What you will find here and where else to look at

Below we define some terms that are used in a somewhat or 100% special meaning within the Tails community.

For other terms, use The Jargon Lexicon (apt install dict-jargon), V.E.R.A. (apt install dict-vera), the Wiktionary and Wikipedia.

Feel free to suggest additions or improvements to this page.

The words

  • DSA: Debian Security Advisory. See https://security.debian.org for already issued advisories.

  • freeze:

    • a late stabilization period of time in the Tails release schedule, when no new changes are merged anymore into the Git branch used to prepare the next release of Tails but fixes for serious bug and security issues;

    • the beginning of the said phase.

  • Help desk (formerly: Front desk): see the definition of this shifting role

  • Welcome Screen: the startup menu, aka tails-greeter

  • IUK: Incremental Upgrade Kit, see upgrades

  • known issues: issues that we are aware of and don't need being reported again, see known issues

  • MAT: see Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit

  • Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit: tool to clean metadata from plenty of document formats, see MAT's website

  • monthly reports: published in the news once a month

  • Persistent Storage (aka tps as abbreviation for Tails Persistent Storage): the opt-in feature that allows storing data and configuration across Tails sessions in an encrypted partition, see persistence

  • Release manager: see the definition of this shifting role

  • RM: see Release Manager

  • Trusted reproducer: the person verifying reproducibility of released images

  • TR: see Trusted reproducer

  • WB: see WhisperBack.

  • WhisperBack: see 3.5 Feedback in the design document.