Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) is a free, GPLv3-licensed portable operating system based on Debian that boots from a USB stick, routes every Internet connection through the Tor network, blocks applications that try to connect without Tor, and by design never writes to the computer's hard disk — memory is wiped at shutdown unless the user opts into an encrypted, passphrase-protected Persistent Storage on the USB stick itself. Since September 2024 Tails has been part of The Tor Project, Inc., a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose Form 990 filings are public and whose disclosed funders include the Open Technology Fund, Sida, and the U.S. Department of State. Tails' own documentation is candid about limits: the ISP can see that Tor is in use, exit nodes can read unencrypted traffic, one non-Tor connection is made at startup for clock synchronization, and the OS cannot protect against compromised firmware or hardware. Radically Open Security audited Tails in March 2023 (6 High, 1 Moderate, 3 Low findings, all fixed) and again in late 2024 (4 issues, no remote code execution, all fixed with a published postmortem); the project also runs a public security-advisory page and in May 2022 disclosed that it lacked capacity for an emergency release for a Tor Browser JavaScript flaw.
TIMELINE
1 ENTRY
[2026-08-30] · NEW RECEIPTS
14 new sources on file for Tails.
Tails's file gained 14 new sourced claims since its last review.
The only outbound reporting mechanism in Tails' documentation is WhisperBack, a user-initiated error report sent encrypted over Tor; the docs disclose that the report's Technical Details include hardware information, the Tails version, and errors since boot, and that supplying an optional email address lets the user's email provider learn they use Tails if the team writes back.
Tails' 'How Tails works' page states that the OS is amnesic: it never writes anything to the computer's hard disk, runs only from memory, and the memory is entirely deleted at shutdown, so browsing history, opened files, passwords, and network names leave no trace on the host computer.
Tails' Persistent Storage documentation states that any data kept between sessions lives in an optional, passphrase-protected encrypted partition on the user's own USB stick that is encrypted automatically — and warns that the partition is not hidden, so an attacker holding the stick can tell it exists and the user could be forced or tricked into giving up the passphrase.
The Tor Project, Inc. — the entity that now runs Tails — is listed in ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt since February 2007 under EIN 20-8096820, with its IRS Form 990 filings public.
The Tor Project's supporters page names its institutional funders — including the Open Technology Fund (which it says currently supports projects helping people use Tor and Tails), Sida (a Swedish government agency), the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and the Ford Foundation — disclosing that part of the funding behind Tails now comes from government grants; amounts are not stated on the page.
Tails' license page states the source code is released under the GNU GPL version 3 or above, that Tails is a registered trademark of The Tor Project, Inc., that Tails-specific source is available in public Git repositories with Debian package sources in an APT snapshot — and discloses that, like Debian, Tails includes closed-source binary firmware for hardware compatibility.
The Tor Project's blog post of 2024-09-26 states that the Tor Project, a global nonprofit, and Tails have joined forces and merged operations, that Tails approached Tor in late 2023 after outgrowing its structure, that Tails had been a sub-grantee of Tor, and names intrigeri as Team Lead Tails OS at The Tor Project.
Tails' own warnings page states that an ISP or local network can see that the user connects to Tor (though not which sites are visited), that visited sites can know Tor is in use because the exit-node list is public, and that a Tor exit node can observe unencrypted traffic to the destination server or impersonate it — the operator's own account of what third parties can still see.
Tails' 'How Tails works' page states that applications are blocked automatically if they try to reach the Internet without Tor, that Tails does not write to the hard disk, and that memory is wiped at shutdown — a design in which user data has no non-Tor path off the machine and no operator-side server to be shared from.
In a security advisory dated 2022-05-24, Tails told users that Tor Browser in Tails 5.0 and earlier was unsafe for sensitive information because of a Firefox JavaScript vulnerability, advised them to stop using Tails for such use until 5.1, and disclosed that the team did not have the capacity to publish an emergency release earlier — a candid public advisory that also exposes a resourcing gap.
Tails published on 2023-11-10 the results of a March 2023 security audit by Radically Open Security covering Persistent Storage, the Unsafe Browser, Wayland integration, and Tor integration; the auditors found 6 High, 1 Moderate, and 3 Low severity issues (including a clear-IP leak and several local privilege escalations), which Tails states were all fixed in releases 5.11–5.14 and published with issue numbers.
Tails published on 2025-05-16 a second Radically Open Security audit conducted in late 2024 covering automatic upgrades, the LUKS2 Persistent Storage, and Thunderbird changes; the auditors found no remote code execution and four issues (two High, one Moderate, one Low), all fixed in Tails 6.11–6.12, and the team published a postmortem that produced CI checks and a new security issue response policy.
Tails' Tor documentation states that all Internet activity from Tails goes through the Tor network and that the Internet cannot be reached until Tor is connected; it also discloses one exception — at startup Tails synchronizes the clock via Fedora's captive-portal detection service over a connection that does not go through Tor.
Privacy Guides lists Tails on its Desktop/PC operating-systems page under Anonymity-Focused Distributions, alongside a warning that video memory is not erased at shutdown and that the bundled uBlock Origin in Tor Browser may make Tails users easier to fingerprint.