Cloning tails from someone in the Netherlands

Question

For me being not such a smart-tech-minded person, i'm having some difficulties installing tails. I'm using a Mac and somewhere during the installation by Command Line i seem to mess up. I've just ordered a rewritable Dvd with enough space so i will be trying that hopefully tomorrow evening. But suddenly i wondered if there would be a Tails user in the Netherlands, from whom i would be able to clone it from. (As the 'installation-page' suggest Cloning as best option.) Would there be any tails user from whom i could clone a version from? I don't know if we'd need to use the same operating system, but just to be sure, i'm running OSX El Capitan (10.11.6)

For now all the best and take care! Greetings!

Answer 1

I would recommend against cloning it from a random person in the Netherlands, since they could feed you an infected copy of Tails.

As the install guide states (emphasis mine):

If you know someone you trust who uses Tails already, you can try installing your USB stick by copying from it. Make sure that this Tails is up-to-date.

A stranger is definitely not someone who you should trust with your security if you have a need for security and especially if you (or people you interact with) are likely to be targeted for surveillance.

It would be best to follow the DVD method, or check for further troubleshooting advice if you haven't already, e.g. trying /dev/rdisk1 instead of /dev/disk1, replacing disk1 with the appropriate disk identifier.

Another option may be to use software like VirtualBox to boot Tails into a VM from the ISO (as a virtualised DVD drive) then pass the USB device through to the Tails VM and install it from the Tails installer onto the USB from the virtual machine but I haven't tried this so can't make an guarantees.