Hi,
here is the Tails report for August.
Releases
========
Tails 0.20 was released on the 9th of August.
Tails 0.20.1 release is scheduled for September 19.
<
https://tails.boum.org/news/version_0.20/>
<
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-August/003502.html>
Metrics
=======
- 190 521 connections of Tails to the Tor network. This makes a boot
every 14 seconds on average. This is an approximation from the
requests made to the security announcements feed when Tails is
connected to Tor.
- 93 non-empty bug reports were received through WhisperBack.
- 57 222 downloads of the OpenPGP signature of Tails ISO from
our website.
Code
====
- A new contributor (a.kuckartz) has started to debug what appears to
be incompatibilities between our Vagrant setup and the current state
of Debian unstable.
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/6221>
- Some initial steps were taken to get VirtualBox guest modules back.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/log/?h=bugfix/fix_virtualbox_dkms_build>
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/5972>
- A branch to properly umount the persistent volume on shutdown was
prepared. Thanks to Steven J. Murdoch for the useful bug report.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/log/?h=bugfix/unmount-persistent-volume-on-shutdown>
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/6228>
- The additional software upgrade notification failure message now
points the user to the system log so that they have a chance to
debug it.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/log/?h=bugfix/additional-software-upgrade-failed-message>
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/6211>
- The I2P IRC network preset in Pidgin was corrected.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/log/?h=bugfix/i2p-irc-in-pidgin>
- Some initial work to have a consistent persistence path was done.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/log/?h=feature/consistent-peristence-path>
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/5854>
- Some sanity checks in our test suite were fixed. Another set of test
suite improvements has seen progress.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/log/?h=test/fix-iso-reporting>
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/log/?h=test/firewall-check-tag>
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/>
- Starting with Tails 0.20.1, bug reports sent with WhisperBack will
be sent to a dedicated (encrypted) mailing-list.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/log/?h=feature/tails-bugs>
- GnuPG now uses --no-emit-version.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/log/?h=feature/GnuPG-no-emit-version>
- Switch to Linux 3.10-2 from Debian unstable.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/log/?h=feature/linux-3.10-2>
Documentation and Website
=========================
- A new contributor (Vigdis) posted drafts to document why Tor is slow
and update the persistence path in the documentation. Congrats!
<
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-August/003421.html>
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/vigdis/tails/log/?h=doc/update-persistence-path>
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/5641>
- A new contributor (carmie) proposed logo ideas. Thanks!
<
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-August/003382.html>
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/5797>
- The installation documentation was improved to mention USB sticks
and SD card adapters with read-only switches. Some style
improvements were done too.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/commit/?id=91b796c9180b26cc22460c62e2fe3dfbafce4d95>
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/commit/?id=5fb52dfaed1fcd2dd40b4b93bcb5dd38bba32573>
- The website now advertises the use of Tails as a censorship
circumvention tool, too.
<
https://tails.boum.org/about/>
- A workaround to verify ISO integrity on other operating systems
was documented.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/commit/?id=91efa6597619e156fc764caece9a52c7f5c5624a>
- The manual USB installation documentation now recommends using `dd`
instead of `cat` (so that those who need it can easily prefix it
with `sudo`).
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/commit/?id=58c80f43dc48c610bc847d12400b610e8fb0adfc>
- A revised cold-boot attack documentation was drafted and proposed
for review.
<
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/mercedes508/tails/log/?h=doc/cold-boot-attack>
<
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-August/003427.html>
- The shiny new tails-support mailing-list was documented.
<
https://tails.boum.org/support/>
- The news page now has a form to subscribe to amnesia-news and
mentions Twitter.
<
https://tails.boum.org/news/>
On-going discussions
====================
- We further discussed carmie's proposals to improve the visibility of
links on top of the contribute page.
<
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-August/003367.html>
<
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-July/003339.html>
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/6165>
- Jacob Appelbaum started a discussion about Tahoe-LAFS, Tor and
Tails. It should now be clear what kind of work is needed to make
some integration possible.
<
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-August/003393.html>
- It was suggested to tweak the GnuPG configuration in various ways.
<
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-August/003468.html>
- We discussed how to handle divergence of bundled packages due to
point-releases.
<
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-August/003492.html>
Infrastructure
==============
- To make our infrastructure more reliable, we are still organizing to
get a system that will act as a fail-over for our main server.
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/6185>
- We better shared access to the round-robin DNS that gathers our HTTP
mirrors. (Many thanks to those who host the mirrors, by the way!)
- We created a bunch of sysadmin tickets as a step towards being able
to ask for help in this area first, and towards being able to
actually share the work with the volunteers that will show up once
we have sent our call for help. Stay tuned!
<
https://labs.riseup.net/code/projects/tails/issues?query_id=113>
Funding
=======
- The short-term funding project we have with sponsor Bravo is still
slowly going through the paperwork stage.
- The bounties program is moving forward (slower than we may have
hoped, but still).
- We keep working on a funding proposal to be sent to sponsor Foxtrot.
Cheers,
--
Tails folks
