Allow user to choose security profile
This is an idea for how to make Briar easier to use: When the user creates her account, we could ask the user to choose one of three security options: low, medium and high security (that come with a description about what they mean exactly).
Based on what the user chooses, we can adapt certain settings or simplify certain things, so it gets easier to use. For example, if the user chooses medium security we could show private notifications on the lock screen. If they chose low, we could even show the content of messages on the lock screen (crazy, I know). In that case, we could also reveal contacts by default in private groups, for example. If a high security profile has been choose, we do not show any notifications on the lock screen and we display a warning before clicked links are opened. The latter warning would not be shown on a low security profile.
The idea is that Briar would be a useful and valuable tool also for users with lower security but higher convenience requirements.
Addition from #2138 (closed) on 26th of July 2021 by @nicoalt:
With the increased interest in disaster communication and the upcoming research on multi-hop social mesh and public mesh, it might be cool if users could specify their security settings in Briar, similar to Tor Browser's security settings. Tor Browser's settings could translate to Briar like this:
- Standard (I would rather call it "disaster" or "insecure"): public mesh
- Safer: multi-hop social mesh
- Safest: single-hop social mesh like at the moment
I can see, though, that this is both difficult to implement and difficult to understand for users, but I'm still curious what UX experts like @elioqoshi think about it. If we don't do security settings but want to provide a solution with public mesh, I think forking Briar is the only viable alternative we have.