Tails report for December, 2020 [1]
IN MEMORIAM OF KARSTEN LOESING
We join the Tor project in mourning Karsten Loesing [2]. Our sincere
condolences to Karsten's family and colleagues.
Those of us who were lucky enough to cross Karsten's path remember him
as a very kind, thoughtful, and smart person.
Rest in peace, Karsten.
RELEASES
*
Tails 4.14 was released on December 15 [3].
*
Tails 4.15 is scheduled for January 26 [4].
The following changes were introduced in Tails 4.15:
*
Add support for the Ledger hardware wallets in _Electrum_. (#15353 [5])
*
Remove the _Unifont_ font. (!263 [6])
*
Fix Additional Software by updating the APT key for deb.torproject.org.
(#18042 [7])
*
Fix changing the administration password stored in the Persistent
Storage. (#18018 [8])
*
Fix opening the Persistent Storage of another Tails USB stick in the
_Files_ browser. (#18050 [9])
*
Restore automatically a _GnuPG_ public keyring from its backup when it
gets corrupt. (#17807 [10])
🎉 NEW CORE DEVELOPER 🎂
Today, we celebrate the arrival in our Foundations Team [11] of a new
member: boyska. His skills and experience in operating systems, software
development, and collective projects will:
*
Accelerate development of new features, user experience improvements,
and bug fixes.
*
Make our day-to-day maintenance work more sustainable.
This work has no visible impact most of the time, except that Tails is
still alive after more than a decade, and here to stay!
*
Decrease our reliance on a tiny number of key persons.
This is one important step we're taking, among others, towards making
Tails a healthier project.
> I'm boyska, a fellow who always loved computers. When I realized the profound social implications of technology, I tried to make my part: that's how I got involved with free software, security and hacking in general. A post-it note in my brain remembers me that computing should be fun, not scary.
Additionally, we would like to thank:
*
the thousands of people whose donation allowed us to fund this new
position
Please consider donating today [12] to fight surveillance and
censorship.
*
the dozens of people who applied to this job offer [13]
It's been truly heart-warming to see so many great applicants interested
in working with us.
Welcome, boyska! :)
CODE
*
We implemented a mechanism for adding a "Don't Show Again" button to
some notifications. We'll try it out in Tails 4.15 for the warning
displayed when starting Tails in a virtual machine; then we'll iterate
from there.
*
We finished porting our Python code to Python 3. Yeah!
*
We made plans for rewriting _Persistent Storage_ in Python, making it
compatible with Wayland, and redesigning its UX from scratch.
DOCUMENTATION AND WEBSITE
*
Started rewriting /doc/about/warning:
*
Samuel DiBella rewrote the section about contextual identities [14]
(#17882 [15])
*
We rewrote the sections about confirmation attacks and global
adversaries [16] (#17869 [17])
*
Added an FAQ about "Is it safe to use an older version of Tails? [18]"
(#18001 [19])
*
Improved our security [20] page and replaced "hole" by "vulnerability"
everywhere on our website, as per our style guide. (#18032 [21])
USER EXPERIENCE
*
Started analyzing the search queries on our website, following a
methodology by Susan Farrell [22]. (#11649 [23])
*
Started preparing the redesign of the Persistent Storage that we'll work
on in January. (#15572 [24])
*
Investigated what it would take to stop distributing ISO images:
* #18047 [25]: Users unintentionally install ISO to USB instead of the
.img
* #18054 [26]: Distribute USB images by default for all virtual
machines
* #18055 [27]: Stop distributing ISO images
*
Added some depth to the buttons on our website. (#15111 [28])
FUNDING
GRANTS
* Our proposal to the UXFund to work on a replacement for Tor Launcher
was approved buy scaled down by 20%.
DONATIONS
*
Received 57.8kEUR from 88 donations at CCT since the beginning of the
campaign.
It's 70% more donations, that's the important part, and 599% more money
thanks to a 50kEUR donation from some crypto trading company, that's the
big cherry on top of the cake!
*
Blogged about our achievements in 2020 [29].
SPONSORS
*
Renamed "partners" as "sponsors [30]" after DeepOnion listed Tails as
their partner on their website.
The word "partners" implies reciprocity and a deeper relationship, while
the word "sponsor" doesn't and is more accurate, honest, and common.
*
Got invited to the Lifetime Raffle [31] of ProtonMail.
OUTREACH
PAST EVENTS
* Tails and Tor were presented (among other tools) to journalism
students at Sciences Po Rennes [32] (Rennes, France) as part of their
digital safety lessons.
TRANSLATIONS
ALL THE WEBSITE
* fr: 79% (5378) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy
* es: 48% (3273) strings translated, 6% strings fuzzy
* it: 28% (1945) strings translated, 9% strings fuzzy
* de: 27% (1829) strings translated, 14% strings fuzzy
* fa: 20% (1359) strings translated, 12% strings fuzzy
* pt: 18% (1266) strings translated, 9% strings fuzzy
CORE PAGES OF THE WEBSITE [33]
* es: 82% (1741) strings translated, 6% strings fuzzy
* fr: 79% (1676) strings translated, 10% strings fuzzy
* it: 54% (1151) strings translated, 20% strings fuzzy
* de: 44% (935) strings translated, 24% strings fuzzy
* pt: 38% (818) strings translated, 14% strings fuzzy
* fa: 19% (407) strings translated, 15% strings fuzzy
CORE PAGES OF THE WEBSITE FOR LANGUAGES NOT ACTIVATED ON THE WEBSITE YET
* zh_TW: 21% (451) strings translated, 14% strings fuzzy
* zh: 10% (218) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy
* tr: 7% (155) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy
* ca: 7% (153) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy
* ru: 7% (152) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy
* pl: 7% (150) strings translated, 6% strings fuzzy
* ar: 7% (146) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy
* id: 5% (115) strings translated, 5% strings fuzzy
* sr_Latn: 4% (93) strings translated, 4% strings fuzzy
METRICS
* Tails has been started more than 978 192 times this month. This
makes 31 554 boots a day on average.
How do we know this? [34]
Links:
------
[1]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/news/report_2020_12.html
[2]
https://blog.torproject.org/in-memoriam-of-karsten-loesing
[3]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/news/version_4.14.html
[4]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/contribute/calendar.html
[5]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/15353
[6]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/merge_requests/263
[7]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18042
[8]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18018
[9]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18050
[10]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/17807
[11]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/contribute/working_together/roles/foundations_team.html
[12]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/donate.html
[13]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/jobs/Linux_generalist.html
[14]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/doc/about/warning.html#identities
[15]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/17882
[16]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/doc/about/warning.html#correlation
[17]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/17869
[18]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/support/faq.html#older-version
[19]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18001
[20]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/security.html
[21]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18032
[22]
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/search-log-analysis/
[23]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/11649
[24]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/15572
[25]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18047
[26]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18054
[27]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/18055
[28]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/15111
[29]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/news/achievements_in_2020.html
[30]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/sponsors.html
[31]
https://protonmail.com/blog/lifetime-account-auction-2020/
[32]
http://www.sciencespo-rennes.fr/en/
[33]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/contribute/l10n_tricks/core_po_files.txt
[34]
file:///home/amnesia/Persistent/Tor%20Browser/master/support/faq.html#boot-statistics