Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Nuggz on January 09, 2013, 02:35 am
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I'm giving Whonix a try right now and so far I really love it. You run it in Virtualbox as two machines. One machine acts as the Tor gateway and one as the workstation. This eliminates DNS leaks, and also forces any apps you install to go through Tor, whether they want to or not.
Not much info on the forums about it, so I'd like to see what the pro's here think.
Advantages:
Fully customizable. It is a full OS (not stripped down) based on Debian Linux so you can install all the apps you want, customize your desktop, etc.
Easy to update, ie: regular Debian repositories and Tor downloads.
Forces all internet activity through Tor.
Blocks DNS leaks. No way it can reveal your true address.
Open source.
Disadvantages:
Not portable.
Uses Virtualbox (closed source).
Doesn't have the user base that Tails has. (Less anonymity from a browser fingerprinting POV)
Just 'cause it's open source doesn't mean anyone has actually looked at it. But the developer is practically begging for input.
FWIW: I store the VB files in a hidden TrueCrypt container.
TBH it's the customizing I really like. Plus, being a TrueBloodedAmericanPotHead I tend to lose those USB sticks occasionally.
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Another disadvantage is the performance hit you get running in a VM, and in this case, running 2 VMS, even if the Linux distro is more lightweight. Last time I tried Whonix, when it was called TorBOX, it was using Fluxbox or Openbox as the DE, but the screenshots on the web site show KDE now. Is it using KDE now? Because that's the most bloated desktop environment. I'm wondering why they would switch to that for a VM.
Other than that, everything you said is spot on.
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Another disadvantage is the performance hit you get running in a VM, and in this case, running 2 VMS, even if the Linux distro is more lightweight. Last time I tried Whonix, when it was called TorBOX, it was using Fluxbox or Openbox as the DE, but the screenshots on the web site show KDE now. Is it using KDE now? Because that's the most bloated desktop environment. I'm wondering why they would switch to that for a VM.
Other than that, everything you said is spot on.
i too messed around with it, back when it was torbox. even followed it to when they changed it to aos, but i still disliked it because it's not exactly portable and you're depending on the security of the host machine or environment as well. being able to employ persistent entry guards is also an option.
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At the time, I was considering TorBOX as an option for hosting a secure hidden service. You can run headless instances of VirtualBox on a server, just remove all the GUI components on the workstation. Ultimately I decided two physical machines was safer and actually less complicated to setup.
He's a short discussion about securing hidden services:
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=100998.msg705761#msg705761
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Another disadvantage is the performance hit you get running in a VM, and in this case, running 2 VMS, even if the Linux distro is more lightweight. Last time I tried Whonix, when it was called TorBOX, it was using Fluxbox or Openbox as the DE, but the screenshots on the web site show KDE now. Is it using KDE now? Because that's the most bloated desktop environment. I'm wondering why they would switch to that for a VM.
Other than that, everything you said is spot on.
Yes there is the performance hit. LOL but WTF I'm using it on the onion network after all.
It comes with the KDE, which I don't care for either. Supposedly you can put any DE on it, but haven't tried yet. Just installed LibreOffice without a hitch, also TrueCrypt and a few other things. I think it's nice you can install the programs and tools you like to work with.
It sounds like it's been around for a bit anyway. I was mostly concerned about how much road testing it had and I found very little feedback here about it, hence my concern. Didn't really want to be a guinea pig.
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It is very experimental. Somewhere in the documentation or maybe on a mailing list, a Tor developer evaluated it as being at the same level of maturity as Tails was 2 years ago.
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Just to finish the story.....
I had high hopes for whonix but in the end I decided not to use it.
Two things surfaced:
One is that you can't use any external drives, or mount points on the host to exchange files between the host and the VM. Actually you can if you install the Guest Additions addon - which the developer of whonix advises against. So now I have closed source software that needs an addon that the developer advises against.
Secondly I could not find (at least not readily) a way to stop Virtualbox from saving your previously loaded machines in the list. That makes it impractical for doing an emergency shutdown. Unless you have time to remove them from the iist first, they will show up - along with a big red exclamation point - as inaccessabe machines. Duh.. they're hidden on my encripted drive stupid.
Just got to be too clumsy to maintain, too bulky to work around, and too sketcy for comfort.