Tails - portable operating system that protects against surveillance and censorship.

[Developer]

Avoid surveillance, censorship, advertising, and viruses

Tails uses the Tor network to protect your privacy online and help you avoid censorship. Enjoy the Internet like it should be.

Your secure computer anywhere

Shut down the computer and start on your Tails USB stick instead of starting on Windows, macOS, or Linux. Tails leaves no trace on the computer when shut down.

Digital security toolbox

Tails includes a selection of applications to work on sensitive documents and communicate securely. Everything in Tails is ready-to-use and has safe defaults.

Free Software

You can download Tails for free and independent security researchers can verify our work. Tails is based on Debian GNU/Linux.

https://tails.boum.org/about/index.en.html

https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html

[Developer]

Testing this and it seems to work pretty good. Two things kind of unique for my personal experience.

First the default screen resolution options do not fit my particular screen, but there is a fix for this I will share the link to.

And the Liberty Authors server is using extra security software called Imunify360. This may be the case with other webhosting and sites also. But when using tails it makes you go through the Google picture captcha to prove you are not a bot when trying to access with the TOR browser built into Tails.

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

[Developer]

OK, not going to work without a VPN. So the best method I think would be making a stand alone encrypted linux stick with VPN and the TOR browser installed.

I don't know, going to try and install free ProtonVPN on the tails stick later...

[Stratovarious]

Testing this and it seems to work pretty good. Two things kind of unique for my personal experience.

First the default screen resolution options do not fit my particular screen, but there is a fix for this I will share the link to.

And the Liberty Authors server is using extra security software called Imunify360. This may be the case with other webhosting and sites also. But when using tails it makes you go through the Google picture captcha to prove you are not a bot when trying to access with the TOR browser built into Tails.

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

Sounds amazing, but if this is a traceless system which sounds awesome, why to they need to partner
with the Google Cage Company, is google archiving our online activity, just seem strange, I'm sure
you already thought so too, but yeah, and we both loathe captcha... right (?) .
:shrugs:
The concept itself is very cool, to be sure.

[Developer]

Testing this and it seems to work pretty good. Two things kind of unique for my personal experience.

First the default screen resolution options do not fit my particular screen, but there is a fix for this I will share the link to.

And the Liberty Authors server is using extra security software called Imunify360. This may be the case with other webhosting and sites also. But when using tails it makes you go through the Google picture captcha to prove you are not a bot when trying to access with the TOR browser built into Tails.

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

Sounds amazing, but if this is a traceless system which sounds awesome, why to they need to partner
with the Google Cage Company, is google archiving our online activity, just seem strange, I'm sure
you already thought so too, but yeah, and we both loathe captcha... right (?) .
:shrugs:
The concept itself is very cool, to be sure.

Yes, and I agree. I think the best option is to create your own environment with an encrypted linux OS installed on a stick as stand alone and isolated. Then install the TOR browser on that. It would do the exact same thing.

[Stratovarious]

Testing this and it seems to work pretty good. Two things kind of unique for my personal experience.

First the default screen resolution options do not fit my particular screen, but there is a fix for this I will share the link to.

And the Liberty Authors server is using extra security software called Imunify360. This may be the case with other webhosting and sites also. But when using tails it makes you go through the Google picture captcha to prove you are not a bot when trying to access with the TOR browser built into Tails.

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

Sounds amazing, but if this is a traceless system which sounds awesome, why to they need to partner
with the Google Cage Company, is google archiving our online activity, just seem strange, I'm sure
you already thought so too, but yeah, and we both loathe captcha... right (?) .
:shrugs:
The concept itself is very cool, to be sure.

Yes, and I agree. I think the best option is to create your own environment with an encrypted linux OS installed on a stick as stand alone and isolated. Then install the TOR browser on that. It would do the exact same thing.

Unless you can work that bug out, getting rid of captcha, at least after the initial goround, but I wonder if
they aren't planting some kind of seed the very first ''prove to us you're not a bot'' ..

[Developer]

Testing this and it seems to work pretty good. Two things kind of unique for my personal experience.

First the default screen resolution options do not fit my particular screen, but there is a fix for this I will share the link to.

And the Liberty Authors server is using extra security software called Imunify360. This may be the case with other webhosting and sites also. But when using tails it makes you go through the Google picture captcha to prove you are not a bot when trying to access with the TOR browser built into Tails.

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

Sounds amazing, but if this is a traceless system which sounds awesome, why to they need to partner
with the Google Cage Company, is google archiving our online activity, just seem strange, I'm sure
you already thought so too, but yeah, and we both loathe captcha... right (?) .
:shrugs:
The concept itself is very cool, to be sure.

Ok, to make it clear... The google captcha is not part of the Tails experience or software. That is coming from the security of the website server security feature you are visiting with Tails. Tails cannot regulate or prevent that possibility, only the server host of the website can. And finding this on LA server access I do not like and going to ask them about.

[Stratovarious]

Testing this and it seems to work pretty good. Two things kind of unique for my personal experience.

First the default screen resolution options do not fit my particular screen, but there is a fix for this I will share the link to.

And the Liberty Authors server is using extra security software called Imunify360. This may be the case with other webhosting and sites also. But when using tails it makes you go through the Google picture captcha to prove you are not a bot when trying to access with the TOR browser built into Tails.

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

Sounds amazing, but if this is a traceless system which sounds awesome, why to they need to partner
with the Google Cage Company, is google archiving our online activity, just seem strange, I'm sure
you already thought so too, but yeah, and we both loathe captcha... right (?) .
:shrugs:
The concept itself is very cool, to be sure.

Ok, to make it clear... The google captcha is not part of the Tails experience or software. That is coming from the security of the website server security feature you are visiting with Tails. Tails cannot regulate or prevent that possibility, only the server host of the website can. And finding this on LA server access I do not like and going to ask them about.

Yeah, you know how this stuff works and is supposed to work, I don't, but get why Tails can only use a server
or whatever' this is that uses Captcha that makes them interface in 'any way' .
You don't need to explain why , I won't get it anyway, just throwing that out there., and
I trust your assessment.

[Clayton]

[quote=jradmin post_id=35413 time=1609248929 user_id=2]
And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.[/quote]

Bad actors use Tor to DoS websites they don't like. So the IPs of the Tor exit-nodes are all black-listed. It's annoying but an inevitable by-product of what Tor is...

[quote]Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.
[/quote]

The ISP can't block access to .onion sites because the navigation traffic for Tor is itself encrypted (the ISP cannot inspect your communications with the Tor network, they are encrypted). Theoretically, they can block your connection to Tor nodes but I'm not aware of any ISPs that are doing that. You need to be sure that the Tor browser has connected to the Tor network before attempting to access a .onion address, otherwise, it simply won't work. That is, your DNS (usually from your ISP) will say "I have no idea what '.onion' means" which will appear the same as them blocking it.

[Developer]

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Bad actors use Tor to DoS websites they don't like. So the IPs of the Tor exit-nodes are all black-listed. It's annoying but an inevitable by-product of what Tor is...

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

The ISP can't block access to .onion sites because the navigation traffic for Tor is itself encrypted (the ISP cannot inspect your communications with the Tor network, they are encrypted). Theoretically, they can block your connection to Tor nodes but I'm not aware of any ISPs that are doing that. You need to be sure that the Tor browser has connected to the Tor network before attempting to access a .onion address, otherwise, it simply won't work. That is, your DNS (usually from your ISP) will say "I have no idea what '.onion' means" which will appear the same as them blocking it.

Thank you, just checked and I am getting a onion routes list. meaning it is using the onion network, but every onion site I try to access is timing out. Even ones I checked to make sure they were online first through directories. And I am on a high speed connection?

[Developer]

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Bad actors use Tor to DoS websites they don't like. So the IPs of the Tor exit-nodes are all black-listed. It's annoying but an inevitable by-product of what Tor is...

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

The ISP can't block access to .onion sites because the navigation traffic for Tor is itself encrypted (the ISP cannot inspect your communications with the Tor network, they are encrypted). Theoretically, they can block your connection to Tor nodes but I'm not aware of any ISPs that are doing that. You need to be sure that the Tor browser has connected to the Tor network before attempting to access a .onion address, otherwise, it simply won't work. That is, your DNS (usually from your ISP) will say "I have no idea what '.onion' means" which will appear the same as them blocking it.

Could it be because I am tethering through my phone as a modem and the phone data service is filtered?

[Clayton]

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Bad actors use Tor to DoS websites they don't like. So the IPs of the Tor exit-nodes are all black-listed. It's annoying but an inevitable by-product of what Tor is...

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

The ISP can't block access to .onion sites because the navigation traffic for Tor is itself encrypted (the ISP cannot inspect your communications with the Tor network, they are encrypted). Theoretically, they can block your connection to Tor nodes but I'm not aware of any ISPs that are doing that. You need to be sure that the Tor browser has connected to the Tor network before attempting to access a .onion address, otherwise, it simply won't work. That is, your DNS (usually from your ISP) will say "I have no idea what '.onion' means" which will appear the same as them blocking it.

Could it be because I am tethering through my phone as a modem and the phone data service is filtered?

It's hard to say. If it works through VPN but not without VPN, then perhaps they are just jamming encrypted packets that they don't recognize (i.e. that aren't recognizably VPN traffic). The ISPs are control-freaks and the government is trying to control the Internet by imposing absurd legal liability on ISPs for user-activity in order to force ISPs to police network traffic. But they can't inspect the payload of encrypted packets, they can only bucket the packet itself. So, if they recognize the IP address of an encrypted packet as going to a known VPN gateway, perhaps they're allowing it to pass, otherwise, blocking it. That seems a little sketchy to me because every Mom & Pop joint is using VPN these days, so the ISP would have to have a map of pretty much the entire world, and keep it up-to-date. The other alternative is that they're jamming Tor packets by IP address but then why are you able to connect to the Tor network?

[Developer]

Bad actors use Tor to DoS websites they don't like. So the IPs of the Tor exit-nodes are all black-listed. It's annoying but an inevitable by-product of what Tor is...



The ISP can't block access to .onion sites because the navigation traffic for Tor is itself encrypted (the ISP cannot inspect your communications with the Tor network, they are encrypted). Theoretically, they can block your connection to Tor nodes but I'm not aware of any ISPs that are doing that. You need to be sure that the Tor browser has connected to the Tor network before attempting to access a .onion address, otherwise, it simply won't work. That is, your DNS (usually from your ISP) will say "I have no idea what '.onion' means" which will appear the same as them blocking it.

Could it be because I am tethering through my phone as a modem and the phone data service is filtered?

It's hard to say. If it works through VPN but not without VPN, then perhaps they are just jamming encrypted packets that they don't recognize (i.e. that aren't recognizably VPN traffic). The ISPs are control-freaks and the government is trying to control the Internet by imposing absurd legal liability on ISPs for user-activity in order to force ISPs to police network traffic. But they can't inspect the payload of encrypted packets, they can only bucket the packet itself. So, if they recognize the IP address of an encrypted packet as going to a known VPN gateway, perhaps they're allowing it to pass, otherwise, blocking it. That seems a little sketchy to me because every Mom & Pop joint is using VPN these days, so the ISP would have to have a map of pretty much the entire world, and keep it up-to-date. The other alternative is that they're jamming Tor packets by IP address but then why are you able to connect to the Tor network?

I was thinking the same. I'm not using Tails with a VPN because it recommends not to with the TOR. I don't know, I'll have to keep playing with it. lol

I am digging in permissions right now... I am hoping that isn't one of those phpBB "all or nothing" situations I run into all the time.

[Developer]

Testing this and it seems to work pretty good. Two things kind of unique for my personal experience.

First the default screen resolution options do not fit my particular screen, but there is a fix for this I will share the link to.

And the Liberty Authors server is using extra security software called Imunify360. This may be the case with other webhosting and sites also. But when using tails it makes you go through the Google picture captcha to prove you are not a bot when trying to access with the TOR browser built into Tails.

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

Sounds amazing, but if this is a traceless system which sounds awesome, why to they need to partner
with the Google Cage Company, is google archiving our online activity, just seem strange, I'm sure
you already thought so too, but yeah, and we both loathe captcha... right (?) .
:shrugs:
The concept itself is very cool, to be sure.

The stick I am making for you will be set up this way by default when you get it. It will be a completely isolated stand alone system that you can save to etc. Basically another whole PC of it's own that doesn't affect your machine at all when running from it. :)

[Stratovarious]

Testing this and it seems to work pretty good. Two things kind of unique for my personal experience.

First the default screen resolution options do not fit my particular screen, but there is a fix for this I will share the link to.

And the Liberty Authors server is using extra security software called Imunify360. This may be the case with other webhosting and sites also. But when using tails it makes you go through the Google picture captcha to prove you are not a bot when trying to access with the TOR browser built into Tails.

And as nodes and IP addresses change during a session it makes you do it all over again. Still trying to figure out how to fix this issue because it is a pain. But it is not the Tails or the TOR, it is the target servers causing this.

Well, my carrier AT&T will not allow access to the onion network at all. So there you go folks, That is how they will keep us from getting away from the spying and control. Just block access to anything that is not indexed and tracked right at the IP connection. Net neutrality prevented this direct access censorship. I knew it was going to happen, no one would listen.

Sounds amazing, but if this is a traceless system which sounds awesome, why to they need to partner
with the Google Cage Company, is google archiving our online activity, just seem strange, I'm sure
you already thought so too, but yeah, and we both loathe captcha... right (?) .
:shrugs:
The concept itself is very cool, to be sure.

The stick I am making for you will be set up this way by default when you get it. It will be a completely isolated stand alone system that you can save to etc. Basically another whole PC of it's own that doesn't affect your machine at all when running from it. :)

Super cool, ..and I'm not worried about that captcha thing if for some reason it is necessary, I just
had that incompetent , tedious garbage like everyone else..

[Developer]

Sounds amazing, but if this is a traceless system which sounds awesome, why to they need to partner
with the Google Cage Company, is google archiving our online activity, just seem strange, I'm sure
you already thought so too, but yeah, and we both loathe captcha... right (?) .
:shrugs:
The concept itself is very cool, to be sure.

The stick I am making for you will be set up this way by default when you get it. It will be a completely isolated stand alone system that you can save to etc. Basically another whole PC of it's own that doesn't affect your machine at all when running from it. :)

Super cool, ..and I'm not worried about that captcha thing if for some reason it is necessary, I just
had that incompetent , tedious garbage like everyone else..

That captcha is here on LA server. A lot of other sites I went to worked fine with it. I didn't try RPF though, but I can bet having their own server rather than hosting they do not have the imunity360 server program installed. I am going to play with it again in a few but will check RPF just for giggles to know or not.

[Developer]

Sounds amazing, but if this is a traceless system which sounds awesome, why to they need to partner
with the Google Cage Company, is google archiving our online activity, just seem strange, I'm sure
you already thought so too, but yeah, and we both loathe captcha... right (?) .
:shrugs:
The concept itself is very cool, to be sure.

The stick I am making for you will be set up this way by default when you get it. It will be a completely isolated stand alone system that you can save to etc. Basically another whole PC of it's own that doesn't affect your machine at all when running from it. :)

Super cool, ..and I'm not worried about that captcha thing if for some reason it is necessary, I just
had that incompetent , tedious garbage like everyone else..

Another important note... I was using the TOR browser, so if you use any normal browser you are not going to get that captcha stuff. It's a TOR browser thing like Clayton pointed out. You won't be using TOR unless you want to download it to the stick as an optional browser. :)

[Stratovarious]

The stick I am making for you will be set up this way by default when you get it. It will be a completely isolated stand alone system that you can save to etc. Basically another whole PC of it's own that doesn't affect your machine at all when running from it. :)

Super cool, ..and I'm not worried about that captcha thing if for some reason it is necessary, I just
had that incompetent , tedious garbage like everyone else..

Another important note... I was using the TOR browser, so if you use any normal browser you are not going to get that captcha stuff. It's a TOR browser thing like Clayton pointed out. You won't be using TOR unless you want to download it to the stick as an optional browser. :)

Ok, thanks..

[helmuth_hubener]

The internet is now largely unusable with TOR, thanks to Cloudflare & Co. No [mention]Clayton[/mention], they do not have to capcha-torture-block as hard as they do, that is a policy decision they've made a year ago or something due to basically being anti-TOR. It's a real issue, *in theory*, that TOR could become a DDOS vector of any significance whatsoever, but it currently is not and yet Cloudflare and baby Cloudflares are being awfully... let us say "proactive."

[mention]jradmin[/mention], hope it's a Slackware-based Linux you're making for Strat. And that's very nice of you, by the way.

Are y'all starting to see why the ultimate solution to all these messes is Urbit? We all need our own personal server. A server that we *OWN*. To own it, it must be *SIMPLE*.

So many issues can be solved with such a system, many of them pretty much unsolvable otherwise.

In this case, the TOR thing, you could set up an Urbit server on an Amazon droplet and use it like a VPN. Already there you have good VPN-level privacy. But now have a hundred of your friends do likewise, and with some relatively small amount of coding you can scramble the traffic between all hundred friends and now you have a small hundred-exit-node TOR system with a whole lot less effort and code than the original TOR took.

And no one's going to blacklist and captcha-block all of Amazon's web services customers. And no one's even going to think of that anyway, because you and your friends are all good actors, none of you are ever spamming or DDOSing, and so you won't even pop up on anyone's radar screen.

[Clayton]

In general, I think most privacy goals for a "liberty-minded individual" in the US can be achieved with a VPN and a solid Linux distro (meaning, something that is preferably "bloat-free"). TAILS is a bit overkill and it was designed for use-cases that most people simply don't need to deal with. For example, if you're an intelligence agent in Ukraine working against Russian influence there (not promoting this, just giving an example), TAILS/Tor just might save you from the Ukrainian intelligence services. The goal is plausible deniability, i.e. being able to convincingly explain that you really are just a "nature photographer" or whatever it is you're posing as. So you want your electronics to be "clean" when inspected. That's an extremely high bar to jump and very few people in the world need to work at that level.