Tails 2.4 is out
blog.torproject.org
blog.torproject.org
It's not too hard[2].
0: https://www.whonix.org
1: https://www.qubes-os.org
2: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/whonix/installMore importantly, qubes is far superior to anything else for day to day security. You can do your banking in one isolated domain, your "let's download a thousand unverified dependencies from strangers" development on another, your internet browsing in a third, you can create domains with no internet connectivity to store your private files, and it's a lot easier than trying to juggle VMs yourself. A side benefit for the people who never close tabs is that qubes never becomes unresponsive due to running low on memory.
If you really need to not have your ID leaked, like the UAE recently going after dissidents with state malware, you'd want to use something like Subgraph with a seperate firewall/NAT internal address as insurance (pref running OpenWRT or a BSD not the default proprietary lighthttp server 'admin portal' firmware running with full privs).
Security issues fixed and announced a month ago are only just now available for TAILS users. https://tails.boum.org/security/Numerous_security_holes_in_2...
TAILS still doesn't ship with a grsecurity-hardened kernel.
These might not be big deals if TAILS wasn't designed specifically for high risk users. Maybe they need more funding and open source love?
Does anyone mind chiming in with a succinct description of what Tails is and it's likely use cases, or a link to an official page that does so?
It gained some additional fame because Snowden used it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tails_(operating_system)#Histo...
Obviously I could have searched for it, but part of the reason for my comment was that the update was posted to, and this submissions was linked to, is blog.torproject.org and there is startlingly little information about what Tails actually is on that site. Is it too much to ask that when I click the "about" link above the blog entry with the Tails changelog that they actually mention Tails at some point?
I agree that's the constructive end point (and at your suggestion, I will do so), I was soliciting information first (hopefully with more details from users about where they found it was actually useful), rather than resorting to Google and eventually site marketing copy. If there was some reason for this (such as this not being the primary site for release notes about Tails, but a secondary channel), then I wouldn't necessarily want to bother the admins about it, or I may word it differently, depending.
> I guess they don't expect people to land on the page without knowing just a little bit about Tails.
That may be a valid assumption, but I think if your purpose is to disseminate free software for a cause, and people are reaching the release notes without much prior information (such as when they are linked here) and there's little or no information on the site about that software without multiple steps, then you've failed in some small way at a fundamental level.
Clicking "About Tor" at the top takes you to an about page at a different (sub)domain, and the root of that has information about tails. Or going to Google. Many of the links in the release notes are to tails.boum.org, but some subsection for downloads or upgrade instructions. You again have to decide to go to the root of the domain for more info. For an example of where I think this is done well, see the Rakudo Star release announcements[1]. Even if you have no idea what it is (which is probably likely), the first paragraph should give you enough information to know relatively well what this is about, and there's a few more paragraphs expanding on details specific to the project or release. Then it goes on to explain the specific changes (with less detail than given for Tails, admittedly).
1: http://rakudo.org/2016/02/03/announce-rakudo-star-release-20...