[[!meta  title="Tails report for November, 2016"]]

[[!toc levels=2]]

Releases
========

* [[Tails 2.7 was released on November 15|news/version_2.7]] (minor release).

* [[Tails 2.7.1 was released on November 30|news/version_2.7.1]] (minor release).

* Tails 2.9 is [[scheduled for December 13|contribute/calendar]].

The following changes were introduced in Tails 2.7:

  - Fix multi-architecture support in *Synaptic*. This should fix
    broken installations of additional packages from *Synaptic*.
    ([[!tails_ticket 11820]])

  - Set default spell checking language of *Icedove* to English instead of
    French. ([[!tails_ticket 11037]])

Code
====

New *Tails Greeter*
-------------------

After many months of development, the [[redesigned version of *Tails
Greeter* is ready to be tested|news/test_redesigned_Tails_Greeter]].

Tails based on Debian 9 (Stretch)
---------------------------------

We made lots of progress on porting Tails to Debian 9 (Stretch).
This work culminated with the
[[release of Tails 3.0~alpha1|news/test_3.0-alpha1]].

* Merged the devel Git branch, and upgraded to a current snapshot of
  the Debian archive.
* Switched userspace to 64-bit (x86_64).
* By running our [[manual test suite|contribute/release_process/test]]
  on Stretch-based ISO images and testing our entire
  [[documentation|doc]], we identified a few regressions and
  [[!tails_ticket 11916 desc="documentation that needs updating"]].
* [[!tails_ticket 11789 desc="GNOME with its default black theme"]]
* Fixed a long-standing issue with
  [[!tails_ticket 7018 desc="the firewall not being set up during early boot"]].
* Fixed the Greeter
  [[!tails_ticket 11694 desc="not switching to the Desktop VT upon login"]],
  and
  [[!tails_ticket 11919 desc="not displaying the More Options window properly"]].
* Test suite:
  - Fixed [[!tails_ticket 11698 desc="a bug in the debugging code"]].
  - Ported great numbers of test cases to Stretch, including the
    persistence, Tor enforcement, encryption, Evince and MAC spoofing ones.
* Verified that
  [[!tails_ticket 11812 desc="tails-security-check's CA pinning is repaired"]].
* Verified that MAC address spoofing works in various cases,
  including [[!tails_ticket 11943 desc="Wi-Fi connections"]] and
  existing persistent network connections created on Tails 2.x.
* Switch to
  [[!tails_ticket 11829 desc="using the aufs kernel module from Debian"]].
* Made progress on porting to GnuPG v2: [[!tails_ticket 11905]],
  [[!tails_ticket 11948]].
* Removed [[!tails_ticket 7687 desc="ekeyd"]] and
  [[!tails_ticket 11534 desc="obsolete udev rules"]].
* Fixed handling of `/etc/hosts`.
* Fixed issues in the [[revamped greeter|blueprint/greeter_revamp_UI/design_rationale_phase1/]] to have it included in next Jessie alpha ISO. A testing ISO [is available](https://nightly.tails.boum.org/build_Tails_ISO_feature-8230-greeter-revamp-phase1/lastSuccessful/archive/build-artifacts/). Among others, last changes include:
  - fix on-the-fly translation [[!tails_ticket 11947]] [[!tails_ticket 11957]]
  - update user visible strings [[!tails_ticket 11438]]
  - integrate latest icons [[!tails_ticket 11472]]

Reproducible ISO build
----------------------

We had an initial sprint about [[blueprint/reproducible_builds]].
We are very happy with the progress we've made: the tree that becomes
`filesystem.squashfs` is now almost fully reproducible; so is also the
tree that is the basis for automatic upgrades. Along the way, we've
contributed a number of patches to Debian and upstream projects.

* Make our PO files update reproducibly, by
  [[!tails_ticket 11967 desc="not updating them unless something other than POT-Creation-Date has changed"]].
* live-build:
  - Use xorriso, that honors the
    [SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH](https://reproducible-builds.org/specs/source-date-epoch/)
    variable, to build the ISO filesystem reproducibly.
  - Expose the `SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH` variable when running scripts
    inside the chroot.
  - Clamp mtimes to `SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH` in the chroot and
    binary filesystems.
  - Use `SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH` to populate `/.disk/info` timestamp.
  - Use `SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH` when templating syslinux templates.
* Made mksquashfs honor `SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH` for the filesystem
  creation date, and had it clamp mtimes to `SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH`.
* Incremental upgrade kits:
  - Made aufs white-outs reproducible.
  - Made aufs pseudo-links permanent, so that they are reproducible.
  - Passed `--sort=name --clamp-mtime --mtime=@$SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH`
    to tar.
* Made [[!tails_ticket 11966 desc="our web site build reproducibly"]]…
  and then discovered [[!tails_ticket 11987 desc="more bits"]] that
  are not generated in a deterministic way, which lead us to discover
  that our `cleanall` build option did not clean as well as it should
  ([[!tails_gitweb_commit 541bbe5fd3c1127232ce271041f9dddb94e3f5d7 desc="fix"]]).
* [Eliminated](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/plain/config/chroot_local-hooks/99-zzzzzz_reproducible-builds-post-processing?h=feature/5630-deterministic-builds)
  various causes for non-determinism, such as caches and other
  generated files.
* On the infrastructure side of things:
  - Vagrant boxes management: we came up with a new design that
    will be reflected on the blueprint shortly.
  - Experimented with using our Vagrant + libvirt build system
    on one of our Jenkins ISO builders, and started work towards
    migrating them all.

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

- Explain why it is [[impossible to connect to *GMail* from
  *Icedove*|doc/anonymous_internet/icedove#gmail]].

- spriver updated our documentation on [[shutdown|doc/first_steps/shutdown]]
  and [[*OpenPGP Applet*|doc/encryption_and_privacy/gpgapplet]] to 2.0.

- Chris Lamb fixed [a bunch of
  typos](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2016-November/011065.html).

User experience
===============

Infrastructure
==============

- The deployment of our mechanism for the [[distribution and activation of the
  revocation certificate of the Tails signing
  key|doc/about/openpgp_keys/signing_key_revocation]] has progressed a lot and
  it is now operational. Thanks to everybody who accepted being part of this!

* We [[finished deploying|contribute/reports/SponsorS/2015/2016_10]] our
  new infrastructure of download mirrors which allows for more mirrors,
  easier maintenance, and more flexibility in the future.

- Our test suite covers 213 scenarios, 4 more that in October.

Funding
=======

- We continued our donation campaign and wrote about [[what we do with our
  money|news/what_we_do_with_your_money]] and [[our plans for
  the coming years|news/our_plans_for_2017]].

- Our grant proposal for NLnet on porting Tails to Debian Stretch was rejected.

- Our grant proposal for ISC Project on a translation platform for our website was
  rejected.

Outreach
========

- Cristina Carnevali [presented Tails](http://erlug.linux.it/linuxday/2016/contrib/carnevali_tails.pdf)
  at Linux Day 2016 in Bologna, Italy.

- Tails was presented in the security track of the [Iberian hackmeeting
  in Firestone](http://sindominio.net/hackmeeting/index.php?title=2016), Donostia, Basque Country.

- gagz presented Tails at [Capitole du libre 2016](https://2016.capitoledulibre.org/), Toulouse, France.

Translation
===========

- All the website:

  - de: 57% (2880) strings translated, 4% strings fuzzy, 51% words translated
  - fa: 46% (2344) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy, 52% words translated
  - fr: 79% (3979) strings translated, 4% strings fuzzy, 78% words translated
  - it: 17% (885) strings translated, 2% strings fuzzy, 18% words translated
  - pt: 31% (1593) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy, 29% words translated

  Total original words: 50832

- [[Core pages of the website|contribute/l10n_tricks/core_po_files.txt]]:

  - de: 85% (1569) strings translated, 8% strings fuzzy, 85% words translated
  - fa: 39% (724) strings translated, 9% strings fuzzy, 40% words translated
  - fr: 90% (1657) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy, 91% words translated
  - it: 47% (871) strings translated, 6% strings fuzzy, 53% words translated
  - pt: 51% (947) strings translated, 12% strings fuzzy, 52% words translated

  Total original words: 16995

Metrics
=======

* Tails has been started more than 613099 times this month. This makes 20437 boots a day on average.
  It's the first time we're over 20000 boots a day!
* 14634 downloads of the OpenPGP signature of Tails ISO from our website.
* 110 bug reports were received through WhisperBack.
