artist as the text typeface is somewhat faded and difficult to read, and the graphics all seem to require zooming in to read them, and seem to be randomly sized and arranged in a not easily readable form. A project of such importance and magnitude, not to mention the significant existing effort that was expended in writing this, deserves some additional attention to properly bring it home comfortable to the readers eyes.

Beyond the UI, the writer(s) is clearly not an academic as the organization and structure are too scattered and would be much better in an organized chapter form. In addition, the services of a professional editor would be welcomed here as well. For example: I would like to see some information structured by access device type and by geographical location. This would make the information more accessible by being able to ignore what is not specifically relevant to each individual reader. For example: I like Richard Stallman, Dave Eggers etc. do not use a smart (sic) phone, aka a cellular Newton. Nor do I live under a repressive government, well at least under the common understanding of that phrase.

The document also suffers from the lack of a page numbered and a more clearly identified hyperlinked Table of Contents. A TOC and an Index are also quite easy to generate these days in adequate word processing software. All of this is to say that a reader, however well motivated and well intentioned, must be drawn into the content and not repelled from it. This should be a more rich text document with color and formatting that are inviting to the reader. Graphical notations for Tips and Tricks and Notes could be used to catch the eye of the reader. The web links in the body text and footnotes should be hyperlinked, even if url defanged.

The footnotes at the bottom of pages, rather than at the end of the document, are welcomed and useful. The Archive.org, Wikiless, Scrtibe.rip, and Invidious links are a very good idea. This review is not unlike something I would give a Kindle book on Amazon. Although with the Kindle sausage grinder text and graphics conversion, there is little the author can do about its inherent flaws.

Regarding content, some searches of the document have revealed that it does not contain any information regarding mixnets or decentralized VPN’s (dVPN).

RIP, Lena

[nopeitsnothing]

Hi, @Lefty-Insider! Thanks for the acknowledgement. A ton of work is being put into this and nobody is being paid to maintain it.

One thing I recently started work on was chapter pages. It would make it more easily accessible and feel less bulky. The code is hosted off the main line. I also plan to create a better bibliography to make it look more like an academic paper. The LaTeX is a bit bulky so it's not expected to be published online until I know it compiles. I also need to find a way to better render the images in the PDF because Kramdown doesn't like to display them the way the reader would find comfortable. Kramdown doesn't like formatting in some areas, behaving poorly and ignoring it altogether in others.

The goal is to work on the ability to create a clean light and dark mode PDF style. The website and PDF are the things we are focusing on at the moment because they are the most viewed. Not many people are coming here to discuss changes they would like and it's why we have so little plans to change many things. We won't change it if it's not presented to us. As a technical writer, I see your concern about the accessibility. I'm sort of new to the way this is being done. I've already considered forking it into a new style that builds directly from LaTeX as I am comfortable with that and it offers more options for the UX. The other concerns I have include the logo, which I've been working on as well.

The guide doesn't include a mobile user in its model because using a cellular device is not recommended for privacy. I don't use a cell phone. I don't know any reason you would want to use one and you have no expectation of privacy without severely limiting usability and function. I emulate Android and I only use it for specific apps. There are already tons of guides for mobile OS users and they include several things such as compartmentalization, anonymization and security. It's outside of the scope of the guide for those reasons.

I have already started splitting it into chapter form and setting a bibliography. The rest are soon to follow. We could benefit from more technical writers and even some developers that are familiar with making specialized web pages, so the reader can pick between certain sections and it doesn't feel so overwhelming.

[NobodySpecial256]

First off, I'd like to thank you for pointing out parts of the project that require attention. I'm aware of the issues with the PDF styling. These issues are inherent to the toolchain used to build the PDF from Markdown. When figuring out the toolchain, I originally tried a Markdown->LaTeX->PDF conversion, but the toolchain had an error with the conversion (presumably due to the size of the document). At one point there was an experimental remake of the toolchain that attempted to fix this issue, but the person originally working on the toolchain remake is no longer part of the project. If people think it's a high enough priority, I'm open to continuing the toolchain remake.

Remaking the toolchain could allow for setting custom theming for the PDFs (right now the styling can't be customized, as it's lost in the intermediary encoding). The "somewhat faded" text is actually part of the toolchain's default color scheme which can't be changed without reworking the toolchain. The toolchain also has issues scaling images properly.

As for the formatting, the document was written over the course of multiple years and as such, has developed a complexity not dissimilar to the evolution of a codebase over time. We can begin reworking the structure of the document if people think that's important enough.

[NobodySpecial256]

The web links in the body text and footnotes should be hyperlinked, even if url defanged.

Unless there's a miscommunication or an error in the conversion, all links should already be hyperlinked. Perhaps it's worth me taking a look through the exports to make sure there aren't any errors I haven't noticed before.

A TOC and an Index are also quite easy to generate these days in adequate word processing software.

The guide does have a TOC, although perhaps it could be more clearly labelled. I've tested in the HTML, PDF, and ODT versions, and unless there's an issue I'm unaware of, any readers referencing any of those 3 formats can simply click the title of the section they want to jump to. The guide doesn't have much in the way of page numbering, partly as a limitation of the toolchain, but also because it's intended to be read in digital form, as opposed to printing it out on paper. I'm not sure there's enough reason to change this, but I'm open to seeing if some people feel strongly enough about this to justify the change.

Regarding content, some searches of the document have revealed that it does not contain any information regarding mixnets or decentralized VPN’s (dVPN).

This isn't an oversight, it's a safety precaution for higher-risk readers. The guide tries to only recommend solutions that are known to work. I'd rather give people a small set of trustworthy options, as opposed to giving people a large set of less-proven options, which could put certain readers at risk if the recommendation turns out to be premature.

[Lefty-Insider]

Alex,

So far you have identified multiple limitations of your toolchain. Makes you wonder. It seems that your automation tools are limited and are perhaps overkill for such a relatively small document.

Sorry but I misspoke on the hyperlinks, they just are not identified as so.

I don’t understand your comment about solutions known to work. Everything in this document identifies privacy solutions which work to some extent better than others. E.g. VPN over Tor or Tor over VPN, bridges, choice of OS, etc.

From: Alex Anderson @. Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2022 12:29 AM To: NobodySpecial256/thgtoa @.> Cc: Lefty-Insider @.>; Mention @.> Subject: Re: [NobodySpecial256/thgtoa] Document construction (Issue #31)

The web links in the body text and footnotes should be hyperlinked, even if url defanged.

Unless there's a miscommunication or an error in the conversion, all links should already be hyperlinked. Perhaps it's worth me taking a look through the exports to make sure there aren't any errors I haven't noticed before.

A TOC and an Index are also quite easy to generate these days in adequate word processing software.

The guide does have a TOC, although perhaps it could be more clearly labelled. I've tested in the HTML, PDF, and ODT versions, and unless there's an issue I'm unaware of, any readers referencing any of those 3 formats can simply click the title of the section they want to jump to. The guide doesn't have much in the way of page numbering, partly as a limitation of the toolchain, but also because it's intended to be read in digital form, as opposed to printing it out on paper. I'm not sure there's enough reason to change this, but I'm open to seeing if some people feel strongly enough about this to justify the change.

Regarding content, some searches of the document have revealed that it does not contain any information regarding mixnets or decentralized VPN’s (dVPN).

This isn't an oversight, it's a safety precaution for higher-risk readers. The guide tries to only recommend solutions that are known to work. I'd rather give people a small set of trustworthy options, as opposed to giving people a large set of less-proven options, which could put certain readers at risk if the recommendation turns out to be premature.

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[nopeitsnothing]

@Lefty-Insider:

Alex, So far you have identified multiple limitations of your toolchain. Makes you wonder. It seems that your automation tools are limited and are perhaps overkill for such a relatively small document. Sorry but I misspoke on the hyperlinks, they just are not identified as so. I don’t understand your comment about solutions known to work. Everything in this document identifies privacy solutions which work to some extent better than others. E.g. VPN over Tor or Tor over VPN, bridges, choice of OS, etc.

This is currently in the scope of a non-public body of work I am working on in my spare time to convert the document entirely to a LaTeX style so it can be automatically built into a PDF, still using Pandoc, but in a more accessible way. There are many known issues in the conversion including the Russian style writing not being rendered and the ToC not working as expected in some areas. The format of the ToC is also jumbled and I don't know when this occurred but my rewrite should fix this issue in time. I didn't bother making this public because it's a long rewrite and almost would require being its own fork and I can't simply do that because it would be without signatures and I have no intention to take over the project since I am just a contributor. Pandoc conversion is the route the project has taken so far and I aim to keep it that way with minor modifications including rewriting into chapters to make the document easier to edit and maintain. But what is required is simply the best way it works and right now for this main fork that means Pandoc to PDF is the best way to build it, while buggy.

I also would like to point out that, on the subject of format, you should not be quoting the entire email in your reply, as it is adding weight to the page, so please try to reply without quoting the entire post above.

---

@NobodySpecial256:

The guide does have a TOC, although perhaps it could be more clearly labelled. I've tested in the HTML, PDF, and ODT versions, and unless there's an issue I'm unaware of, any readers referencing any of those 3 formats can simply click the title of the section they want to jump to.

Unfortunately, due to some form of error in conversion, the ToC doesn't seem to be rendered in PDF format and appears to not work as intended, allowing for easy navigation of the work. It looks fine on the website and in the preview here at current stage in development: you can check here to verify that the master branch HTML and markdown preview of the document is just fine. It's the PDF and DOC view that are broken.

[Lefty-Insider]

“I also would like to point out that, on the subject of format, you should not be quoting the entire email in your reply, as it is adding weight to the page, so please try to reply without quoting the entire post above.”

Criticized on the DW for short quoting and here for long quoting. Can’t win.

This project is all too opaque and confusing for me to get involved with, but I will give you this:

Here is a correction:

Getting Online:

Now that you have a basic understanding of all the ways you can be de-anonymized,tracked, and verified. Let us get started at evading these while staying anonymous.Remember:

                You cannot trust ISPs

                You cannot trust VPS providers

                You cannot trust public Wi-Fi providers

                You cannot trust Mobile Network providers

                You cannot trust VPN providers

                You cannot trust any Online Platform

                You cannot trust Tor

[nopeitsnothing]

Tl;DR - quotes the entire thread yet again, making it unreadable for anyone

Basically just said it makes it hard to read when you format it this way.

[Lefty-Insider]

A bad workman blames his tools (an old, French proverb that dates back to at least the 13th century)

@NobodySpecial256 https://github.com/NobodySpecial256 :

The guide does have a TOC, although perhaps it could be more clearly labelled. I've tested in the HTML, PDF, and ODT versions, and unless there's an issue I'm unaware of, any readers referencing any of those 3 formats can simply click the title of the section they want to jump to.

Unfortunately, due to some form of error in conversion, the ToC doesn't seem to be rendered in PDF format and appears to not work as intended, allowing for easy navigation of the work. It looks fine on the website and in the preview here at current stage in development: you can check here https://github.com/NobodySpecial256/thgtoa/blob/master/guide.md to verify that the master branch HTML and markdown preview of the document is just fine. It's the PDF and DOC view that are broken.

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[nopeitsnothing]

Keep it civil and conducive to a productive environment, please. This is a professional setting and we're not here to treat each other without respect.

------- Original Message ------- On Monday, June 20th, 2022 at 5:06 PM, Lefty-Insider @.***> wrote:

A bad workman blames his tools (an old, French proverb that dates back to at least the 13th century)

@NobodySpecial256 https://github.com/NobodySpecial256 :

The guide does have a TOC, although perhaps it could be more clearly labelled. I've tested in the HTML, PDF, and ODT versions, and unless there's an issue I'm unaware of, any readers referencing any of those 3 formats can simply click the title of the section they want to jump to.

Unfortunately, due to some form of error in conversion, the ToC doesn't seem to be rendered in PDF format and appears to not work as intended, allowing for easy navigation of the work. It looks fine on the website and in the preview here at current stage in development: you can check here https://github.com/NobodySpecial256/thgtoa/blob/master/guide.md to verify that the master branch HTML and markdown preview of the document is just fine. It's the PDF and DOC view that are broken.

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[Lefty-Insider]

Are you going to offer anything but snide remarks about the body of work or are you going to open a PR and contribute changes you'd like to see? Cause I'm going to have to block you if you reply using the full text. It's very annoying. You're complaining.

1. I have trimmed all of my messages since you mentioned it as a problem for your software.

2. I have provided two messages with contributions for changes/fixes.

3. I have also suggested, not to subtly, that you reconsider how this publication is produced.

4. I have also explained that this process is too opaque for me to become more deeply involved with.

5. You have responded with excuses and not acknowledgement nor solutions

And with that, you have successfully ensured that what started out as me supporting your cause, has now put me off permanently.

[nopeitsnothing]

1. You haven't actually, because the messages above still contain your one-liners and the full message history. You don't know how inline quoting works, I assume?
2. You have provided nothing of value except criticism which is welcome, as long as it offers something constructive, but it hasn't.
3. I told you there are plans to move this to a chapterised version. Did you ignore that bit? I'm working on a full re-do of the entire document. The only thing is it will take time and I'm not doing it on GitHub because it's a huge process.
4. If it's too opaque, allow me to make it clear. The guide maintainers can take your criticisms and apply them to the body of work as we get to them. Also note that we are only a few people and do not have the resources or time to make this a full-fledged PrivacyGuides-esque work.

The only solution I have is for you to stop being a pessimist and understand that this work takes patience. This is not a constructive way to request changes. Please open a new Pull Request or Issue and address your exact concerns there, sticking to the style guide and contributing guidelines.

------- Original Message ------- On Monday, June 20th, 2022 at 6:34 PM, Lefty-Insider @.***> wrote:

Are you going to offer anything but snide remarks about the body of work or are you going to open a PR and contribute changes you'd like to see? Cause I'm going to have to block you if you reply using the full text. It's very annoying. You're complaining.

1. I have trimmed all of my messages since you mentioned it as a problem for your software.

2. I have provided two messages with contributions for changes/fixes.

3. I have also suggested, not to subtly, that you reconsider how this publication is produced.

4. I have also explained that this process is too opaque for me to become more deeply involved with.

5. You have responded with excuses and not acknowledgement nor solutions

And with that, you have successfully ensured that what started out as me supporting your cause, has now put me off permanently.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

[NobodySpecial256]

@Lefty-Insider

Are you going to offer anything but snide remarks about the body of work or are you going to open a PR and contribute changes you'd like to see?

I might remind you that you're the one requesting changes here. You're the one making snide remarks. Maybe if you want to see changes in the guide you should be more focused on contributing to the discussion you started, and less concerned about quoting French proverbs to call us incompetent.

You've complained about formatting and readability issues in the PDF version, which I expressly said I would be open to looking into. I've already mentioned an effort to rework the entire toolchain used to create the guide (the effort died when the person in charge of it left the project, but it can be picked up where it was left). We have done nothing but propose solutions to the issues you've brought up.

I have provided two messages with contributions for changes/fixes.

That's great, but if you'd read this project's contribution guidelines you'd know contributions are submitted in the form of pull requests. If you submit your changes as PRs I'll be happy to review and merge them

I don’t understand your comment about solutions known to work. Everything in this document identifies privacy solutions which work to some extent better than others. E.g. VPN over Tor or Tor over VPN, bridges, choice of OS, etc.

The guide recommends solutions with well-understood security properties. VPNs are recommended because while they aren't great for high threat models, their limitations are well-understood due to the review they've received over the course of multiple decades. Tor is recommended because no network overlay has yet to be able to compete with Tor for high threat models (I2P could be a serious contender if they'd just implement a fingerprinting-resistant I2P Browser). Mixnets are an entirely different model of networking which, while promising, are still new and unproven. If you disagree, you can open a new issue presenting a reasoned argument for why a particular recommendation should be added to the guide. Is their a particular mixnet you think is solid? Is their a particular dVPN you like? Open an issue explaining why you think it's worth recommending, and I can look into adding it to the guide. But I won't add it before I'm convinced that the security properties are well enough understood to be considered a serious recommendation to people who could literally be killed as a result of me adding a bad recommendation to the guide.

[NobodySpecial256]

Unfortunately, due to some form of error in conversion, the ToC doesn't seem to be rendered in PDF format and appears to not work as intended, allowing for easy navigation of the work. It looks fine on the website and in the preview here at current stage in development: you can check here https://github.com/NobodySpecial256/thgtoa/blob/master/guide.md to verify that the master branch HTML and markdown preview of the document is just fine. It's the PDF and DOC view that are broken.

Interesting. I'll look into this

[NobodySpecial256]

I re-tested the PDF version in Evince 3.38.2 and Firefox 91.10.0esr. I re-tested the ODT version in LibreOffice 7.0.4.2. The table of contents seems to work fine - it renders as expected and links to sections seem to be clickable and working properly

[nopeitsnothing]

I have tested the PDF in: Brave: Version 102.0.5005.115 (64-bit); Firefox Beta: Version 102.0b9 (64-bit); Adobe Acrobat, etc.

------- Original Message ------- On Monday, June 20th, 2022 at 7:23 PM, Alex Anderson @.*** wrote:

I re-tested the PDF version in Evince 3.38.2 and Firefox 91.10.0esr. I re-tested the ODT version in LibreOffice 7.0.4.2. The table of contents seems to work fine - it renders as expected and links to sections seem to be clickable and working properly

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[nopeitsnothing]

[NobodySpecial256]

The Cyrillic characters not rendering in the PDF is a known issue. It's due to the fact that Pandoc doesn't support non-ASCII character sets. Using a different build toolchain could solve this problem. What about the table of contents? Does that render properly for you?

[nopeitsnothing]

So, I know the Cyrillic characters don't render. And as long as the TOC works, which it does, it's functional as a document. But I see the concerns of some people that are saying the body of work itself looks really bulky:

For example the text is all over the place in some pages, especially the beginning pages following the TOC.

------- Original Message ------- On Monday, June 20th, 2022 at 10:10 PM, Alex Anderson @.***> wrote:

The Cyrillic characters not rendering in the PDF is a known issue. It's due to the fact that Pandoc doesn't support non-ASCII character sets. Using a different build toolchain could solve this problem. What about the table of contents? Does that render properly for you?

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[nopeitsnothing]

Would be nice to normalize the images and text in the PDF either by making it into A4 format or journal-style, for instance.

[NobodySpecial256]

So what I'm hearing is we want to rework the toolchain to allow better control over the formatting of the exported document

[nopeitsnothing]

Might even be worth its own issue and related PR to land later. This PR might be a bit hefty IYKWIM?

[NobodySpecial256]

Yeah, this issue really should have been split into multiple issues to begin with. Let's discuss the rework further on Matrix

[Lefty-Insider]

I can’t resist but offer a bit more of advice for you youngsters. Your obsession with free and open source software ensures that you will always be using substandard software and having problems obtaining reliable and quality output. I am writing these emails from Outlook, clipping my quotes and apparently your software has a problem with seeing that as well.

I provided you with what I believe is some valuable input. What you do with it is up to you. I never offered to be your technical writer or researcher or to convince anyone of anything.

I have two 500 page books in the works now and so I am plenty busy, so I won’t engage in this silliness here any longer.

There is really no good reason in my view not to mention certain technologies even if your review of them is negative. Open your minds, the future is hard to predict.

IBM introduces the PC and, with Microsoft, releases DOS (“640K ought to be enough for anyone” — Bill Gates 1981) https://quoteinvestigator.com/-2011/09/08/640k-enough/

“Residential services will depend on high-speed Internet access. High-speed today is 100 Kbps to 900 Kbps. This will increase in the future to 1 Mbps to10 Mbps for each household.”

https://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/-samplechapter/0/1/3/0/0130281360.pdf

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” — Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/27/guitars-out/

Open Source= everyone can look at the code, but few actually do. Kinda like the shared car that everyone drives, but no one puts gas in.

The guide recommends solutions with well-understood security properties. VPNs are recommended because while they aren't great for high threat models, their limitations are well-understood due to the review they've received over the course of multiple decades. Tor is recommended because no network overlay has yet to be able to compete with Tor for high threat models (I2P could be a serious contender if they'd just implement a fingerprinting-resistant I2P Browser). Mixnets are an entirely different model of networking which, while promising, are still new and unproven. If you disagree, you can open a new issue presenting a reasoned argument for why a particular recommendation should be added to the guide. Is their a particular mixnet you think is solid? Is their a particular dVPN you like? Open an issue explaining why you think it's worth recommending, and I can look into adding it to the guide. But I won't add it before I'm convinced that the security properties are well enough understood to be considered a serious recommendation to people who could literally be killed as a result of me adding a bad recommendation to the guide.

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[NobodySpecial256]

@Lefty-Insider

Before you condescend to people, you should probably make sure you actually understand the situation yourself. For one, the fact that you're writing from Outlook is exactly why your posts have had issues (this isn't an email chain, it's a GitHub issue. I figured you'd have noticed that by now but apparently not).

I provided you with what I believe is some valuable input. What you do with it is up to you. I never offered to be your technical writer or researcher or to convince anyone of anything.

Your complaint about dVPNs and mixnets is inherently technical in nature. You're willing to engage in this discussion for a whole week just to insult us, but the second you're asked to explain the basis on which you believe it's worth adding your recommendations to the guide, that's too much to ask.

I have two 500 page books in the works now and so I am plenty busy, so I won’t engage in this silliness here any longer.

Actually you're the one who started the silliness. If you'd bothered to our replies, you'd have noticed we were just fine addressing your complaints the entire time. I guess like most people who think it's worth mentioning in other people's projects that you're writing 2 books, you're better at speaking than listening.

There is really no good reason in my view not to mention certain technologies even if your review of them is negative. Open your minds, the future is hard to predict.

It's an anonymity guide, not a feature comparison. If you want something mentioned, you should be prepared to justify why it's worth mentioning. Alternatively, you could ask nicely I might do that research for you. But being rude and not doing your own due diligence? That's an easy way to get yourself ignored. You're welcome for the free life advice.

Here's some advice for you youngsters, it's not dismissive to ask for clarification or to expect people to justify why they want you to do things. When opening an issue you're requesting the maintainers of a project to do something. The least you could do is explain why you think it's a good idea. And when contributing to a project there are guidelines you're expected to follow. And if you can't be bothered to do those basic things, the least you could do is be respectful to the people you're asking pick up your slack.

[Lefty-Insider]

I am looking at this on the website now and don't see any problem with the formatting of my messages. i will remind you to look at my first message. i came in peace, and now leave peaced-off.

[Lefty-Insider]

“For one, the fact that you're writing from Outlook is exactly why your posts have had issues (this isn't an email chain, it's a GitHub issue. I figured you'd have noticed that by now but apparently not).”

Based on the message below, I think that it is you who are confused.

Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/NobodySpecial256/thgtoa/issues/31#issuecomment-1162137978 , or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AZUIAX3ORL4JGKWN7G3XZALVQIAVXANCNFSM5YZALG4Q . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

[NobodySpecial256]

@Lefty-Insider

The footers of your message contain the entire message they're replying to. That's what @thanharrison was complaining about. It makes the discussion hard to follow for people reading it and just adds unnecessary weight. Also, nobody needs to see

Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#31 (comment)> , or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AZUIAX3ORL4JGKWN7G3XZALVQIAVXANCNFSM5YZALG4Q&gt; . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

on every message you send. Also, you should probably learn to strip auth tokens before posting publicly.

[Lefty-Insider]

I live in an html rich text world. If you guys want to live in the stone age and bad old days of plain text fine. I will format this final message as plain. You want to use substandard open source software because of some bias against commercial software fine. Just count me out. If you want to beat up on someone well intentioned, but uninformed of your cliquish and socially inappropriate ways fine.

"Hey, the 90's are calling you guys and they want their Courier New back."

PS. I have been posting publically since CompuServe and 2400bps.

From: Alex Anderson @. Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2022 3:09 PM To: NobodySpecial256/thgtoa @.> Cc: Lefty-Insider @.>; Mention @.> Subject: Re: [NobodySpecial256/thgtoa] Document construction (Issue #31)

@Lefty-Insider The footers of your message contain the entire message they're replying to. That's what @thanharrison was complaining about. It makes the discussion hard to follow for people reading it and just adds unnecessary weight. Also, nobody needs to see on every message you send. Also, you should probably learn to strip auth tokens before posting publicly.

[nopeitsnothing]

Are you going to offer anything but snide remarks about the body of work or are you going to open a PR and contribute changes you'd like to see?  Cause I'm going to have to block you if you reply using the full text. It's very annoying. You're complaining.

------- Original Message ------- On Monday, June 20th, 2022 at 5:06 PM, Lefty-Insider @.***> wrote:

A bad workman blames his tools (an old, French proverb that dates back to at least the 13th century)

@NobodySpecial256 https://github.com/NobodySpecial256 :

The guide does have a TOC, although perhaps it could be more clearly labelled. I've tested in the HTML, PDF, and ODT versions, and unless there's an issue I'm unaware of, any readers referencing any of those 3 formats can simply click the title of the section they want to jump to.

Unfortunately, due to some form of error in conversion, the ToC doesn't seem to be rendered in PDF format and appears to not work as intended, allowing for easy navigation of the work. It looks fine on the website and in the preview here at current stage in development: you can check here https://github.com/NobodySpecial256/thgtoa/blob/master/guide.md to verify that the master branch HTML and markdown preview of the document is just fine. It's the PDF and DOC view that are broken.

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[Lefty-Insider]

Than,

Thanks for the acknowledgement of a response.

I originally found a link to your document on the DW dread OpSec forum where I am /u/n0stis in /d/OpSec doing book research.

I posted the same The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Online Anonymity Preliminary Review info there, in an effort to improve the writings on the DW in general and those related to operational security specifically.

In my retirement, I am a technical novel writer and was formerly a professional writer among many other things. Below is a roster of my unpublished work, in case you are interested.

Synopsis

This Insider Goes Deep title is a sequel to the writers’ previous two books and follows the continued corruption of computer operating systems and software programs to support the devolution of the original Internet into an individualized predatory surveillance system, corporate ATM, and a global societal menace whose parasitic effects, and predatory behavior threaten lives, freedom, and democracy.

The Insider Trilogy plus one, is as follows:

Book One

• The Insider (A Life Inside the Personal Computer)

Approximately 98k words, 350 pages complete

Approximately 125 footnotes,150 illustrations

Book Two

• The Cozening (A Murder of Promise)

Approximately 80k words, 300 pages complete

Approximately 100 footnotes, 200 illustrations.

Book Three

• The Insider Goes Deep (Tales from the Dark Web)

Approximately 90k words, 400 pages TBD

Approximately 50 footnotes, 200 illustrations

Approximately 200 CW links, and 50 DW links

Approximately 30 Notes

And its companion book:

Book Four

A User Guide To The Dark Web

(The 42nd and Final Encyclopedia Cyberspacia)

Approximately 70k words, 500 pages TBD

Approximately 30 footnotes, 300 illustrations

Approximately 400 CW links, and 200 DW links

Approximately 40 Notes

The LaTex you use is unfamiliar to me as I am accustomed to a WYSIWYG environment in MS Word. While not the ideal document production software, I can remember Ventura Publisher fondly, it has allowed me to produce stellar pdf’s of the novels listed above. I have no need to publish in any other format, or to batch process anything. I see myself as a document artist and want to individually touch each word and graphic, and craft each page individually.

I don’t know what Kramdown is, but it doesn’t sound good. Reminds me of the word and text conversion sausage grinder that creates Kindle books.

I am busy writing two books now, but would not be disinclined to provide your org with some technical writing assistance if I can.

Lefty Insider (arister0s n0stis)

From: Than Harrison @. Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2022 6:14 PM To: NobodySpecial256/thgtoa @.> Cc: Lefty-Insider @.>; Author @.> Subject: Re: [NobodySpecial256/thgtoa] Document construction (Issue #31)

Thanks for the acknowledgement. A ton of work is being put into this and nobody is being paid to maintain it.

One thing I recently started work on was chapter pages. It would make it more easily accessible and feel less bulky. The code is hosted off the main line. I also plan to create a better bibliography to make it look more like an academic paper. The LaTeX is a bit bulky so it's not expected to be published online until I know it compiles. I also need to find a way to better render the images in the PDF because Kramdown doesn't like to display them the way the reader would find comfortable. Kramdown doesn't like formatting in some areas, behaving poorly and ignoring it altogether in others.

The goal is to work on the ability to create a clean light and dark mode PDF style. The website and PDF are the things we are focusing on at the moment because they are the most viewed. Not many people are coming here to discuss changes they would like and it's why we have so little plans to change many things. We won't change it if it's not presented to us. As a technical writer, I see your concern about the accessibility. I'm sort of new to the way this is being done. I've already considered forking it into a new style that builds directly from LaTeX as I am comfortable with that and it offers more options for the UX. The other concerns I have include the logo, which I've been working on as well.

The guide doesn't include a mobile user in its model because using a cellular device is not recommended for privacy. I don't use a cell phone. I don't know any reason you would want to use one and you have no expectation of privacy without severely limiting usability and function. I emulate Android and I only use it for specific apps. There are already tons of guides for mobile OS users and they include several things such as compartmentalization, anonymization and security. It's outside of the scope of the guide for those reasons.

I have already started splitting it into chapter form and setting a bibliography. The rest are soon to follow. We could benefit from more technical writers and even some developers that are familiar with making specialized web pages, so the reader can pick between certain sections and it doesn't feel so overwhelming.

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[nopeitsnothing]

@Lefty-Insider

You don't need to write a novel in your post, but I know you're just showing your work. Thanks for taking the time to offer help; most people don't, even though they see we are in need of help these days. Please email me directly and we can discuss.