Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: slash on August 09, 2013, 05:40 pm

Title: non IT expert need answers
Post by: slash on August 09, 2013, 05:40 pm

after this recent FH event,I ve read many post  advising people to change computer if they had done smtg illegal on one of those site.

So here is question

How is all internet browsing activities saved on hard drive?

I though hard drive contain only files that one s decide to save

If someone can get into specifics would be nice

thanks

Title: Re: non IT expert need answers
Post by: Bazille on August 09, 2013, 06:15 pm

Your browser has a cache and browsing history. That can be deleted easily, but it can also be recovered  by undelete software. So it's not that easy to get rid of it entirely. It's best when you use a different browser for browsing Tor websites. To prevent anyone from undeleting your stuff you could use a tool which fills the (seemingly) free harddisk space with zeros. Or copy movies onto your system partition until it's full. Then delete the movies again. Repeat 3 times. Then the deleted data is unrecoverable for sure.

You could also encrypt your whole system partition with Truecrypt, which also optionally removes the deleted but recoverable data. This will take a lot of time though, depending on the size of your hard drive. After encryption you will have to enter a passphrase every time you boot the computer.

Title: Re: non IT expert need answers
Post by: slash on August 09, 2013, 06:36 pm

thanks for you reply

assuming one s was using tor browser for browsing tor website what is the risk?
I can t see any browsing history option on TBB

Also can data be recovered if TBB is deleted from the computer?

thanks

Title: Re: non IT expert need answers
Post by: astor on August 09, 2013, 06:43 pm

TBB doesn't cache anything on the hard drive. All browsing is cached in RAM for that session and discarded on shutdown. That is by design to protect your anonymity. It would be retarded if TBB cached stuff to disk. However, if you save bookmarks, those will be stored on disk. Also, if you install add-ons, or you configure add-ons in unique ways that you make you fingerprintable, for example if you whitelist a specific combination of sites in NoScript, that will be stored on disk.

Title: Re: non IT expert need answers
Post by: astor on August 09, 2013, 06:44 pm

Quote from: slash on August 09, 2013, 06:36 pm

Also can data be recovered if TBB is deleted from the computer?

The browser bundle leaves specific traces behind, depending on your operating system. Assuming you're on Windows, look at this post:

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=148291.msg1152452#msg1152452