[debian] Tails v1.0 Released

[Arthur]

Website / Download / Changelog

 

Tails, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, version 1.0, is out.

 

All users must upgrade as soon as possible: this release fixes numerous security issues.

 

Introduction

We are especially proud to present you Tails 1.0!

 

Version 1.0 is often an important milestone that denotes the maturity of a free software project. The first public version of what would become Tails was released on June 23 2009, when it was called Amnesia. That was almost five years ago. Tails 1.0 marks the 36th stable release since then.

 

Achievements

We have been working since then on the many features we think are essential both in terms of security and usability:

 

• USB installer
  
• automatic upgrades
  
• persistence
  
• support for Tor bridges and other special Tor configuration
  
• MAC address spoofing
  
• extensive and translated documentation
  
• and many more...
  

But this has been a continuous work over the past years, and you will see that 1.0 itself does not bring a lot of effective changes for the user. Still, to mark the occasion, we integrated our new logo on the website and the boot menu.

 

If you have never heard of Tails before...

 

Tails or The Amnesic Incognito Live System is a security-focused Debian-based Linux distribution aimed at preserving privacy and anonymity. It is the next iteration of development on the previous Gentoo-based Incognito Linux distribution. All its outgoing connections are forced to go through Tor, and direct (non-anonymous) connections are blocked. The system is designed to be booted as a live DVD or live USB, and will leave no trace (digital footprint) on the machine unless explicitly told to do so. The Tor Project has provided most of the financial support for development. Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, and Barton Gellman have each said that Tails was an important tool they used in their work with Edward Snowden. (Source)

 

[mats]

Had a play with a late beta the other week. Works in a virtualbox vm and is very interesting.

[Arthur]

 

Use Tor or 'EXTREMIST' Tails Linux? Congrats, you're on an NSA list « The Register

 

We already know from leaked Snowden documents that Western intelligence agents hate Tor for its anonymizing abilities. But what the aforementioned leaked source code, written in a rather strange custom language, shows is that not only is the NSA targeting the anonymizing network Tor specifically, it is also taking digital fingerprints of any netizens who are remotely interested in privacy.

 

These include readers of the Linux Journal site, anyone visiting the website for the Tor-powered Linux operating system Tails – described by the NSA as "a comsec mechanism advocated by extremists on extremist forums" – and anyone looking into combining Tails with the encryption tool Truecrypt.

[cpjitservices]

I'd rather just use Kali or BackTrack... built on Debian anyway and includes anonymity if you want it... but includes a whole raft of Forensic tools

 

http://www.kali.org/

[Arthur]

I'd rather just use Kali or BackTrack... built on Debian anyway and includes anonymity if you want it...

Tails does things like erase the contents of your RAM on shutdown and send *all* Internet traffic through Tor (among other things).

 

https://tails.boum.org/contribute/design/memory_erasure/

 

How easy is it to add the anonymity features to Kali? If you have to enter lots of commands each time you boot up the OS from disc, wouldn't you be better off with Tails?

[cpjitservices]

As does Kali, boot up into forensics mode of which you get the choice when you boot from DVD, and the OS will not even talk to the hard disk as it's in forensics mode and this also send all your traffic encrypted over the Internet. No commands needed