Under Lock & Key

I have been a member of USW since 2017. Since then I have contributed zealously, especially the move away from publishing the revisionist ideal of prisoners complaining about prison conditions and their grievances, which served no purpose to the movement other than to teach comrades revisionist methods of resolution to make prisons ideally more comfortable and less punitive.

As I attempt a corrective analysis, I ask is writing grievances and filing lawsuits against prison adminsistrators a revisionist ideal or revolutionary? and if it is revolutionary, how?

I know no revolution that was won through writing grievances or use of the courts! Read Dr. Burton’s book Tip of the Spear and see how that ideal worked for the comrades in the Attica Liberation Faction (ie. BPP, BLA, W.U. and all). It gets minimum results that require the exhaustion of much energy, study of law and money. Tip of the Spear calls for deep analysis of revolution and how it looks when applied in multiple states and facilities.

I am so disappointed I never received ULK 83 so I can analyze comrades’ analysis of Dr. Burton’s book.

Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: I don’t know of any USW leaders that don’t write grievances or file lawsuits. Grievances are tactics. So we agree that no revolution has been won by grievances, just as none is won by maintaining a website. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do these things.

To further answer your question i’d point you to Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A. by Mumia Abu-Jamal, or my review of it. In that book Delbert Africa is quoted explaining what happens to people who go deep into fighting their case in the courts:

“They go crazy becuz, Mu, they really believe in the System, and this System always betray those that believe in it! That’s what drive them out they minds, they cain’t handle that.”

As i said, we look at these things as tactics, as opposed to strategy. Though strategically we do believe we are in a stage of legal struggle in this country, we mean that in the broad sense. Legal struggle in the courts is just one form of legal struggle, and not one that we focus on.

So why engage in grievance battles and the grievance campaigns USW has going in various states?

1. To win battles that are more strategic, especially around First Amendment rights to communicate, affiliate and just read. Fighting censorship has always been a struggle we have put effort into because it is a direct threat to our organizing efforts. It’s not just about making conditions more comfortable. The most recently added grievance petition was in Indiana, where it has already been used to help get 6-month-old mail delivered. When we distribute the petitions to prisoners we include a cover letter where we state:

“MIM(Prisons) sees these petitions as a good use of our resources because our ability to fairly have our grievances handled is directly related to preventing arbitrary repression for people who stand up for their rights or attempt to do something positive. We support this petition in light of our anti-censorship work and anti-repression work in general.”

An outside supporter recently expressed concerns echoing Orko’s:

“but if what it ends up being is just MIM(Prisons) helping prisoners get their immediate personal grievances addressed, i don’t see how that differs from the work being done by hundreds of other reformist/bourgeois prison advocacy groups, other than that you also offer them Maoist resources”

It is true that people use the grievance petitions for various issues. And an individual using the petition to get some persynal issue addressed is not contributing to the prison struggle, nor to the anti-imperialist struggle. It is up to the comrades on the ground to use the petitions to build an organizing base. In either case, it is a tiny amount of time and resources that we are putting into getting petitions into peoples’ hands. When we put in the effort to assemble articles and conduct support campaigns, it will be around issues like censorship, solitary confinement and political repression.

2. To mobilize the masses of prisoners. The grievance campaigns have been utilized by many to mobilize those around them for a common cause. Mobilizing the masses to organize against state oppression is a central task to any revolutionary movement. However, both of the critics above pointed out that just filing grievances and petitions is only teaching people to beg the oppressor for resolutions. It is up to USW organizers to ensure that multiple tactics are employed in any campaign, including tactics that contribute to building independent struggle. As we always say, there are no rights only power struggles.

A longer debate between USW leaders over how to do this has already appeared in a series of articles in ULK.(1) As the comrade concluded in that first article, when the masses see the smallest victory as a miracle and are easily pacified by it, leaders are easily isolated by the state, so security precautions are of utmost importance for any sustained effort. The other USW leader in that article argues that without a strong cadre organization to frame such struggles, they will only set the revolutionary struggle back.

There have been many cases where USW comrades report that with a lot of struggle they barely get people to sign a petition or grievance if the leader does all the work to write them up and make copies. In such cases, where the masses must have their hands held to express the slightest bit of discontent, we must conclude that we are not succeeding in mobilizing the masses to take their destinies in their own hands.

3. To appeal to the masses where they are at. In 2022, our Texas campaign pack was one of the top referrals for new subscribers after word of mouth and ULK. The grievance petitions are also a tool for recruiting new comrades from the masses. Some will never be interested in anything beyond getting their local grievances heard, others will see the futility in relying on the system and join USW.

[We are currently out of copies of Jailhouse Lawyers by Mumia but would happily distribute more to prisoners across the country if anyone wants do donate copies to our Free Political Books to Prisoners Program.]

^{Notes: 1. see Orientating USW Organizing Strategy in Light of Texas Victory in ULK 72, and the 4 articles titled An Ongoing Discussion on Organizing Strategy found in ULKs 73, 74, 76 and 77.}

This past summer, we gathered commentary from our readers on the student uprising against the genocide in Gaza, which is now expanding across the region. These articles were used in a pamphlet that many USW comrades received, and were all printed in Under Lock & Key 86.

Comrades on the streets distributed the pamphlet and ULK 86 to students (and non-students) in a number of regions across the country. We attended rallies and speaking events, visited the remnants of encampments and shared publications at conferences.

In general, the response was enthusiastic to the articles written by prisoners, especially regarding solidarity with Palestine. Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support (AIPS) maintained a presence at Socialism Conference 2024 which took place in Chicago during the end of August. Over 100 copies of ULK were handed out at the conference, while also agitating against prisoner repression.

At a New York hacker conference, audience members eagerly grabbed copies of the Palestine pamphlet at a talk on prison surveillance. The speaker exposed most of the issues we discuss in our Prison Banned Books Week articles. Ey also exposed how Securus has a patent to use the phone numbers of prisoner contacts to track their spending data. And Securus already provides location data to Correctional Officers by phone number! We hope comrades can understand why we’re sticking to snail mail. This also happened to be the only talk at the conference where the speaker shouted “Free Palestine!”

At a southern California Palestine solidarity event comrades were able to give out ULK 86 to a large group of students and noticed that others would grab a copy on their way out. Reactions were mostly positive with one criticism being that it may have been too tough on the students. This was presumably referring to the critique written by an outside comrade involved in the student movement.

Comrades have communicated with a number of student groups to solicit responses or statements for this issue of Under Lock & Key. While at least one group expressed interest, we did not get any reports from students on the ongoing legal struggles and political repression they are facing for this issue. It is clear more work is needed to strengthen a connection between the prison movement and the student movement. But progress is being made.

Decades ago, Under Lock & Key was a section in the newspaper MIM Notes put out by the original Maoist Internationalist Movement and its party in the United $tates. For a time, MIM distributed newspapers on the streets at 20-30 times the amount they sent to prisoners, and their paper came out every 2 weeks. Since MIM(Prisons) launched Under Lock & Key in 2007, it has always been a primarily prisoner newsletter. Though in the past we’ve estimated our online readership to be bigger. A couple years ago we set the goal of distributing as many newspapers on the streets as we do in prisons. While not quite there, ULK 86 was by far the closest we’ve gotten to reaching that goal.

If you want to help expand ULK distribution on the street, send us $55 in cash or postage stamps with a return address and we’ll send you 100 copies of the next ULK we print. ULK currently comes out at the beginning of November, February, May, and August.

As we go to press, the prospects of an inter-imperialist war loom heavy once again. The upcoming U.$. presidential election contributes to the uncertainty as various forces posture and attempt to exert influence. What is clear is that U.$. imperialism is set on backing its Zionist outpost in the Levant (Middle East) while the majority of the world stand in opposition, and even most Amerikans want their government to stop sending arms to I$rael.(1)

Despite public opinion, the imperialists are offering no presidential candidate that will slow aid to I$rael. Military aid also continues despite the United $tate’s own laws.

“ProPublica has revealed USAID and the State Department’s refugees bureau both concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top Biden officials rejected the findings of the agencies even though they’re considered the two foremost U.S. authorities on humanitarian assistance. Blinken’s decision allowed the U.S. to keep sending arms to Israel. Under U.S. law, the government is required to cut off weapons shipments to countries preventing the delivery of U.S.-backed aid. Days after receiving the reports, Blinken told Congress, quote, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

“On [24 September 2024], the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, called for Blinken’s resignation, accusing him of lying to Congress.”(2)

I$rael received at least $12.5 billion in U.$. aid as of May 2024.(3) And as the 2024 fiscal year comes to a close, they just announced another $8.7 billion in military aid to I$rael in an aid package that also includes $17 billion to “reimburse U.S. operations in response to recent attacks.”(4) This came in the midst of increased attacks on Lebanon and the killing of the leadership of Hezbollah.

“Most of the aid—approximately $3.3 billion a year—is provided as grants under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, funds that Israel must use to purchase U.S. military equipment and services. …U.S. aid reportedly accounts for some 15 percent of Israel’s defense budget. Israel, like many other countries, also buys U.S. military products outside of the FMF program.”(3)

Israel gets 78% of its arms imports from the United $tates.(3) This circulation of capital into the U.$. economy is one reason why the imperialists won’t offer an anti-war candidate. Meanwhile, family members in Gaza send photos of bombs and military equipment used against them stamped with “Made in USA”.

An April 2024 Pew Research poll showed much lower opposition to sending military aid to I$rael among Amerikans than other polls, but its breakdown by age reflected who is out in the streets, and who is putting their bodies on the line to stop the genocide here in the United $tates. While 45% of 18-29 year olds opposed U.$. aid to I$rael according to Pew, this number decreases with age, getting down to only 22% of Amerikans 65+.(3) This conflict between the young and the old has been reflected in the anti-imperialist movement for decades, and we see this as the principal contradiction within the Amerikan nation where class contradictions and the contradictions between male-bodied and female-bodied people are generally not antagonistic.

The military-industrial complex (MIC) ensures politicians represent economic interests by massive investments in lobbying:

“Lobbying expenditures by all the denizens of the MIC are even higher—more than $247 million in the last two election cycles. Such funds are used to employ 820 lobbyists, or more than one for every member of Congress. And mind you, more than two-thirds of those lobbyists had swirled through Washington’s infamous revolving door from jobs at the Pentagon or in Congress to lobby for the arms industry.”(5)

Weapons manufacturers have bigger budgets than those in charge of the wars, and more influence than any other industry. In 2020, Lockheed Martin received more money from the U.$. government than the budgets of the State Department and the Agency of International development combined. Meanwhile, more than 75 percent of the top foreign-policy think tanks in the United $tates are at least partially funded by military contractors. These weapons manufacturers are also deeply involved in Hollywood movie production. This is why we think it is misleading to use terms like “prison industrial complex” or “non-profit industrial complex”. The size, influence and importance to the U.$. economy of military production is not comparable to such theories.(6)

According to statistics gathered by the National Defense Industrial Association, there are currently one million direct jobs in arms manufacturing compared to 3.2 million in the 1980s.(4) But we all benefit indirectly in this country, and the east coast dock workers agree:

“Dating back to World War 1, the ILA was always proud to note that ‘ILA Also Means Love America’ when it came to its “No Strike Pledge” in handling U.S. military cargo at all its ports,” said ILA President Harold Daggett, who served in the U.S. Navy and saw combat duty during the Vietnam War. “We continue our pledge to never let our brave American troops down for their valour and service and we will proudly continue to work all military shipments beyond October 1st, even if we are engaged in a strike.”(7)

While it is not clear exactly what the U.$. strategy is for I$rael right now, two things remain true: 1. I$rael is an outpost for U.$. interests in the Levant (which is rich in fossil fuels), and 2. weapons production is a key prop to the U.$. economy by continuously increasing the circulation of capital.

France announced it has ceased any military aid to I$rael to be consistent with their calls for a cease fire. The United Nations called on I$rael to withdraw its military from Palestine and Lebanon and evacuate settlers from lands occupied since 1967 (124 countries voted in favor, 14 against, 43 abstained). Weeks later, I$raeli troops fired at 3 UNIFIL positions in southern Lebanon, injuring a number of UN peacekeepers. Countries continue to join the International Court of Justice case against I$rael, including Chile, the Maldives and Bolivia most recently. Meanwhile, Nicaragua, an early signatory, has just cut off diplomatic ties with I$rael.

I$rael has killed an estimated 8% of the population of Gaza after one year of war and displacement.(8)

<sup>Notes:
1. a June 2024 CBS poll had 61% opposing sending weapons to I$rael and 37% who wanted an end to all military actions in Gaza; a majority of Amerikans have consistently opposed sending arms to I$rael since 7 October 2023
2. Democracy Now!, 26 September 2024, U.S. Gov’t Agencies Found Israel Was Blocking Gaza Aid. Blinken Ignored Them to Keep Weapons Flowing.
3. Jonathan Masters & Will Merrow, 31 May 2024, U.S. Aid to Israel in Four Charts, Council on Foreign Releations.
4. Laura Kelly, 26 September 2024, Israel says it secured $8.7 billion military aid package from US , The Hill.
5. William D. Hartung and Benjamin Freeman, 9 May 2023, The Military Industrial Complex Is More Powerful Than Ever, The Nation.
6. Wiawimawo, April 2016, The Importance of Militarism Under Imperialism, and Why Prisons Aren’t So Much, Under Lock & Key 50
7. International Longshoremen’s Association, 25 September 2024, press statement.
8. Ben Norton, 13 October 2024, Global South denounces genocide in Gaza, Nicaragua breaks relations with ‘fascist’ Israel, Latin America supports Palestine, Geopolitical Economy Report.</sup>

On 5 October 2024, about 150 people organized by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3585 picketed to call for an end to paper mail in the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC). Another protest is planned for October 17th.

The plague of drugs in U.$. prisons is real, and it has continued in states where digital mail has been implemented. The claim of this “labor” union that staff are being poisoned is not real. In neighboring Indiana, a number of prisoners were threatened with isolation in torture cells for mail that we sent them that was accused of being drug-laced. Further testing proved they were not. Meanwhile, there have now been a number of cases of prison staff across the country claiming extreme medical crises from contacting prisoner mail, following similar claims by street cops, that have never been substantiated by medical professionals. It’s interesting that this “labor” union is willing to stand out on the street and picket for a policy that would give Correctional Officers a monopoly on bringing paper into IDOC facilities.

Even much of the pro-labor union movement in the United $tates will agree that cops aren’t workers, or the oppressed, but rather are the oppressors, regardless of the question of surplus value. And Marxism has always excluded the employees of the state from the proletariat in any country. So it is of little surprise that the AFSCME would be pushing this reactionary policy to eliminate education, resources and community connection in prisons, even if it risks the very safety of their own members.

MIM Distributors submitted the protest email below to Illinois DOC Director Latoya Hughes. We encourage others to send emails or make phone calls or send letters (especially if you are in Illinois). There are more suggested scripts available from campaign initiators working with Midwest Books to Prisoners.(2)

Dear Director Hughes,

I have recently been made aware that several Illinois legislators are calling for an immediate cessation of non-legal paper mail being delivered to people incarcerated in the IDOC. Our organization sends paper mail to thousands of prisoners across the country and we object to this effort to abridge our First Amendment rights to speech and association, as well as those of the people in your prisons. We will be sharing this letter with our members and supporters, especially in the state of Illinois.

Books, newspapers, and other printed materials are a crucial source of information, education and growth for people locked in prison. Letters can be a rare thing to look forward to. Our organization runs study programs, conducts surveys and regularly sends forms to prisoners to get updates on their status. All of these programs rely on prisoners receiving pieces of paper that we send them so they can fill out the forms and return them. The impact of blocking such mail would be massive.

We have been watching the spread of alarmism around drug-laced mail, and have even had such baseless accusations made against our mail! Of course testing proved the accusation false, just as it did in the recent incident at Shawnee, where the testing by Marion Fire Rescue came back false. We’ve also seen multiple cases where staff have claimed to have gotten sick from handling mail, which have been proven to be impossible claims multiple times now. The benefits of education and community connection are proven to help ensure staff safety far more than these imagined risks of being poisoned. Policy should be fact-based and should not succumb to rumors and fear-mongering.

Again, I am writing this email to clearly state my complete opposition to any and all proposals to halt mail delivered to incarcerated people, and urge you not to move forward with this proposal.

Sincerely Concerned,

MIM Distributors

<sup>Notes:
1. Madison Porter, 5 October 2024, Canton prison workers protest how inmates receive mail, 25 News.
2. For more materials on this campaign you can access Google docs here: bit.ly/IDOCmail</sup>

Recently, in my heathen circle, we experienced some religious backlash. An offender was caught/told on for passing a kite/note. The note had nothing in it damaging, but it’s classified as trafficking here. Noted. But the heathen caught was punished with threats to demote his legal proceeding; a sentence modification, and threatened. Denounce your faith, cut your hair, and join a more “realistic” faith, or face serious punishment including solitary confinement for “investigation”. Personally I was outraged. We should be “free” from religious prosecution, even in prison. Just punish the man normally, leave his faith off the table, and allow the punishment to fit the crime. Heathenism carries with it heavy undertones in prison, and we do not preach hate or separatism. We follow and pray to Gods and give thanks, nothing more. Brothers, keep your head up and avoid feeding into the hype. Hailsa! And thank the ULK for giving us a voice!

Dear Top Brass At U.$. Navy (Mr. Omnipotent Administrator),

You guys bicker about sexuality, abortion, gender issues, and whatever non-stop. Let me fill you in on your rape revenge fantasies and myths. Just ask the Florida Department of Corrections for my essay on sexual privilege in amerikkka. They have it in my central file in Tallahassee.

I quote Eldridge Cleaver in Soul on Ice:

“The Omnipotent Administrator conceded to the super-masculine menial all of the attributes of masculinity associated with the body: strength, brute power, muscle, even the beauty of the brute body. Except one. There was this single attribute of masculinity which he was unwilling to relinquish, even though this particular attribute is the essence and seat of masculinity: sex.”

The Omnipotent Administrator said “I will bind your rod with my omnipotent will, and place a limitation on its aspiration which you will violate on pain of death.”

See ULK 85 “Rape Revenge Fantasies Fuel Genocide in Palestine.”

From the Supermasculine Menial

Black August 2024

I have been trying to follow the Palestinian liberation struggle for some time now, well at least in the best ways I can behind enemy lines: piecing bits and pieces of information together from the various media sources that make it in here.

What strikes me the most at this juncture is the dialectic between New Afrikan youth and Palestinian youth. Over here in the Amerikkkan empire, New Afrikan youth, particularly New Afrikan male youth occupy very unfortunate spaces in the Amerikkkan oppressor nation’s mental. These youth dwell in the danger zone, spaces that are purely a figment of the “white” imagination. This criminal Black youth label. This “hyper-reality” is no more real than the emperor’s new clothes, analogous to the rapist who takes the mentally ill patient back to the scene of the crime, back to the moment of trauma, when the delusions began. It is within the dark interiority of this lived nightmare, the womb of the unforgiving chattel slavery regime enclosed within old style colonialism that the New Afrikan male youth was conceived. This is critical and informative for understanding mass imprisonment in New Afrika.

This process of marking New Afrikan youth as criminal prisoners essential to the functioning of mass incarceration is a mechanism of social control operative under national oppression. For this repressive institution to succeed, New Afrikan youth must be branded as criminal before they are formally subject to this mechanism of control. This is essential, for forms of explicit colonial control are not only prohibited but are widely condemned. Capitalism evolved.

Both New Afrikan and Palestinian people are entrenched beneath the boot of their colonizers without a state that is theirs to foster, nurture, and facilitate their respective national liberation struggles to actualize control over their destiny. Both face the repressive arm of mass imprisonment to undermine and destroy their resistance efforts and thus fine comb their national oppression nightmare.

The I$raeli colonial project is a direct extension of U.$. imperialism. The U.$. penal system being the first and largest experiment in humyn bondage, it is only fitting that this institution of social control finds its way into the Palestinian lived experience under I$raeli occupation.

Palestinian youth are the only youth that are formally subject to a “military” court/detention system. Palestinian youth are not privy to a civil court; that means when they go before a judge they are not entitled to a lawyer, nor a translator even though the entire court proceedings are in Hebrew – a non-Arabic language. And if they remain silent, that means they plead guilty. So no civilian proceedings for any Palestinian youth at all.

Many of these oppressed youth are taken during night raids from their parents or adult supervisors to further facilitate intimidating interrogation techniques. These parallel a lot of New Afrikan juvenile situations as the school-to-prison pipeline. The harsh penalties for simple offenses that are the rule, just the whole criminalization process of entire neighborhoods/locations mirror U.$. law enforcement imposition of gang injunctions/occupational patrolling of predominantly New Afrikan neighborhoods in the United $tates of Amerikkka.

The I$raeli settler occupation project parallels Amerikkkan national oppression of New Afrika with the language and practical application of the tried and tired excuse of blaming the so-called “savages” for provoking the “reasonable” and “peace loving” settlers into defending themselves and the land “God ordained” them to have thus dehumanizing and criminalizing a whole nation. The zionist regime’s actions against Palestinian youth are nothing short of genocidal.

In the current news, it is important to note the essential role played by the Palestinian youth, mostly under 18. The resistance movement there is mobilizing their youth to stand up and struggle forward. This is very important to glean lessons from, particularly within the historical and contemporary social dynamics encircling settler colonialism and national oppression in Occupied Palestine. This is good for an application to the Amerikan empire. As ULK aptly notes: the Black Panthers were mostly teenagers.

What is Tox?

It’s an instant messaging protocol with applications available for all the most popular operating systems.

What are the benefits?

1. peer-to-peer: no central point of failure or interference
2. no metadata: related to point 1, no third party can see who you are messaging, when or from where
3. encrypted: content of messages are encrypted
4. perfect forward secrecy: each message is encrypted with a separate key, so that decrypting one message does not allow an attacker to decrypt your previous messages (this is an advantage over GPG encryption)

What are the shortcomings of Tox?

1. new/alpha software not all apps have full functionality (i.e. no group messaging on Antox for Android), and software can be buggy
2. untested related to it’s newness as well as the relative complexity of a full messaging app, the encryption/security of Tox is not as well tested as GPG
3. peer-to-peer: This is not really a shortcoming, but you should be aware that when you use Tox with someone, while no one else should be able to see where you are messaging from, the persyn you are communicating with has access to your IP address by default. This is much better than most other apps out there, and it can mitigated by running Tox behind the Tor network. Below are instructions for how to do this.

How to run TRIfA behind Tor on an Android device

1. install Orbot and TRIfA both are available from F-Droid repositories if you don’t have or don’t want to use Google Play Store
2. open Orbot
3. click the button to turn on “VPN Mode”
4. at the bottom where it says “Tor-Enabled Apps” click the little gear wheel on the right
5. on the following screen check the box for TRIfA and any other apps you want to be forced through Tor
6. hit the back arrow
7. in orbot click the big “Start” button.
8. once orbot has a connection to Tor open TRIfA app and follow instructions for setting up your account

How to install Tox messaging app in Tails OS

[NOTE: If you were already using Tox in Tails, you should back up your config files before installing Tox again. Go to Places -> Dotfiles, then hit ctrl-H, then go into .config folder and copy the folder named “tox” and all its contents to your Persistent folder as a backup.]

• In Tails set up Persistence for dotfiles, applications and personal data following directions here: https://tails.boum.org/doc/persistent_storage/configure/index.en.html#index13h2<
• reboot Tails

• at login screen, first set up administrative password 1) click the “+” under “Additional Settings”

         2) click "Administrative Password"
  
         3) enter a password you will remember in both boxes and click "Add"

• enter your password you set for persistence and click “Unlock”
• once it says “Settings were loaded from the persistent storage” click “Start Tails”
• go to Applications -> System Tools -> Synaptic Package Manager
• you will need to enter the administrative password you set above (not persistence password)
• Synaptic will load the list of available software - will take a couple minutes and requires network connection

• click the search button and type in “qtox” or “utox” depending on which client you want

  Which should i pick?

        qTox, because uTox seems to crash every time you change settings in Tails, however, uTox is the lighter one, so slow computers might prefer it
  
        https://github.com/qTox/qTox
  
        https://github.com/uTox/uTox
  
        NOTE: the versions available in the stable debian repos will often be older than the latest versions on github, you can install the latest version but this guide will not cover that

• right-click on the package you searched for and click “Mark for Installation”
• it will ask if you want to install additional required packages, click “Mark”
• click “Apply” button, then click “Apply” on the screen that comes up – it will now download and install tox packages
• you should get a Tails popup asking if you want to Install Every Time - click that and this will occur automatically next time you boot Tails
• you can close Synaptic
• Run qTox by going to Applications -> Internet -> qTox (or uTox)
• create a Tox ID - password protect it in settings->Advanced

• Set tox up to use Tor

          IN qTox: click the gear in lower left and go to Advanced settings
  
          1) uncheck enable IPv6 and uncheck enable UDP (probably already off)
  
          2) Proxy type: SOCKS5
              Address: 127.0.0.1
              Port: 9050
  
          3) Click "Reconnect" - wait a bit and the circle next your name should turn green when you connect (also probably in your top menu bar)
  
          IN uTox go to: settings->Advanced
  
          1) Proxy (SOCKS 5) Address: 127.0.0.1   Port:9050
  
          2) Force uTox to always use proxy
  
          3) turn off Ipv6
  
  4) turn off UDP
  
         NOTE: sometimes changing these seems to cause uTox to crash, the important setting is the proxy to make sure it's connecting to Tor
  

• Shutdown qTox/uTox IMPORTANT: must do this before the below!

In order to save any settings, including your Tox ID keys, and your friends, you need to copy the files automatically stored in your dotfiles to the permanent persistent folder. More background on how to save dotfiles: https://tails.boum.org/doc/first_steps/persistence/configure/index.en.html#index11h2

local/temporary dotfiles in RAM are found here: /home/amnesia/.config/ permanent persistent dotfiles folder is here: /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.config/

These files/folders are probably hidden. To see them, if you are in the file folder view click on the icon with three horizontal bars at the top and check the box to show hidden files.

To find these folders in a finder window: Click on Other locations at the bottom, then select computer. There you will see live and home folders

You need to move the tox folder and all its contents from the first location to the second. There should be two files in the tox folder: “tox_save.tox” and “utox_save”, then as you add friends files will be created for their info and your conversations if you choose to have conversations saved in the app.

The first time you do this copying over you will need to create the .config folder in the /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/ location if it’s not there already. On command line you can do this:

mkdir /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.config 

Command to use in terminal window when in the folder you want to copy TO:

cp -r /home/amnesia/.config/tox
/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.config/

NOTE: Doing this using sudo (root user) will change file ownership to root. File ownership MUST be amnesia.

To check file ownership in Terminal:

 $ls -lah

To change file ownership in Terminal:

 $sudo chown amnesia:amnesia [filename]

Connecting with others

To connect with others you must send them your Tox ID. This is not your name, your name is for display purposes only.

• click on your name/status in upper left
• you should now see your Tox ID as a long string of characters and a QR code, you can copy the long string into an PGP encrypted email and email it to your contact (if in persyn/on mobile they can scan the QR code, or you can send the image to them)
• if someone send you their Tox ID, in qTox click the “+” in bottom left and paste the code in “Add a Friend” -> Tox ID, similarly in uTox, paste your friend’s Tox ID into the Add Friend at bottom left.
• click “send friend request” and wait for their response - this is best done when you know the friend is online because you must both be online to exchange messages

Updating utox

Tails will automatically install the latest version available in the debian stable repo. Installing newer versions is beyond the scope of this guide.

Troubleshooting utox in Tails suggestions

• Delete the tox files from BOTH .config locations above
• Reinstall tox
• Run tox: it will create new files into your local .config folder
• Shut down tox. Move new tox_save.tox and utox_save over to persistence .config folder
• Try rerunning tox to see if your ID is persistent within a tails session. If so try restarting tails to see if it is persistent now.