[tor-reports] Tails report for January, 2013

[Tails folks]

Hi,

here is Tails report for January, 2013.

Releases
========

Tails 0.16 was released on January 11th:
<https://tails.boum.org/news/version_0.16/>

The Tails 0.17 release is scheduled for late February. Back on tracks
with the 6-weeks release cycle we wanted to try, finally!
<https://tails.boum.org/contribute/release_schedule/>

People
======

Tails has been started and successfully connected to the Tor network
around 100 865 times in January. That makes a boot every 27 seconds on
average. (This number is an approximation from the requests made for
the security announcements feed. The later is retrieved by Tails after
being connected to Tor to eventually encourage users to update.)

We received 24 reports through WhisperBack.

The forum activity has been a bit lower, but still quite high:
874 messages, 140 signed by Tails.

Code
====

Our "Iceweasel with Torbrowser patches" packages have been rebased
on Iceweasel 17: <https://tails.boum.org/todo/torbrowser_17/>.
Many thanks to Mike Perry for his support along the way!

Alessandro Grassi is still leading work on integrating Minitube
(<https://tails.boum.org/todo/minitube/>) in Tails. The Debian part
was fixed for Wheezy (<http://bugs.debian.org/699603>). Jacob Appelbaum has
volunteered (<https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/8064>) to
audit Minitube anonymity for us (thanks a bunch!), and Alessandro has
started this audit
(<https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-January/002537.html>).

The persistence device search is now similar to the live-boot
one:
<http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/live-persist_guess_removable>

Some preliminary work was done to make memory wipe faster on shutdown:
<http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/faster_sdmem_on_shutdown>

A branch fixed a configuration bug that disabled the Torbrowser
protection against listing available fonts:
<http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/do_not_allow_listing_fonts>
This was no regression.

The Seahorse GnuPG agent was replaced with the regular
gnupg-agent to fix a long standing bug with Claws Mail. This adds
support for OpenPGP smartcards as a bonus:
<http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/regular-gnupg-agent> 

Our Icedove patches were rebased against the 10.x series, and test
packages were uploaded:
<https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-January/002522.html>.
We're still not there yet but this, added to TorBirdy soon arriving
into Debian, is a significant step towards replacing Claws Mail with
Icedove: <https://tails.boum.org/todo/Return_of_Icedove__63__/>.

It's now possible to build a Tails image based on Debian Wheezy.
There's still quite some work:
<https://tails.boum.org/todo/Wheezy/>
<https://tails.boum.org/todo/tails-greeter_vs._Wheezy/>

A branch that switches I2P to hidden mode is ready:
<http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/i2p_hidden_mode>

The buggy default Iceweasel spelling language was fixed:
<http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/fix_default_iceweasel_spelling_language>

The next Tails ISO should be a bit smaller:
<http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/remove_apt_local_cache>
... but don't get used to it.

Work was done to install recent Intel and AMD microcode:
<http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/recent-microcode>

Quite some time was spent to help make Debian Wheezy an awesome
platform to use and built Tails upon.

Documentation and website
=========================

Some localization tricks were published:
<https://tails.boum.org/contribute/l10n_tricks/>

Tails accessibility features were documented:
<https://tails.boum.org/doc/first_steps/accessibility>

It has been explained what one may expect from the Tails fingerprint:
<https://tails.boum.org/doc/about/fingerprint/>

A script to check our PO files quality was written:
<https://tails.boum.org/contribute/l10n_tricks/check_po.sh>

On-going discussions
====================

We are discussing how the browser homepage should be like:
<https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-January/002502.html>

It's likely that some anonymity-oriented distributions share a common
username and hostname in the future:
<https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-January/002457.html>.

We are discussing with upstream how to adapt TorBirdy for Tails'
needs:
<https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-January/002523.html>.

We're not sure whether it's worth keeping the Tails section in the
Applications menu:
<https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-January/002511.html>.

It's still not totally clear what should be the defaults regarding MAC
address changing:
<https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2013-January/002495.html>.

Funding
=======

We have filed a grant application with Sponsor Bravo.

Our upcoming bounties program is being organized.

Cheers!
-- 
Tails folks