After nearly five years of development, Tails, a Debian-based distribution known for its strong privacy features and pre-configured for anonymous web browsing, has reached version 1.0.
The announcement from Distrowatch.com:
Tails, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, version 1.0, is out. 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. Since then we have been working 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.
Read the rest of the release announcement for a full changelog and a note on future plans.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SlimmPickens on Friday May 02 2014, @01:57AM
I have been wondering for a while now if it's possible the NSA could have comprised Debian's keys. One of the features of this Tails is that the ISO itself is crytographically signed by a number of Debian maintainers. That Snowden chose to use this Tails is obviously a very good sign that Debian is not compromised. I think I'm going to start using Tails lot more, especially when I'm creating new networks.
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Friday May 02 2014, @07:17AM
I am glad to know that TAILS 1.0 has been released which fixes a lot of bugs of earlier versions. I do hope that this becomes popular so that more people will be interested in using such products to protect their privacy. At present, this TAILS seems to be one of the best options available.
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @01:02PM
HUGE CONGRATS to the entire team of folks who maintain Tails. They should be very proud of their work. I love they refer to the NSA's own slides showing how secure some of their embedded security products are. :)
HOWEVER, this got me worried:
Tails should not persist. It should not persist A N Y T H I N G! Persistence, in our current culture, is anathema to anonymity. Evil groups have shown that with persistence you can be $5 wrenched into revealing what you're doing. Tails is SUPPOSED to be the one-stop shop for the best anonymity around, but with even this OPTION, I think it's making a huge mistake. Even having the option opens-up too many cans of worms. The persistent volume is not hidden so anyone who snags your USB stick will see you have a volume. Tails should not include options that non-techie-folks -- LIKE JOURNALISTS -- can even be allowed to make a mistake in revealing their activity. :(
(Score: 1) by sglane on Friday May 02 2014, @01:27PM
Then don't use it. It's something you have to enable and it takes a few steps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @06:48PM
Your suggestion to not use Tails is discouraging, as it is the premier anonymous OS out there. Once everyone knows data can be persisted, owners of Tails installs will be tortured until they provide those persisted volumes once thugs get ahold of them, even if those persisted volumes don't exist. Because the option exists. Just because they claim they didn't use it, and the thugs can't find it, won't convince them otherwise. If the option never existed and wasn't possible, people would be tortured less. It should be removed. If people want to reduce their security of this magnitude for convenience, they should not be using Tails, yet there is simply no other OS that approaches its security. Tails should be forked, but sadly that would detract resources from core Tails work.
(Score: 1) by SuggestiveLanguage on Friday May 02 2014, @01:28PM
May I kindly suggest a middle-ground? Include a pessimistic option for persistence/statefulness, however, a stern warning is posted and a mechanism is provided to flush persistent/stateful data as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @06:51PM
There is no middle ground when you're discussing a security project of this nature, and a feature that degrades security to this extent. People's lives literally depend on the security of this OS. Once the option exists, whether anyone uses it or not, anyone holding a Tails install is putting their lives in danger, because they will be tortured until that persisted volume is opened, whether it exists or not.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @01:46PM
They make their financial documents available for all to see (I know, I know, who says they're legit...):
https://tails.boum.org/contribute/how/donate/ [boum.org]
Note that if you live in a repressive country where donating to freedom-enhancing tools will lead to punishment, you can also donate to them indirectly via the Press Freedom Foundation: https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/ [pressfreed...dation.org]. Of course that may cause punishment also, in which case you could snail mail cash, hrmmm....