Releases

The following changes were introduced in Tails 2.12:

  • We installed again GNOME Sound Recorder to provide a very simple application for recording sound in addition to the more complex Audacity. Sound clips recorded using GNOME Sound Recorder are saved to the Recordings folder.

  • We removed I2P, an alternative anonymity network, because we unfortunately have failed to find a developer to maintain I2P in Tails. Maintaining software like I2P well-integrated in Tails takes time and effort and our team is too busy with other priorities.

  • Upgrade Linux to 4.9.13. This should improve the support for newer hardware (graphics, Wi-Fi, etc.).

Documentation and website

  • Cody Brownstein documented how to change the password of an encrypted partition.

  • Cody Brownstein documented how to delete the files corresponding to a persistence feature that has been deselected.

  • We added instructions on how to burn DVDs from macOS El Capitan or later.

User experience

  • We collected intercept interviews of users using Tails world-wide to better understand our users, their needs, and what they like or dislike in Tails. We already have seven great story from Western Europe, North America, Latin America, and Africa.

Infrastructure

  • We upgraded some of our systems to Debian 9 (Stretch), in order to help identify remaining issues before it becomes the new Debian stable release.

  • We made good progress towards using our Vagrant build system on our Continuous Integration infrastructure, to make it match what developers use. This is part of our work on Reproducible ISO Builds.

  • We are interviewing a candidate to join our system administration team.

  • The mechanism that we designed for the distribution and activation of the revocation certificate of the Tails signing key is now deployed and 23 people own a share of the revocation certificate. It allows revoking the Tails signing key even if very bad things happens to most of the team while making it hard for isolated and malicious individuals to revoke the signing key when not needed. We still encourage experts to review this mechanism and other projects to adopt similar practices.

Funding

  • We are working towards adding a sponsors page to our website, and are talking with a couple potential corporate sponsors.

  • We are still in the process of discussing our proposal with OTF, and reworking it accordingly.

  • We were nominated for the MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award.

Translation

All website PO files

  • de: 55% (3182) strings translated, 5% strings fuzzy, 50% words translated
  • fa: 39% (2246) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy, 43% words translated
  • fr: 82% (4686) strings translated, 1% strings fuzzy, 81% words translated
  • it: 27% (1591) strings translated, 3% strings fuzzy, 25% words translated
  • pt: 26% (1537) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy, 24% words translated

Total original words: 58888

Core PO files

  • de: 82% (1544) strings translated, 9% strings fuzzy, 83% words translated
  • fa: 37% (701) strings translated, 10% strings fuzzy, 39% words translated
  • fr: 98% (1836) strings translated, 1% strings fuzzy, 98% words translated
  • it: 79% (1479) strings translated, 11% strings fuzzy, 78% words translated
  • pt: 49% (916) strings translated, 13% strings fuzzy, 50% words translated

Total original words: 17063

Metrics

  • Tails has been started more than 672644 times this month. This makes 21698 boots a day on average.
  • 16930 downloads of the OpenPGP signature of Tails ISO from our website.
  • 160 bug reports were received through WhisperBack.