2023-09-08, 19:45–20:45 (Europe/Berlin), Tesla
Tails, The Amnesico Incognito Live System https://tails.net/
Introduction to the Tails live operating system. Amnesico: in that it can be used without saving any data from the current session; Incognito: automatically uses connections to the Internet via Tor, a popular anonymized network; Live System: fits on a USB stick and can be used on different computers without leaving a trace on the hardware itself.
The most famous case of its use, was in 2013 i.e. journalist Laura Poitras used it to establish communications with Edward Snowden that led to the publication of important documents documenting illegal activities of the American NSA, National Security Agency. Since then this Debian-based Linux distribution has been under continuous development and maintenance, during the talk we will see together the advanced tools that are inside and 3 demos based on use cases. Tails' current usage of 750,346 times in June 2023. This is a daily average of more than 25,012 boots.
Tails is a Debian-based live Operative System that protects against surveillance and censorship.
Tails stay in a USB key and when you start on a PC uses the Tor network to protect your privacy online. Enjoy the Internet like it should be.
Tor prevents someone watching your Internet connection from learning what you are doing on the Internet.
You can avoid censorship because it is impossible for a censor to know which websites you are visiting.
If connecting to Tor is blocked or dangerous to use from where you are, for example in some countries with heavy censorship, you can use bridges to hide that you are connected to the Tor network.
Tails includes a selection of applications to work on sensitive documents and communicate securely.
All the applications are ready-to-use and are configured with safe defaults to prevent common mistakes.
Tails includes:
Tor Browser with uBlock, a secure browser and an ad-blocker
Thunderbird, for encrypted emails
KeePassXC, to create and store strong passwords
LibreOffice, an office suite
OnionShare, to share files over Tor
Metadata Cleaner, to remove metadata from files
and many more!
To prevent mistakes:
Applications are blocked automatically if they try to connect to the Internet without Tor.
Everything in the Persistent Storage is encrypted automatically.
Tails does not write anything to the hard disk. All the memory is deleted when shutting down.
We will see 3 demos of use cases:
- Amnesic mode: navigate with Tor in a not writable session
- Using Tails with Persistence, keep private some documents in an encrypted storage.
- Using Tails with Persistence, creating PGP keys with Kleopatra for team use of Passwordstore
has been part of the Tails documentation translation team since 2016, contributing to the spread of consciousness about rights in the use of the Internet and digital self-defense workshops, both about avoiding tracking by GAFAMs (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) and about self-defense of bloggers, journalists, doctors, lawyers, and people active in human rights advocacy or in conflict zones.