[Tails-dev] testing squashfs-tools 4.3

2015-07-13 Thread Romeo Papa
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

...---...

Subject: testing squashfs-tools 4.3
To: tails-dev@boum.org

Hello all,

* I've set up an old computer in my house to act as a Tails builder. I can't
  afford to make much more than a single-core 1GB of RAM VM.
* Learning about what SquashFS was, I had a look at the documentation. Somehow
  found out that squashfs-tools 4.3 has been released since 2014-05-12
  (http://sourceforge.net/projects/squashfs/files/squashfs/)
* Here is the changelog:
  http://sourceforge.net/p/squashfs/code/ci/master/tree/CHANGES
* We can see it mentions that some new gzip compression options were added to
  this version. We can now use a lower compression level, which would supposedly
  allow us to build faster testing ISOs.
* We can also see experimental support for LZ4 which is supposed the king of
  all the decompression speedsters.

Debian packages are at 1:4.2 and there is no sign of a 4.3 at sid.

I went a made a 4.3 package by combining the src for squashfs-tools 4.3 and
what I found in squashfs-tools_4.2+20130409-2.debian.tar.xz, made a bogus entry
in changelog, and activated LZ4 in the makefile.

I've got my own custom deb mirror for building my custom version of Tails, so
it was fairly easy to outstage the 4.2 version that you are all currently using.

Here are some results:

BASELINE: XZ currently used in STABLE
- -comp xz -Xbcj x86 -b 1024K -Xdict-size 1024K:
real81m43.904s (4903.904s)
user54m10.363s (3250.363s)
sys 9m24.107s
The ISO is 970584064 bytes large.

BASELINE: Gzip vanilla currently used in TESTING
- -comp gzip:
The ISO is 1291370496 bytes large.
real44m40.244s 2680.244
user14m16.910s
sys 8m18.031s

TEST1: GZip with the lowest compression setting
- -comp gzip -Xcompression-level 1
The ISO is 1412929536 bytes large.
real38m4.922s 2284.922
user8m41.441s
sys 6m59.390s

TEST2 LZ4 vanilla
- -comp lz4
The ISO is 1801336832 bytes large.
real38m18.538s
user7m51.701s
sys 6m44.649s

TEST3 LZ4 High Compression
- -comp lz4 -Xhc
The ISO is 1529903104 bytes large.
real37m59.400s
user8m57.886s
sys 7m22.332s

Conclusions:
* The new 4.3 version appears to allow for faster test builds when using GZIP
  with the lowest compression setting.
* Remarkably, it appears that LZ4 High compression is faster than LZ4 vanilla,
  and even slightly faster than GZIP with the lowest compression setting. Could
  LZ4 -Xhc become the new favoured 'quick-build' compression setting for the
  future?

Final words:
* Would you prefer to wait for Debian to upstream the squashfs-tools 4.3
  or would you be willing to distribute a custom build from the tails deb repo?
  I could submit the files I used to build squashfs-tools 4.3.

PS: mksquashfs 4.3 also has a '-progress' argument you can pass it, which
is supposed to give you a nice progress bar so you can see at what point of
the compression you currently are, but sadly I haven't seen it work as
advertised.

Take care!

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[Tails-dev] TAILS build system with Vagrant 1.7.3

2015-07-13 Thread Adam Burns
Got Vagrant 1.7.3 to inter-operate with the current TAILS Rakefile by
adding explicit paths for some extra require commands. This likely is
not needed once ruby/rake system paths for require commands are set
correctly (I'm a ruby/rake n00b).

The Vagrant/VirtualBox shell provisioning of the base box
'tails-builder-20141201' currently errors with the following packages
not found.

P: Begin installing packages...
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Package hopenpgp-tools is not available, but is referred to by another
package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

Package keyringer is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

Package linux-image-3.16.0-4-586 is not available, but is referred to by
another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

Package linux-image-3.16.0-4-amd64 is not available, but is referred to
by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'linux-image-3.16.0-4-586' has no installation candidate
E: Package 'linux-image-3.16.0-4-amd64' has no installation candidate
E: Package 'hopenpgp-tools' has no installation candidate
E: Package 'keyringer' has no installation candidate
P: Begin unmounting filesystems...

real4m42.505s
user2m6.284s
sys 0m33.978s
+ RET=123
+ '[' -e binary.iso ']'
+ fatal 'lb build failed (1).'
+ echo 'lb build failed (1).'
lb build failed (1).
+ exit 1

Not sure what am I missing here?

Thanks for any pointers/tips!



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Re: [Tails-dev] Please support VPN for Tails. Any workaround for now?

2015-07-13 Thread Dr. Killswitch, D.V.M.

intrigeri,

OK, I get it, but understand on another level how absolutely maddening
this is.

Tor has been under fire for being 'government funded', it's gotten beyond
ugly, particularly for Andrea Shepherd. There has been some talk of a
blockchain based method for relays/exits to get paid for the traffic they
handle, but this is likely years away, if it happens at all, and that
doesn't do much to support the developers. I2P is smaller, weirder, and it
didn't make such appeals, now some needed stuff, like the C++ version of
the system, are finally getting attention.

The three credible adversary resistant computing systems - namely TAILS,
Whonix, and Qubes, are all in the "have contributors, need donors" mode of
operation. I don't see any signs of the free software/get paid providing
services model that other projects have successfully followed. What I do
see is stuff like Subgraph - slick branding, slick marketing, some
recognizable folks working on it, but nothing that can be downloaded and
used. Looks to me like they will take the best of the three actual
projects I mentioned above, whomever is funding it will make out like the
proverbial bandit, and you guys don't even get a thank you from that
process.


What you have said has been the universal response, and I think our
response is likely to be a "pick which project you want to donate to" on
the token sales page, which puts an end to any complaints about commercial
interests, while actually supporting valuable projects.



  -killswitch



On Mon, July 13, 2015 10:55 am, intrigeri wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> Dr. Killswitch, D.V.M. wrote (12 Jul 2015 21:25:06 GMT) :
>
>> Cryptostorm provides [...]
>>
>
> To me, this looks dangerously like commercial advertisement, which has
> nothing to do on this mailing-list. Please be a bit more cautious about not
> crossing this line in the future. Thanks!
>
> Cheers,
> --
> intrigeri ___
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>
>


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[Tails-dev] Sprints for Tails/Jessie

2015-07-13 Thread intrigeri
Hi,

I plan to focus on porting Tails to Debian Jessie for a couple weeks
in November. Tentative dates:

 * November 9-13
 * November 16-20

If you want to join the fun, let me know. If you're interested in
having a face-to-face sprint to work on this in November, let me know.
If these dates don't work for you, let me know.

Meta: I'm planning this far in advance so that 1. this task doesn't
permanently stick in my head as a painful "OMG that's something
I should make progress on every time I have a spare hour, otherwise
I'll be late"; 2. other people can more easily join this effort; 3.
some people know in advance when I *won't* be available for
other matters.

Cheers,
-- 
intrigeri
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[Tails-dev] Call for help: important stuff we have to do, that lack people

2015-07-13 Thread intrigeri
Hi,

it's often the case that I take care of the unexpected research/code
tasks that pop up on our plate, that some of us feel that we (as
a project) absolutely have to deal with. Of course it's less
simplistic, and sometimes other people do take care of those, and very
often I don't take care of it but instead add it to my backlog and
fail to address the issue effectively. I need to escape this
situation, because it harms me, the project, and much more.

So here's a call for help and volunteers. Here are some tasks that
I would very happily see someone else (and ideally, small teams) take
over:

 * #8415 "Migrate from aufs to overlayfs": until this is done, we're stuck
   with Jessie's Linux 3.16 kernel
 * #7675 "Persist entropy pool seeds"
 * #7642 "Investigate whether we should ship /var/lib/urandom/random-seed"
 * #5650 "rngd"
 * #7100 "Decide what to do with machine-id"
 * some bugs in the ikiwiki 'po' plugin, and some missing feature in
   other areas of ikiwiki — ask me for details if you want to hack
   Perl code

In most cases, it's an option to reconsider the urgency of the task,
and another way to help me is to explain why it's not so critical.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
-- 
intrigeri
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Re: [Tails-dev] Hacking Team looking at Tails

2015-07-13 Thread intrigeri
Peter N. Glaskowsky wrote (13 Jul 2015 08:29:02 GMT) :
> I can’t think of any obvious reason this shouldn’t be detectable. Attach a 
> suspect
> USB stick, do not mount it, and compute secure hashes of the partitions.

> If the Tails installer doesn’t reliably create consistent
> partitions, that’s something to consider fixing, if it can be fixed.

Jake started working on this (modulo he started with a mounted system
partition, which is a good first step IMO) a year ago. Some technical
challenges are left to be addressed, though:

  https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/7496

Needless to say: help is welcome.

Cheers,
-- 
intrigeri
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Re: [Tails-dev] Hacking Team looking at Tails

2015-07-13 Thread Peter N. Glaskowsky
I can’t think of any obvious reason this shouldn’t be detectable. Attach a 
suspect USB stick, do not mount it, and compute secure hashes of the partitions.

If the Tails installer doesn’t reliably create consistent partitions, that’s 
something to consider fixing, if it can be fixed.

Even then, we could use an emulator to walk through the boot process on the 
suspect USB stick and see if any code gets executed that isn’t part of Tails.

.png

> On Jul 13, 2015, at 1:24 AM, intrigeri  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> [redirecting this discussion to tails-dev@boum.org, which is more
> suitable for this discussion => please drop tor-talk@ from the list of
> recipients when replying -- thanks!]
> 
> I wrote (12 Jul 2015 13:06:15 GMT) :
>> https://wikileaks.org/hackingteam/emails/emailid/25607#efmBTaBTh
> 
>> Below research points remain outstanding ... 
> 
>> VECTORS · Offline: [...]
> 
>> by translate.google.com but obviously not precise but concerning nonetheless.
> 
> I got a translation made by a native speaker who's skilled in this
> area, quoting it below with my notes+todo inline.
> 
> $native_speaker wrote:
>> [EN] Below the feature that will be deployed for RCS10. The release is
>> expected for [... not sure what does it means ...] (October)
> 
>> VECTORS:
> 
>> Offline:
>> o   Infection of bootable usb keys from UEFI (Antonio)$ The infected usb
>>key will drop (release) a scout itself.
> 
> This seams to mean that a corrupted UEFI firmware would modify a Tails
> device plugged in the machine to infect it. To me it looks like it's
> part of "Tails can't protect against compromised hardware", modulo
> nitpicking wrt. whether firmware is software (which is correct
> strictly speaking), or a mere part of the computer hardware (which is
> also correct, from the PoV of a Tails system, as it's pre-existing to
> Tails starting). We have WIP to clarify our documentation in
> this respect.
> 
>> o   Infecting USB device which appears to be a bootable disk (Antonio +
>>Giovanni)§ It will drop (release) the scout, then it will run
>>a wipe.
> 
> Seems to be the same, but from a running and already infected
> non-Tails OS, when a Tails USB stick is plugged in it. That's more
> concerning. We should check if we're communicating clearly enough
> that:
> 
> * the OS used to install or upgrade a Tails device can corrupt it
> * plugging one's Tails device in an untrusted OS is dangerous
> 
>> o   Infection of Tails USB (Antonio)$ The infection will occur at runtime
> 
> This seems to mean an running Tails infecting its boot device.
> Totally unclear if they had any remote idea of how to implement that,
> back then. Not much we can do about it that is not on our hardening
> milestone already, I guess.
> 
>> o   New NTFS driver for UEFI infection (Antonio)
>> o   Persistent infection also on OSX and signed UEFI (Antonio)
> 
>> Network Injection:
>> o   New set of external antennas for the TNI (Andrea)
>> o   Creation o a mini-TNI (Andrea)$ transportable by a drone, without
>> any melting constraints
>> o   Creation of a micro-TNI (Andrea)$ HW of a mobile $ It will have a
>> subset of the functionality
> 
> Cheers,
> --
> intrigeri
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Re: [Tails-dev] Hacking Team looking at Tails

2015-07-13 Thread intrigeri
Hi,

[redirecting this discussion to tails-dev@boum.org, which is more
suitable for this discussion => please drop tor-talk@ from the list of
recipients when replying -- thanks!]

I wrote (12 Jul 2015 13:06:15 GMT) :
> https://wikileaks.org/hackingteam/emails/emailid/25607#efmBTaBTh

> Below research points remain outstanding ... 

> VECTORS · Offline: [...]

> by translate.google.com but obviously not precise but concerning nonetheless.

I got a translation made by a native speaker who's skilled in this
area, quoting it below with my notes+todo inline.

$native_speaker wrote:
> [EN] Below the feature that will be deployed for RCS10. The release is
> expected for [... not sure what does it means ...] (October)

> VECTORS:

> Offline:
> o   Infection of bootable usb keys from UEFI (Antonio)$ The infected usb
> key will drop (release) a scout itself.

This seams to mean that a corrupted UEFI firmware would modify a Tails
device plugged in the machine to infect it. To me it looks like it's
part of "Tails can't protect against compromised hardware", modulo
nitpicking wrt. whether firmware is software (which is correct
strictly speaking), or a mere part of the computer hardware (which is
also correct, from the PoV of a Tails system, as it's pre-existing to
Tails starting). We have WIP to clarify our documentation in
this respect.

> o   Infecting USB device which appears to be a bootable disk (Antonio +
> Giovanni)§ It will drop (release) the scout, then it will run
> a wipe.

Seems to be the same, but from a running and already infected
non-Tails OS, when a Tails USB stick is plugged in it. That's more
concerning. We should check if we're communicating clearly enough
that:

 * the OS used to install or upgrade a Tails device can corrupt it
 * plugging one's Tails device in an untrusted OS is dangerous

> o   Infection of Tails USB (Antonio)$ The infection will occur at runtime

This seems to mean an running Tails infecting its boot device.
Totally unclear if they had any remote idea of how to implement that,
back then. Not much we can do about it that is not on our hardening
milestone already, I guess.

> o   New NTFS driver for UEFI infection (Antonio)
> o   Persistent infection also on OSX and signed UEFI (Antonio)

> Network Injection:
> o   New set of external antennas for the TNI (Andrea)
> o   Creation o a mini-TNI (Andrea)$ transportable by a drone, without
> any melting constraints
> o   Creation of a micro-TNI (Andrea)$ HW of a mobile $ It will have a
> subset of the functionality

Cheers,
--
intrigeri
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Re: [Tails-dev] Please support VPN for Tails. Any workaround for now?

2015-07-13 Thread intrigeri
Hi,

Dr. Killswitch, D.V.M. wrote (12 Jul 2015 21:25:06 GMT) :
> Cryptostorm provides [...]

To me, this looks dangerously like commercial advertisement, which has
nothing to do on this mailing-list. Please be a bit more cautious
about not crossing this line in the future. Thanks!

Cheers,
-- 
intrigeri
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[Tails-dev] Heads up: changed ways to track review'n'merge requests

2015-07-13 Thread intrigeri
Hi,

in the "[Tails-dev] Getting rid of review'n'merge email on this list"
thread, we've decided to stop requiring review'n'merge email on this
list. Alternate ways to track such requests have been found and set
up, and are documented there:

https://tails.boum.org/contribute/working_together/Redmine/#atom

Cheers,
-- 
intrigeri
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Re: [Tails-dev] [review'n'merge:master] doc/no-more-review-n-merge-email

2015-07-13 Thread intrigeri
sajolida wrote (12 Jul 2015 08:44:29 GMT) :
> I had a quick look and it looks all-right.

Thanks. So, I've merged it.
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Re: [Tails-dev] Git repositories at immerda: downtime

2015-07-13 Thread intrigeri
kytv wrote (11 Jul 2015 19:04:27 GMT) :
> FWIW I'm not seeing updates when pulling from the git repo over
> https.

It should now be fixed. Thanks for the heads up!
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Re: [Tails-dev] 32bit UEFI

2015-07-13 Thread intrigeri
Hi,

林哲民 (Lin Zhemin) wrote (13 Jul 2015 05:03:27 GMT) :
> I've successfully booted TAILS nightly build (20150712) from Asus X205TA on
> a Trenscend 4GB USB 2.0 disk.

Thanks for the report! It's good to see this branch confirmed to work
on another machine.

Cheers,
-- 
intrigeri
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