So as we know from the previous lectures Tales is alive and an amnesiac operating system.
What we mean by this is it leaves no traces on the computer that it gets used on and it does this by
never using the internal storage.
It runs completely from the RAM which is securely wiped.
Once you turn off or restart the computer then when that computer boots it will boot into its default
operating system.
This system will work exactly the same way that it was working before.
And even if the whole computer gets inspected there will be no traces of what you've done.
And there will even be no traces of tails being used on that computer.
Now this is a great feature that serves the main purpose of tails.
So it improves security because even if someone manages to hack into that computer and install malware
or changed the settings to compromise your privacy and anonymity.
Once you restart and boot in into tails everything will be removed because nothing can be stored on
that system.
Not only that but if you are dealing with sensitive files you can do so without worrying about someone
being able to recover these files because they will never be stored on the system.
So these are great features that serve the main purpose of tells which is an operating system that is
designed to improve our anonymity and privacy.
But this feature is also a little bit inconvenient because like we said we cannot store anything on
the system.
So not only that we can't store files and passwords or keys which is something that we might want to
do.
We also can't save any changes we make to any of the programs.
For example if you configure the mail client or if you changed it or settings or even if you connect
to a Wi-Fi network all of these settings will be removed and forgotten.
Once you restart or boot into tales again.
So every time you boot entails you'll have to go and connect to the network that you always connect
to.
You'll have to go and change the or browser settings if you change them if you set up a mail client.
You'll have to go and set it up again which can be a bit troublesome and take a bit of time.
Now the solution to this is to enable persistence on Intel's persistence allows us to store files passwords
keys or program settings that we modify.
It does this by encrypting whatever that's left on the USB flash drive.
So it still doesn't use the internal storage the internal storage will still remain untouched and it
will only rely on this piece remaining on that USB stick.
It will encrypt that space to improve its security and then when you log in you will have two options.
You can log in with the live default option where nothing is stored or you can unlock the persistent
storage where you'll be able to store files in a specific directory install programs edit settings and
everything will be stored like any other operating system so with this you'll be able to store files
passwords keys.
Like I said you'll be able to modify settings so if you connect to a network or if you log into a mail
client all of these settings will be stored.
So when you log in again you won't have to do them again.
You'll also be able to install programs or a browser plugins and so on now the last two benefits are
in red for a reason because you need to be careful when you're doing these things because you need to
keep in mind that Toles was made with security in mind.
So all of the programs that come pre installed in it are configured in a way to protect your anonymity
and privacy.
Therefore when you modify these settings or if you install more programs these new programs or these
modified settings might compromise your anonymity and privacy.
So only installed programs or modify settings if you know what you're doing.
Not only that but tor entails work best when it is hard to distinguish between people that are using
these systems.
Therefore when you modify settings or install extra programs you're becoming more unique.
Therefore it would be easier to detect you because you're more distinguishable than other users than
the people that are using Tor and tails with the default settings.
So with keeping all of this in mind in the next lecture I'm going to show you how to enable persistence
on tells.