Update and improve Thunderbird preferences

[colleirose]

Changes

This improves the Thunderbird preferences by adding new preferences from Tails and Tor Browser and improving code formatting and comments.

While I tested this in a Whonix VM and haven't been able to find any obvious problems, I don't use Thunderbird very much, so I haven't been able to thoroughly test the changes and therefore I'm marking this as a draft until someone who is more familiar with Thunderbird can verify that these changes don't cause any issues.

Mandatory Checklist

• Legal agreements accepted. By contributing to this organisation, you acknowledge you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these these agreements:

Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, E-Sign Consent, DMCA, Imprint

Optional Checklist

The following items are optional but might be requested in certain cases.

• I have tested it locally
• I have reviewed and updated any documentation if relevant
• I am providing new code and test(s) for it

[adrelanos]

• Improve 40_security-misc.js preferences Kicksecure/security-misc#300

[colleirose]

I don't believe this qualifies as trademark infringement, regardless of Mozilla's legal threats against FOSS projects. Firstly, we've already been shipping some hardened preferences for a while without issue, and so has Tails. There have been no legal threats. Secondly, we are not even shipping a customized Thunderbird derivative, we are just adding, in a separate packages, preferences to Mozilla Thunderbird, in the same way that anyone would do themselves. Thunderbird is not modified at all. Rather, in a separate file, independent of the Thunderbird package, we add our own code. That file only uses the Thunderbird trademark to accurately describe what it does and preserve its functionality.

The only use of the Thunderbird trademark, other than shipping their normal package in the way they allow, is accurately describing this project as a tool to configure Mozilla products for privacy, security, and anonymity. Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Welles, 279 F.3d 796 (9th Cir., 2002) ("Except for the use of PEI's protected terms in the wallpaper of Welles' website, we conclude that Welles' uses of PEI's trademarks are permissible, nominative uses. They imply no current sponsorship or endorsement by PEI. Instead, they serve to identify Welles as a past PEI 'Playmate of the Year.'"); New Kids on the Block v. New America Pub., Inc., 971 F. 2d 302 ("Throughout the development of trademark law, the purpose of trademarks remained constant and limited: Identification of the manufacturer or sponsor of a good or the provider of a service. And the wrong protected against was traditionally equally limited: Preventing producers from free-riding on their rivals' marks. [] Indeed, it is often virtually impossible to refer to a particular product for purposes of comparison, criticism, point of reference or any other such purpose without using the mark. "); Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft v. Church, 411 F.2d 350 (9th Cir. 1969) ("[I]t would be difficult, if not impossible, for [Church] to avoid altogether the use of the word 'Volkswagen' or its abbreviation 'VW,' which are the normal terms which, to the public at large, signify appellant's cars.")

Trademark law serves to prevent unfair competition and consumer deception. Not every mention of a trademark is illegal. We aren't claiming that our Thunderbird preferences are official or endorsed by Mozilla, or even distributing a modified version of Thunderbird at all.

Open-source projects shouldn't capitulate to the demands of a company that is paying their CEO millions of dollars and has modified their privacy policy to reserve the right to track users and sell data. Neither of these inspire confidence in the ability of Mozilla to protect the safety of Thunderbird users. It isn't acceptable to allow baseless legal threats to compromise the safety of Whonix users.

[adrelanos]

The trademark issue is just 1 issue. But ironically, since we no longer install Firefox or Thunderbird by default, is now no longer applicable.

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However, this comment is still applicable:
Kicksecure/security-misc#300 (comment)

[colleirose]

I see, that makes sense. Is there a reason the file still exists in the repository?

Apologies for not responding earlier, I've been rather busy.