For unlocking encrypted volumes and offering better security

Jul 16, 2018 03:34 GMT  ·  By

The team behind the famous Tails operating system, also known as the Amnesic Incognito Live System or simply Anonymous OS, needs your help to test the integration of the VeraCrypt disk encryption software.

In an attempt to provide Tails users with better security, the team is working hard these days on the integration of the VeraCrypt open-source and free disk encryption utility used for on-the-fly encryption of encrypted disk drives into the next-generation Tails OS as well as the GNOME desktop environment it uses by default.

This will let Tails users easily unlock encrypted volumes on-the-fly when using the anonymous live system to stay hidden online while protecting their identity and privacy. To makes things even easier, they created the VeraCrypt Mounter utility for unlocking VeraCrypt encrypted drives.

"We worked to integrate VeraCrypt support into the existing GNOME workflow for unlocking encrypted volumes. As a result, most of the features already provided for LUKS volumes are now also provided for VeraCrypt volumes," explain the developers. "Additionally, we created a small application, VeraCrypt Mounter."

Here's how VeraCrypt integration will work and how to test it now

VeraCrypt integration in Tails will work by allowing users to unlock encrypted volumes through the GNOME Disks and Nautilus (GNOME Files) applications if they stick to using the default GNOME desktop environment offered on the live ISO image. VeraCrypt will be able to recognize encrypted volumes that include file containers with the ".hc" file extension.

With the VeraCrypt Mounter utility created by the Tails development team specifically for their Linux-based operating system, users will also be able to unlock encrypted volumes that do not contain file containers with the ".hc" extension. To test VeraCrypt integration in Tails and GNOME right now, you can download the latest Tails beta release as instructed in the recent call for testing.