News and announcements
UPR 12.04r1 released
Written for Ubuntu Privacy Remix by Andreas Heinlein on 2014-05-07
The UPR Team has published the first stable release of Ubuntu Privacy Remix 12.04r1 (Codename Protected Pangolin). UPR is a live system to protect from spying and data theft. The new release will be presented at LinuxTag 2014 in Berlin (Talk at Thu, May 8th, 9:30pm).
UPR 12.04r1 is designed to boot on newer machines with UEFI + SecureBoot and supports lots of new hardware; but keeps running even on old machines by using the traditional and lightweight GNOME Classic desktop environment.
What is Ubuntu Privacy Remix?
The goal of Ubuntu Privacy Remix is to provide an isolated working environment where sensitive data can be dealt with safely. The system installed on the computer running UPR remains untouched, UPR is not intended for permanent installation on hard disk. Instead of that Ubuntu Privacy Remix runs from a modified Live-CD based on Ubuntu Linux. All user data reside exclusively on encrypted removable media.
UPR raises the „basic“ protection already offered by live systems with several measures. It is intended only for local offline work and offers no connection to the internet. Data meant to be transmitted over the internet can be encrypted with e.g. GnuPG while working with UPR. Internet connection can then be established by the locally installed system after working with UPR, so it does never get in contact with the unencrypted sensitive data.
Separation from all kinds of network connection, potentially infected local hard drives etc. is the price you pay for a high level of security. Therefore, UPR is designed as a supplement to the operating system the user currently uses, and is meant only to work with especially sensitive data.
All user data resides exclusively on encrypted removable media. So-called „extended TrueCrypt-Volumes“ can store not only user data but also user-specific configuration, PGP-keys etc. on TrueCrypt-encrypted storage media or container files. After opening such volumes, the users customized environment is available for use. This allows safe and productive work with an otherwise unchangeable live system.
UPR is mainly a tool to protect your data against unsolicited access by opponents which are prepared to go to great lengths.
Learn more about it at https:/
New Features and Changes in UPR 12.04r1
* Updated base system to Ubuntu 12.04.4, using Kernel 3.8 and X.Org 7.7. Runs on nearly all modern hardware.
* Boots on UEFI machines, including Secure Boot
* Furthermore, other than included in Ubuntu 12.04, newer Versions of LibreOffice (4.2), Scribus (1.4.2) and GIMP (2.8)
* New software packages: Texmaker fronted for LaTeX, PiTiVi & Ariste for video editing, Inkscape vector graphics program
* Updated printer drivers
* Uses GNOME Classic for maximum compatibility with older hardware
* Bug fixes and minor new features in the frontends for TrueCrypt and GnuPG
* New security feature: RAM wiping at shutdown - prevents so-called "Cold Boot Attacks"
Updated . Read more
UPR 12.04r1beta1 released
Written for Ubuntu Privacy Remix by Andreas Heinlein on 2013-08-12
In the light of current events, the UPR Team has published a pre-release version of the upcomig release 12.04r1. We hope that, in course of the current discussion regarding governmental surveillance, a growing number of people will be concerned with protecting their sensitive data. Ubuntu Privacy Remix follows a somewhat unusual, but nevertheless effective approach for this. More about it on https:/
UPR 10.04r3 released
Written for Ubuntu Privacy Remix by Andreas Heinlein on 2013-02-21
The UPR Team has published the third and last stable release of Ubuntu Privacy Remix 10.04r3 (Codename Locked Lynx). UPR is a live system to protect from spying and data theft.
What is Ubuntu Privacy Remix?
The goal of Ubuntu Privacy Remix is to provide an isolated working environment where sensitive data can be dealt with safely. The system installed on the computer running UPR remains untouched, UPR is not intended for permanent installation on hard disk. Instead of that Ubuntu Privacy Remix runs from a modified Live-CD based on Ubuntu Linux. All user data reside exclusively on encrypted removable media.
UPR raises the „basic“ protection already offered by live systems with several measures. It is intended only for local offline work and offers no connection to the internet. Data meant to be transmitted over the internet can be encrypted with e.g. GnuPG while working with UPR. Internet connection can then be established by the locally installed system after working with UPR, so it does never get in contact with the unencrypted sensitive data.
Separation from all kinds of network connection, potentially infected local hard drives etc. is the price you pay for a high level of security. Therefore, UPR is designed as a supplement to the operating system the user currently uses, and is meant only to work with especially sensitive data.
All user data resides exclusively on encrypted removable media. So-called „extended TrueCrypt-Volumes“ can store not only user data but also user-specific configuration, PGP-keys etc. on TrueCrypt-encrypted storage media or container files. After opening such volumes, the users customized environment is available for use. This allows safe and productive work with an otherwise unchangeable live system.
UPR is mainly a tool to protect your data against unsolicited access by opponents which are prepared to go to great lengths.
Learn more about it at https:/
New Features and Changes in UPR 10.04r3
* Based on Ubuntu 10.0.4
* Uses a new kernel based on Linux 3.0.26, which adds support for a lot of (newer) hardware.
* The GPG-Frontend was updated, bugs were fixed and new features added.
* The handling of TrueCrypt volumes has been further improved. It is now possible to check fully-encrypted drives. New options for fixing more difficult filesystem damages were added.
* Added multimedia codecs so that now (nearly) all common audio and video formats can be played.
* VirtualBox OSE was added to allow execution of other operating systems within the secure UPR environment.
* Bugs have been fixed and small features were added
* More Details of new features and concepts can be found in the manuals, accessible from the „Help“ Menu. The corresponding sections are marked with „New“.
UPR 10.04r2 released
Written for Ubuntu Privacy Remix by Andreas Heinlein on 2011-12-06
The UPR Team has published the second stable release of Ubuntu Privacy Remix 10.04r2 (Codename Locked Lynx). UPR is a live system to protect from spying and data theft.
Apart from the changes with UPR itself, we now offer a dualboot ISO for DVD or USB drive on our download page (https:/
What is Ubuntu Privacy Remix?
The goal of Ubuntu Privacy Remix is to provide an isolated working environment where sensitive data can be dealt with safely. The system installed on the computer running UPR remains untouched, UPR is not intended for permanent installation on hard disk. Instead of that Ubuntu Privacy Remix runs from a modified Live-CD based on Ubuntu Linux. All user data reside exclusively on encrypted removable media.
UPR raises the „basic“ protection already offered by live systems with several measures. It is intended only for local offline work and offers no connection to the internet. Data meant to be transmitted over the internet can be encrypted with e.g. GnuPG while working with UPR. Internet connection can then be established by the locally installed system after working with UPR, so it does never get in contact with the unencrypted sensitive data.
Separation from all kinds of network connection, potentially infected local hard drives etc. is the price you pay for a high level of security. Therefore, UPR is designed as a supplement to the operating system the user currently uses, and is meant only to work with especially sensitive data.
All user data resides exclusively on encrypted removable media. So-called „extended TrueCrypt-Volumes“ can store not only user data but also user-specific configuration, PGP-keys etc. on TrueCrypt-encrypted storage media or container files. After opening such volumes, the users customized environment is available for use. This allows safe and productive work with an otherwise unchangeable live system.
UPR is mainly a tool to protect your data against unsolicited access by opponents which are prepared to go to great lengths.
Learn more about it at https:/
New Features and Changes in UPR 10.04r2
* Based on Ubuntu 10.04.3 resp. Packages as of 10/14/2011
* New program „tellico“, a small database
* New program „Grsync“ for making backups
* New program „X-Tile“ to arrange windows
* TrueCrypt was updated to version 7.0a
* The GPG-Frontend was updated, bugs were fixed and new features added.
* The handling of TrueCrypt volumes has been reworked from the ground up. Day-to-day handling of TrueCrypt containers as well as fully-encrypted devices is now done completely within the file manager „Nautilus“. A wizard was added for the creation of TrueCrypt volumes.
* Lots of bugs have been fixed and small features were added
* UPR is now distributed in Hybrid-ISO format. USB drives are now the recommended way of using UPR.
* More Details of new features and concepts can be found in the manuals, accessible from the „Help“ Menu. The corresponding sections are marked with „New“.
UPR 10.04r1 released
Written for Ubuntu Privacy Remix by Andreas Heinlein on 2010-10-14
After a long period of work and testing, the UPR team has released the final version of Ubuntu Privacy Remix 10.04 (Codename Locked Lynx). And yes, we know Ubuntu 10.10 has just been released. But we believe stability is more important for UPR, so we are focusing on LTS releases whenever possible.
What is new in UPR 10.04?
Ubuntu Privacy Remix 10.04 is based on Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" and supports more and newer hardware. Still, system requirements remain the same. The UPR kernel has been rebuilt based on the Ubuntu kernel 2.6.32.23. UPR 10.04 shows the same improvements to boot times as Ubuntu 10.04
With UPR 10.04, it is no longer possible to burn the ISO to a CD due to its size, sorry! The standard UPR 10.04 now includes english, german, spanish, french and italian language.
We have extended and improved the following features:
* TrueCrypt has been updated to version 6.3a. Version 7.0 obviously has introduced changes to the container format, at least containers created with it cannot be opened with an earlier version. Unfortunately, we found no documentation about these changes, so we will use 6.3a until we have done a full review of Truecrypt 7 on our own.
* We have written our own frontend to GnuPG, which replaces seahorse. With it, you can use GPG features like key groups or restoring original filenames. Use it like the seahorse plugins from the context menu (Encrypt, Sign). Settings can be made from "Applications - Security - GnuPG Settings". It is also possible to show all recipient keys of an encrypted file. This frontend is optimized for dealing with large keyrings (>300 keys), key lists can be searched and filtered. For password caching, the "normal" gpg-agent is used, which has fewer bugs than seahorse. For key management, seahorse is still used.
* The scripts for extended TrueCrypt volumes have been improved. The backup feature during close now can backup other open containers as well. Printer configuration is now saved.
* New applications: VYM Mindmapper, GIMP, xterm (for enabling TrueCrypts "repair filesystem" feature)
* Simple creation and use of LUKS-encrypted volumes
What is Ubuntu Privacy Remix?
The goal of Ubuntu Privacy Remix is to provide an isolated working environment where sensitive data can be dealt with safely. The system installed on the computer running UPR remains untouched, UPR is not intended for permanent installation on hard disk. Instead of that the sealed-off Ubuntu Privacy Remix system runs from a modified Live-CD based on Ubuntu Linux. All user data reside exclusively on encrypted removable media.
Ubuntu Privacy Remix is a tool to protect your data against unsolicited access. The risk of theft of such private data arises not only from "conventional" criminals, trojans. rootkits, keyloggers etc. In many countries, measures are taken by the state aiming at spying and monitoring its citizens.
Learn more about it at https:/
