FYI -------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Tails - News <[email protected]> Reply-to: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [amnesia-news] Report: January to April 2012 Date: Tue, 01 May 2012 13:54:04 -0000
We are pleased to present you this Tails report. This report sums up the work
that was done on Tails from January to April 2012.
# New releases
Two new major versions of Tails were released.
The main changes featured by [Tails 0.10][1], released on January 4th, are:
remove potential information leakage by forcing explicit proxying through Tor;
new GnuPG encryption applet to replace flawed FireGPG; new Iceweasel 9 version
with HTML5 support; Iceweasel privacy improvements; new Tor version; better
hardware support through new Linux kernel and X.Org versions, better
internationalization.
In [Tails 0.11][2], released on April 26th, brought in: a new Tails Greeter
login screen with easy access to new options; new Tails USB installer; optional
configurable encrypted persistence; Traverso and GNOME keyring; better
internationalization including BiDi support; better hardware support thanks to
a new Linux kernel; new versions of Iceweasel and Vidalia.
# Documentation
We thoroughly documented the new features brought by Tails 0.11. We also
upgraded of some outdated bits inherited from Incognito's documentation.
# Internationalization
We setup the [tails-l10n][3] mailing-list, that was of great use to coordinate
documentation writers, developers and translators during the 0.11 release
cycle. Translators are [more than welcome][4]!
# GSoC
After seeing Max write a non-neglictible part of [TailsGreeter][5] last year,
Tails is participating in the Google Summer of Code once again: Julien Voisin,
who implemented the [Metadata Anonymizing Toolkit][6] last year, will work on
the [Tails server project][7]. We warmly welcome him into the Tails and Tor
development communities, and we would like to thank everyone who made this
happen!
# Miscellaneous
One of us has become a Debian Developer and, among other things, has been
taking care some Perl modules are properly packaged so that we can migrate a
few of our custom applications to GTK3 once Tails builds upon Wheezy.
In January, we have replied to Jacob Appelbaum about the many suggestions he
sent us. See the tails-dev mailing-list archives for details.
# And now?
## Future releases
Tails 0.12 is likely to be ready for early summer. We are working on using the
potential of Tails Greeter to let the user easily enable more options, such as
Windows camouflage. Fully disabling JavaScript, Bridge mode and MAC address
randomization are other candidates that might require some more time to get
fully ready. Free WiFi hotspots support and local firewall hardening are not
far from being releasable either.
As a glimpse at our [roadmap][8] shows, we are getting close to the Tails 1.0
release, which might be out before the end of the year.
## Re-scaling our infrastructure
Most of our current infrastructure has slowly grown from what was initially
setup back in the early days of a project called amnesia. Since then, well,
many things happened. It's almost a miracle that our infrastructure has scaled
this well until now. But the limits of the old design are becoming apparent in
various places. Most of the needs were thought through already, some of the
future plans are crystal clear, what is now needed is to spend serious time on
it, implement designed bits and design others for the next few years:
* [Manage an APT repository for Tails][9]: this blocks the Git split, the
move to Icedove, and possibly [distribute source][10].
* [Split the main Tails Git repository][11]: our current Git repository is
too big, and mixes stuff that hardly belongs together. Post-0.11 will be a
great time to rewrite history, as we won't have that many unmerged development
branches.
* [Improve the web forum][12]: moving to a better web forum will get us a
less cluttered Git history, better user experience, and hopefully even better
community dynamics.
* [Automated builds and tests][13]: this will become huge, but should start
small.
* [Make WhisperBack SMTP relay more reliable][14]: bring some more hardware
up and running, refactor the Puppet recipes into a dedicated module.
* document and clarify how our infrastructure works: some parts are very well
documented, some are not at all. It should become easier to share
infrastructure maintenance work.
* miscellaneous other stuff:
* [Locking down the Tails website][15]
* [Better web interface for website translation][16]
## Connecting back to our immediate surroundings
Many, among the software projects that are Tails upstream, are currently
preparing new stable releases. Time is getting tight to make sure their
upcoming releases fits Tails needs.
* [Get ready for live-build 3.x][17]: Tails relies on Debian Live. Heavily.
Tails 0.11 will ship live-boot and live-config 3.x, but we're still using
live-build 2.x. We need to convert our configuration tree to the (deeply
incompatible) live-build 3.x format. There is no turning back. All unmerged
branches shall be converted, if possible at the same time. Just like the Git
split, I think post-0.11 is a great time to do so... and, along the way, fix
any bug in live-build 3.x we find.
* Debian Wheezy: Tails relies on Debian. Heavily. Debian Wheezy is supposed
to be frozen in June. We need to check what, in the current state of Debian
Wheezy, is not fit for Tails, and fix it or have it fixed. Next step: to build
Wheezy test images.
* [AppArmor][18]: some of us have started to work on getting Debian Wheezy
some AppArmor support. If the Wheezy freeze is not postponed, June is the
deadline to get such things into Debian.
* Tor 0.2.3.x: we need to make sure the next major Tor stable release will be
great for Tails, with a focus on the separate streams features. Next steps:
everyone of us, let's run Tor 0.2.3.x and use the separate streams feature. Put
it into Tails experimental.
* Vidalia 0.4 is supposed to be released as stable in the next few months. We
need to make sure it will be great for Tails, with a focus on the areas it's
lacking for us (bridges support) and where we patch it (see our patches). It
would be great if we could ship Vidalia 0.4 without any custom patch, wouldn't
it? Next steps:
* run Vidalia 0.3.x from Debian experimental
* test the branch that implements Tor#2905
* look at our patches, and see what we could drop, have merged, or
implement as a plugin
## Upcoming features
We will implement [partial upgrades][19] in May. Upgrade packs will provide
only what has changed between two releases (deltas) and a way to apply those
changes to the currently running Tails (taking effect after reboot).
We have acknowledged a while ago Claws Mail usability shortcomings, especially
when using slow connections; we [settled on Icedove][20] (also known as
Thunderbird outside Debian) to replace it a while ago; we implemented a few
necessary improvements (`git://labs.riseup.net/tails_icedove.git`); some more
tweaks are needed though, and this is blocked by the lack of a proper Tails
[APT repository][9].
Tails will soon ship an ["unsafe", non-torified browser][21], that will be
useful to connect to networks that require registration, such as Wi-Fi hotspots.
[1]: https://tails.boum.org/news/./version_0.10/
[2]: https://tails.boum.org/news/./version_0.11/
[3]: https://mailman.boum.org/listinfo/tails-l10n/
[4]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../contribute/how/translate/
[5]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/TailsGreeter/
[6]: https://mat.boum.org/
[7]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/server_edition/
[8]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../contribute/roadmap/
[9]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/APT_repository/
[10]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/distribute_source/
[11]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/split_Git/
[12]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/improve_the_forum/
[13]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/automated_builds_and_tests/
[14]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/more_stable_WhisperBack_SMTP_relay/
[15]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/locking_down_this_website/
[16]:
https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/better_web_interface_to_translate_this_website/
[17]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/live-build_3.x/
[18]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/Mandatory_Access_Control/
[19]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/incremental_upgrades/
[20]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/Return_of_Icedove__63__/
[21]: https://tails.boum.org/news/../todo/add_support_for_free_wifi_hotspots/
URL: https://tails.boum.org/news/report_2012_01-04/
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