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1 [[!meta title="Tails report for February, 2014"]]
3 Releases
4 ========
6 Tails 0.22.1 was released on February 4.
8 Metrics
9 =======
11 - Tails has been started more than 222 134 times in February.
12 This make 7 933 boots a day in average.
13 - 453 082 downloads of the OpenPGP signature of Tails ISO. Weird.
14 - 92 reports were received through WhisperBack.
16 Code
17 ====
19 New features:
21 - Great progress was made towards better integrated, and more usable,
22 [[!tails_gitweb_branch feature/bridge-mode desc="support for using
23 Tor bridges"]] ([[!tails_ticket 5479]]). This implied working with
24 the TBB team to improve Tor Launcher, so that we can start it as
25 a standalone XUL application, instead of as a browser add-on.
26 - [[MAC spoofing support|contribute/design/MAC_address]] was
27 [[!tails_gitweb_branch feature/spoof-mac desc="completed"]] and
28 merged ([[!tails_ticket 5421]]).
29 - [[!tails_gitweb_branch feature/6508-incremental-upgrades-phase-four
30 desc="Phase four"]] of incremental upgrades was completed
31 ([[!tails_ticket 6508]]), and given it was enabled by default in
32 Tails 0.22.1, most users will see it in action when 0.23 is out.
33 - One may now [[!tails_gitweb_branch_winterfairy
34 bugfix/allow-ibus-start desc="start IBus manually"]] in locales
35 environment where it is disabled by default ([[!tails_ticket
36 6656]]).
37 - [[!tails_gitweb_branch feature/amd64-kernel desc="Ship a 64-bit
38 kernel"]] in replacement for the 686-pae one ([[!tails_ticket
39 5456]]).
40 - The branch to [[!tails_gitweb_branch 5588-no-autologin-consoles
41 desc="stop creating auto-login text consoles"]] was merged
42 ([[!tails_ticket 5588]]).
43 - Support for persistence of I2P state was [[!tails_gitweb_branch_kytv
44 feature/i2p-persistence desc="drafted"]] ([[!tails_ticket
45 5544]]).
46 - The website [[!tails_gitweb_branch feature/cleanup-ikiwiki-setup
47 desc="lock down"]] was merged and deployed.
48 - A branch to [[!tails_gitweb_branch
49 feature/6790-remove-cookie-monster desc="stop installing Cookie
50 Monster"]] was prepared ([[!tails_ticket 6790]]).
51 - Some initial work to improve the Greeter's administration password
52 interface was done ([[!tails_ticket 5594]]).
54 Software updates:
56 - I2P has been updated to 0.9.11 ([[!tails_ticket 6696]]).
57 - We have uploaded Pidgin 2.10.9 to squeeze-backports, and we now
58 install it from there ([[!tails_ticket 6661]]).
59 - Install [[!tails_gitweb_branch feature/poedit-from-backports
60 desc="Poedit from squeeze-backports-sloppy"]], where we have
61 uploaded it some time ago ([[!tails_ticket 6456]]).
62 - The fact that Linux 3.12 is not in Debian unstable anymore
63 [[!tails_gitweb_branch bugfix/linux-kbuild-3.12-from-testing
64 desc="was taken into account"]].
65 - The [[!tails_gitweb_branch feature/linux-3.13 desc="branch"]] that
66 installs Linux 3.13 was updated.
68 Bug and regression fixes:
70 - The Intel Management Engine Interface driver [[!tails_gitweb_branch
71 feature/disable-mei desc="was disabled"]]. This fixes memory wiping
72 at shutdown ([[!tails_ticket 6460]]) on some, if not all, hardware.
73 - The possibility to switch identities in the Tor Browser
74 [[!tails_gitweb_branch_winterfairy bugfix/torbutton-new-identity
75 desc="was added back"]] ([[!tails_ticket 6383]]).
76 - An issue that lead to releasing needlessly big ISO images
77 [[!tails_gitweb_branch
78 bugfix/6390-dont-include-APT-lists-and-cache-in-the-ISO desc="was
79 resolved"]] ([[!tails_ticket 6390]]).
80 - [[!tails_gitweb_branch feature/create-additional-software-config]]
81 was merged.
83 Towards Tails based on Debian Wheezy:
85 - I2P packages compatible with Debian Wheezy were prepared, and are
86 now installed in the [[!tails_gitweb_branch feature/wheezy]] branch.
87 - Application launchers were added to the GNOME panel.
88 - A launcher to start the documentation viewer was added to the
89 applications menu.
90 - A more standard icon is used for the shutdown button.
92 Documentation, website and localization
93 =======================================
95 - Icons for the different roles on the Contribute section were
96 finalized and [[deployed live|contribute]].
97 - The [[blueprint/FAQ]] was greatly expanded, and is now almost ready
98 for prime-time.
99 - We have made good progress on specifying how the Tails logo should
100 look like ([[!tails_ticket 5797]]).
101 - It was documented how to [[improve Tails by working on
102 Debian|contribute/how/debian]]. We have received positive feedback
103 from Debian contributors about it.
104 - Many small improvements to the documentation and its translations
105 were done, including:
106 * quite a few clarifications in the documentation for new
107 contributors;
108 * [[!tails_gitweb_branch doc/system_requirements_improvements
109 desc="updated"]] system requirements documentation;
110 * [[!tails_gitweb_branch doc/change_persistence_passphrase
111 desc="documented"]] how to change the passphrase for the
112 persistent volume ([[!tails_ticket 5621]]).
113 - Links to the I2P website were [[!tails_gitweb_branch_kytv
114 bugfix/new-i2p-site desc="updated"]].
115 - Documentation for the new MAC address spoofing feature was drafted.
116 - Work is in progress on documentation about contributing to Tails in
117 the infrastructure (systems administration, automation) area.
119 Infrastructure
120 ==============
122 - Our Puppet modules were [published](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/).
123 This was a first blocker before we can welcome contributions to
124 our infrastructure.
125 - The system that hosts our [[!tails_redmine "" desc="Redmine"]]
126 was re-installed from scratch on a new machine, upgraded to Debian
127 Wheezy and to Redmine 1.4.4.
128 - Some improvements to our automated test suite were merged:
129 [[!tails_gitweb_branch test/fix-persistence-checks]],
130 [[!tails_gitweb_branch test/keep-volumes-tag]], and
131 [[!tails_gitweb_branch test/5959-antitest-memory-erasure]].
132 Thanks to this and the robustness improvements brought by the move
133 to RJB, we were finally able to remove two of the most painful sets
134 of tests from our manual test suite.
135 - A mailing-list for early testers was created and is being set up.
137 On-going discussions
138 ====================
140 - [Usecases for the Cookie Monster browser
141 extension?](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-February/004804.html)
142 - [Tails
143 logo](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-February/004841.html)
144 - [How to remove identifying information in bug
145 reports?](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-February/004984.html)
146 - [Numlock on by
147 default?](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-February/004986.html)
148 - [Various](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-February/004923.html) [issues](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-February/005042.html) with Vagrant.
149 - [Interactions between Tails and TBB
150 developers](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-February/004885.html)
151 - [Adding BitMessage and Bitcoin-QT to
152 Tails](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-February/004850.html)
153 - [MAC address 'spoofing' and
154 randomization](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-February/004842.html)
155 - [Adapting Tor Launcher for
156 Tails](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-February/004819.html)
157 - We were contacted by a few people who want to use Tails as
158 a flexible framework, and build customized derivatives on top of it.
159 - We are discussing who we will invite to the 2014 Tails contributors
160 summit, that should be a bit more crowded than usual.
162 Funding
163 =======
165 - We have discussed with GNOME how they could use the money they have
166 raised for privacy and anonymity improvements.
168 Outreach
169 ========
171 - We have been working with people who want to build bridges between
172 the graphics designers and usability experts community on the one
173 hand, and Free Software developers on the other hand. Thanks to this
174 collaboration, it is likely that Tails will go through a usability
175 study in a few months, followed by a hackfest that will put at work
176 designers and usability experts for finding solutions to (some of)
177 the identified issues. The Tails sprint in July might host
178 this hackfest.
179 - One of us attended FOSDEM, and got a chance to talk with many
180 interesting people in person there.
181 - We got in touch with the people behind
182 [Freepto](https://www.freepto.mx/), and are looking how our two
183 projects could collaborate more.
184 - We are participating in two new Debian teams: the [Debian OTR
185 Team](https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/OTR) and the [Debian AppArmor
186 Profiles Team](https://wiki.debian.org/AppArmor/Contribute).
188 Press and testimonials
189 ======================
191 * 2014-02-27: In his article "[Why It’s Vital For Users to Fund Open-Source
192 Encryption
193 Tools](https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2014/02/why-its-vital-public-fund-open-source-encryption-tools)"
194 Trevor Timm from Freedom of the Press Foundation explains that Tails « has
195 been vital for most, if not all, of the NSA journalists. [...] Its prime use
196 case is journalists trying to communicate or work in environments in which
197 they may normally be at risk or compromised. The NSA stories have been the
198 biggest story in journalism in the past decade, yet the tool the reporters
199 rely on is incredibly underfunded, is maintained by only a handful of
200 developers, and operates on a shoestring budget. »
201 * 2014-02-07: In his review of [uVirtus](http://uvirtus.org), Kheops, from
202 Telecomix concludes that « Users should prefer Tails and other mature secure
203 live distributions (such as IprediaOS, Liberté Linux, Privatix and Whonix)
204 over uVirtus since they provide a real safety improvement to the user. For any
205 activity that does not entail transferring large quantities of data (such as
206 video files), there is no strong reason to prefer uVirtus over any of these. »