Edward Snowden used the TAILS distribution
When Edward Snowden first appeared in front of a video camera last summer, many noticed his laptop with Tor anonymizer stickers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation stickers. Now it became known what operating system is installed on this laptop: a protected Linux distribution called TAILS (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) based on Debian.
Previously, the distribution was called Amnesia and was based on Incognito OS
After downloading the TAILS image from a disk or flash drive, we immediately get all the necessary tools to work safely on the Internet: Tor starts automatically, GPG to encrypt mail, OTR-chat, password manager KeePassX and other programs, many of which have been modified for security. The distribution is designed in such a way that it does not store any information locally (and does not address the drive at all) in order to protect sensitive data in case the computer falls into the hands of the enemy, and to protect the system from malicious software. The RAM is erased before shutting down with sdmem, so that the attacker could not restore its contents from the recently turned off computer. The graphical interface can be faked under Windows XP, so as not to cause suspicion among others.
Edward Snowden made TAILS even Glenn Greenwald, a journalist with The Guardian, who handed over secret documents to the NSA, and who recently received the Pulitzer Prize through these publications - the most valuable award in the field of journalism.
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Now the Press Freedom Foundation recommends the distribution of TAILS to all journalists and calls for donation for development . A month later, TAILS version 1.0 should be released - the most important event in the history of the project. Separately, there is a development of a mobile version for smartphones and tablets.
Despite its great importance, the TAILS distribution is still little known in the community and therefore, until recently, it has received practically no donations. Over the past year, developers managed to collect only 41,330 euros and 29.58 bitcoins , of which colleagues from the Tor project listed 20,000 euros as a reward for the bugs found, and 21,000 euros more - the National Democratic Institute.
By the way, TAILS developers also observe anonymity and communicate only via encrypted email. "The NSA puts pressure on free software and developers in various ways," they explain the reasons for their secrecy.
On the one hand, their anonymity suggests that this may be a project of the same special services, with embedded tabs. But there is evidence that it is not. For example, in the slides of one of the NSA presentations, TAILS is mentioned as one of the main tools that prevents traffic tapping. In addition, the entire source code is open, so that everyone could test it for the five years during which this OS is being developed.
Previously, the distribution was called Amnesia and was based on Incognito OS
After downloading the TAILS image from a disk or flash drive, we immediately get all the necessary tools to work safely on the Internet: Tor starts automatically, GPG to encrypt mail, OTR-chat, password manager KeePassX and other programs, many of which have been modified for security. The distribution is designed in such a way that it does not store any information locally (and does not address the drive at all) in order to protect sensitive data in case the computer falls into the hands of the enemy, and to protect the system from malicious software. The RAM is erased before shutting down with sdmem, so that the attacker could not restore its contents from the recently turned off computer. The graphical interface can be faked under Windows XP, so as not to cause suspicion among others.
Edward Snowden made TAILS even Glenn Greenwald, a journalist with The Guardian, who handed over secret documents to the NSA, and who recently received the Pulitzer Prize through these publications - the most valuable award in the field of journalism.
')
Now the Press Freedom Foundation recommends the distribution of TAILS to all journalists and calls for donation for development . A month later, TAILS version 1.0 should be released - the most important event in the history of the project. Separately, there is a development of a mobile version for smartphones and tablets.
Despite its great importance, the TAILS distribution is still little known in the community and therefore, until recently, it has received practically no donations. Over the past year, developers managed to collect only 41,330 euros and 29.58 bitcoins , of which colleagues from the Tor project listed 20,000 euros as a reward for the bugs found, and 21,000 euros more - the National Democratic Institute.
By the way, TAILS developers also observe anonymity and communicate only via encrypted email. "The NSA puts pressure on free software and developers in various ways," they explain the reasons for their secrecy.
On the one hand, their anonymity suggests that this may be a project of the same special services, with embedded tabs. But there is evidence that it is not. For example, in the slides of one of the NSA presentations, TAILS is mentioned as one of the main tools that prevents traffic tapping. In addition, the entire source code is open, so that everyone could test it for the five years during which this OS is being developed.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/219677/
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