In the same year, Der Spiegel published slides from an internal National Security Agency presentation dating to June 2012, in which the NSA deemed Tails on its own as a "major threat" to its mission and in conjunction with other privacy tools as "catastrophic".
A comment in XKeyscore's source code calls Tails "a comsec mechanism advocated by extremists on extremist forums". In 2014 Das Erste reported that the NSA's XKeyscore surveillance system sets threat definitions for people who search for Tails using a search engine or visit the Tails website. While shutting down by normal or emergency means, Tails overwrites most of the used RAM to avoid a cold boot attack. The user may choose to keep files or applications on his Tails drive in "persistent storage", which is not hidden and is detectable by forensic analysis. It runs in the computer's Random Access Memory (RAM) and does not write to a hard drive or other storage medium. For networking, it features the Tor Browser, instant messaging, email, file transmission and monitoring local network connections for security. It tries to force all connections to use Tor and blocks connection attempts outside Tor. It is pre-configured to use Tor, with multiple connection options for Tor.
Tails includes a unique variety of software that handles the encryption of files and internet transmissions, cryptographic signing and hashing, and other functions important to security. Other software from Debian can be installed at the user's behest. The system includes essential software for functions such as reading and editing documents, image editing, video watching and printing. Tails's pre-installed desktop environment is GNOME 3. įrom release 3.0, Tails requires a 64-bit processor to run. Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, and Barton Gellman have each said that Tails was an important tool they used in their work with National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Tails also received funding from the Open Technology Fund, Mozilla, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The Tor Project provided financial support for its development in the beginnings of the project. It is the next iteration of development on Incognito, a discontinued Gentoo-based Linux distribution. Tails was first released on 23 June 2009.