Releases

Tails 0.23 was released on March 19.

Metrics

  • Tails has been started more than 261 878 times in March. This make 8 448 boots a day in average.
  • 19 076 downloads of the OpenPGP signature of Tails ISO.
  • 80 reports were received through WhisperBack.

Code

  • The Cookie Monster extension was removed from our browser. #6790

  • The new support for bridges was completed. It now uses Tor Launcher to configure Tor when needed.

  • A bookmark to the Tor Stack Exchange was added to our browser.

  • A launcher for our documentation was added to the Tails menu.

  • Some race conditions when starting automatic upgrades were fixed. #6592

  • The wikileaks.de server was removed from Pidgin.

  • The #tor IRC channel was removed from Pidgin.

  • We cleaned up a bit our ISO images to make them a bit smaller.

  • A bug in the localization of Tor Launcher was fixed.

  • We now install Linux 3.12 from deb.tails.boum.org not to install Linux 3.13.5-1 from testing yet.

  • Some work as been done towards Tails Wheezy, for example on the menus and launchers, the integration of Seahorse Nautilus, network-manager, and the migration from GConf to dconf.

Documentation and website

  • A new contribute page for sysadmins to improve the infrastructure behind Tails was written.

  • Our sample rtorrent.rc was improved. #6995

  • A sample configuration for Tails mirror using nginx was added. #6993

  • A "News" link was added to the sidebar.

  • The expectations for our mirrors in terms of bandwidth were clarified.

  • The instructions to securely delete the persistent volume were improved.

  • The instructions to manually backup the persistent volume were fixed.

  • gpgApplet was renamed "OpenPGP Applet".

  • "Tails browser" was consistently renamed "Tor browser". #6574

  • Our list of related projects was updated:

    • Freepto was added.
    • Liberté Linux is in a sleeping state.
    • uVirtus is abandoned.

  • The content of our Troubleshooting page was merging into the main Support page.

  • Email commands to interact with Redmine were documented.

  • The documentation for MAC spoofing was completed.

Translation

  • The German team which started to work earlier this year, got more volunteers on board and more work done.

  • People volunteered on the tails-l10n mailing list to translate our website into Italian, Spanish, Turkish, and Portuguese (Portugal).

Infrastructure

  • The mailing list for early testers, tails-testers@boum.org, was announced and already joined by 35 people.

  • We are ready to welcome new contributors to improve the infrastructure behind Tails, and drafted a call on that topic.

  • Three branches were merged to improve our automated test suite:

    • test/5959-antitest-memory-erasure
    • test/sniffer-vs-mac-spoof
    • test/tor-is-ready-notification

  • Our manual test suite for the browser was reorganized to better match the tests conducted for the TBB.

On-going discussions

  • SHA256sum replacement or patch, about a possible replacement for our hash extension for Firefox.

  • Feedback wanted on planned implementation of Feature #5301 - Clone or Backup Persistent Volume

  • Testing EHLO messages: simplification proposal

  • Perspectives for 0.23..1.1

  • Upgrading the Linux kernel for 1.0?

  • Review of https://tails.boum.org/contribute/, about restructuring the links on the Contribute page.

  • More tails.boum.org HTTP response headers?

Funding

  • We were awarded the Access Innovation Prize.

  • We submitted a proposal to the Knight Foundation News Challenge.

  • The crowdfunding campaign by the Freedom of the Press Foundation was extended and revived thanks to some new articles by Trevor Timm.

  • We applied to be audited through the OpenITP Peer Review Board.

  • We are still the process of signing the contract for a grant we were awarded by OpenITP at the end of 2013.

Outreach

  • We organized a logo contest to have a new logo in time for Tails 1.0. We received 36 proposals! Tails contributors started to vote on their favourite proposals.

  • We scheduled two usability testing sessions together with Silicon Sentier on May 21 and May 28 in Paris.

  • We scheduled a public hackfest. It will take place at IRILL (Paris, France) on July 5 and 6.

  • We made progress on the organization of the 2014 edition of the yearly Tails contributors summit. We could make use of more funding sources.

Press and testimonials

  • 2014-03-17: In Index Freedom of Expression Awards: Digital activism nominee Tails, Alice Kirkland interviews the Tails project about our nomination for the Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards.

  • 2014-03-13: In his Les 7 clés pour protéger ses communications article (in French) published by the Tribune de Genève, Simon Koch recommends using Tails.

  • 2014-03-12: In his Happy 25th Birthday World Wide Web - Let's Not Destroy It article published by the Huffington Post, Mike Harris writes that "Increasing numbers of activists are using high-tech tools such as Tor or Tails to encrypt their internet browsing and email".

  • 2014-03-12: In his US and UK Spy Agencies Are "Enemies of the Internet" article, published in the Motherboard section of the Vice network, Joseph Cox covers Reporters Without Borders' latest report, and writes "If you're a journalist working on anything more sensitive than London Fashion Week or League 2 football, you might want to consider using the Linux-based 'Tails' operating system too."

  • 2014-03-08: Reporters Without Borders's Grégoire Pouget blogs about Tails: FIC 2014 : Comment être réellement anonyme sur Internet (in French).

  • 2014-03-03: In the March edition of the Linux Journal, that celebrates 20 years of this journal, Kyle demonstrates Tails.