SNCA:Tails

>Though maybe you were looking for the Sonic the Hedgehog character?

Tails, or The Amnesic Incognito Live System, is a Linux distribution that routes all connections through Tor. It is designed to be booted from a USB stick on any computer and never writes to the computer's internal hard drive unless the user makes it. It runs entirely in memory, so all data is wiped when the system is shut down. It is the most secure way to connect to the Tor network, but it is probably overkill for everyday use.

History

Tails was first released on June 23, 2009 as "Amnesia." It was funded by several different organizations including Mozilla, the Open Technology Fund, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and the Tor Project itself. In 2024, the Tails project officially merged with the Tor Project.

Features

Tails runs entirely off of a bootable USB stick. It is designed to be bootable on any x86_64 machine. All network connection is done through the Tor network, enabling anonymity and allowing users to access the Dark Web. It includes software such as the Tor Browser and OnionShare. Nothing you do while running Tails will affect the computer's main operating system unless you mount the main hard drive. All data is cleared when the system shuts down because it runs in RAM. The RAM is also overwritten during the shutdown process as an extra safeguard against cold boot attacks.

Tails allows you to create "persistent storage," which is an encrypted partition on the boot USB. Persistent storage can store files as well as Tor Browser bookmarks and a list of packages to install upon booting.

Should I use Tails?

If you live in a non-authoritarian country and are only accessing the Dark Web casually, Tails is probably not necessary. If you live in a country with a lot of surveillance or you are trying to be as anonymous as you can possibly be, it is probably a good idea to use Tails.

Advantages

• Some sites have OS fingerprinting. Tails prevents this from being used to deanonymize you.
• Your main OS may have spyware on it that you don't know about.
• If you accidentally download malware from the Dark Web, it won't infect your main OS.
• Having Tor installed on your computer looks suspicious, but nobody will bat an eye at an ordinary-looking USB stick.

Disadvantages

• You will not have access to your regular files.
• You will probably go a while between uses of Tails, meaning that it will have a lot of updates to install, which takes a long time over Tor.
• If anyone discovers that the USB stick is a Tails boot disk, it will look even more suspicious than having Tor installed on your computer.
• Restarting your computer and booting up Tails takes way longer than just opening the Tor Browser and connecting to the network.

Snopes

Tails is part of a series on
Computing

>I'm in.

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