Releases

Tails 1.0 was released on April 29.

Metrics

  • Tails has been started more than 292 595 times in April. This make 9 753 boots a day in average.
  • 35 029 downloads of the OpenPGP signature of Tails ISO.
  • 105 reports were received through WhisperBack.

Code

  • Quite some work was put into adapting Tails to Debian 7 (Wheezy). The result will be released on June 10, as Tails 1.1.
    • Thanks to the amazing work done in Debian by Ulrike, we are almost there when it comes to adding back support for OpenPGP signature verification in Nautilus (#6608).
    • The Vagrant setup was fixed to allow building Tails/Wheezy images in RAM (#7132).
    • Synaptic was made to start again on Wheezy (#7055).
    • The Debian Mozilla team's repository used on the devel branch was updated for Wheezy (#7063).
    • The latest version of the MAT is now installed (#5792).
    • Initial progress was made to update the Windows camouflage. #6342
  • The APT suite being used when building from the stable branch was corrected (#7022).
  • The new logo was integrated in the About Tails dialog (#7096).
  • Some Vagrant compatibility issues were fixed (#7134).
  • The blacklisting of directory authority keys that have been used with versions of OpenSSL affected by Heartbleed was backported into our Tor packages.
  • Our modified Tor Launcher was updated to avoid pretending that we ship a default set of bridges.
  • I2P was explicitly told that it cannot receive inbound connections (#7070).
  • An attempt at migrating our source tree to live-build 3.x was made (#5691). It is still entirely unclear whether the cost/benefit ratio is worth it, especially because live-build 4.x has already gone quite further in terms of incompatibilities, and is far from being ready for prime-time yet.
  • A patch to make the Greeter's help window resolution-aware was proposed (#7009).
  • Another proposed patch aims at fixing the Tails Installer fonts size on Wheezy (#5673).

Documentation and website

  • The FAQ was published.
  • The logo that won the contest was integrated in the website, and on the boot loader's splash screen (#7090).
  • Some initial steps were walked to modernize our website's markup and CSS, including moving to HTML5 and better responsiveness (#7021). Compatibility with older browsers is left to be tested before we can apply these changes to the live website.
  • Many documentation pages were deeply reworked as part of #5977.
  • The homepage now makes it clear that Tails is based on Debian, Tor, and is Free software.
  • The MAC spoofing documentation now explains why we do not randomize the OUI part of MAC addresses.
  • The way to update our Tor Launcher is now documented.
  • The I2P documentation was slightly improved.
  • The CSS of the boxed titles was improved (#6323).

Translation

  • The German translation team has been making great progress, and we are not considering dropping this language from our website anymore.
  • The French translation team got a new member.
  • The Italian translation team has been reviewing strings in Transifex, and working on their internal workflow and processes. There is hope that they start translating the website soon.
  • A list of glossaries used by translation teams is being compiled.

Infrastructure

  • Quite a lot of progress was made to make our automated test suite support Tails based on Debian Wheezy (#6559).
  • An automated test case was written to check write access to the boot device via udisks #6275.
  • Our Jenkins master configuration was migrated to a published module.
  • We now install debomatic from wheezy-backports, for easier maintenance and a more stable infrastructure.
  • Thanks to Alster's suggestion, the boum.org administrators could add a few security-oriented HTTP headers to our website.
  • Jurre van Bergen has requested an audit by OpenITP's Peer Review Board (#6889).
  • For ethical reasons, we have renamed our Broken Window Redmine category to Hole in the Roof.

On-going discussions

  • Improving our website in various ways.
  • Making it easy to backup and restore a persistent volume (#5301).
  • Jacob Appelbaum expressed interest in getting a grsec-patched Linux kernel into Tails. Of course, this requires doing the same in Debian, which is not a trivial mission.
  • Installing gimp-ufraw?
  • Installing tcplay?
  • Tracking Jessie-related tickets

Funding

  • We are still the process of getting the contracts signed both for a grant we were awarded by OpenITP at the end of 2013, and for the Access Innovation Prize.

  • We have been talking with Mozilla and Tor about supporting the Tails summit and hackfest, scheduled for July.

  • Our proposal to the Knight Foundation News Challenge was not selected among the finalists. If you know why, please share your insight with us :)

  • The crowdfunding campaign by the Freedom of the Press Foundation has made great progress. It is still time to donate.

Outreach

Press and testimonials

Dozens of press articles about Tails were written in April, most notably:

  • In TAILS: Snowden's favorite anonymous, secure OS goes 1.0, Cory Doctorow writes "Effectively, this is the ParanoidLinux I fictionalized in my novel Little Brother."
  • Tails reaches 1.0 by Nathan Willis in Linux Weekly News.
  • Anonymous OS reportedly used by Snowden reaches version 1.0 by Steven Musil in CNET.
  • 2014-04-29: This is the most secure computer you’ll ever own by Russell Brandom, in The Verge.
  • 2014-04-23: Amaelle Guiton mentions Tails in the article Chiffrer le Net pour retrouver notre vie privée en ligne: une bonne solution qui pose des problèmes in Slate (in French).
  • 2014-04-17: Bruce Schneier writes "Nice article on the Tails stateless operating system. I use it." in a blog post.
  • 2014-04-14: In the press conference she held after winning a Polk Award for her reporting on Edward Snowden and the NSA, Laura Poitras said "We just published a blog about a tool that's called Tails, which is a operating system that runs on either USB stick or SD disc, that is a sort of all-in-one encryption tool that you can use for PGP and encryption. And it's just really secure. [...] So, it's a really important tool for journalists."
  • 2014-04-14: Out in the Open: Inside the Operating System Edward Snowden Used to Evade the NSA by Klint Finley, in Wired.
  • 2014-04-02: In Help Support the Little-Known Privacy Tool That Has Been Critical to Journalists Reporting on the NSA by Trevor Timm:
    • Laura Poitras says: "I've been reluctant to go into details about the different steps I took to communicate securely with Snowden to avoid those methods being targeted. Now that Tails gives a green light, I can say it has been an essential tool for reporting the NSA story. It is an all-in-one secure digital communication system (GPG email, OTR chat, Tor web browser, encrypted storage) that is small enough to swallow. I'm very thankful to the Tails developers for building this tool."
    • Glenn Greenwald says: "Tails have been vital to my ability to work securely on the NSA story. The more I've come to learn about communications security, the more central Tails has become to my approach."
    • Barton Gellman says: "Privacy and encryption work, but it's too easy to make a mistake that exposes you. Tails puts the essential tools in one place, with a design that makes it hard to screw them up. I could not have talked to Edward Snowden without this kind of protection. I wish I'd had it years ago."