Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: snickerlover6969 on January 21, 2013, 04:59 am
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Anyone know how to completely wipe tor and everything I've ever done on tor? I don't feel like uninstalling and deleting cookies are enough.
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bump..
i wanna know too. im scared.. so very very scared ..
ima go to church ..
naw for real tho i wanna know cuz im bout to break this fucking thing and burn it and only order off a friends laptop on his wifi if i dont find out how to.. lol
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If you're using Winblows you can never be 100% certain to get everything unless you go to www.dban.org and use that software to wipe your drive. Then re-install winholes.
Short of that a program called ccleaner will clean up your registry. Follow that with software to erase your free space like SDelete.
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a CPU (Central Processing Unit) is a removable/upgradable 2-inch square chip that is basically the 'brain' of your computer system. It resides on the Motherboard, along with RAM (Random Access Memory) modules and countless other addon items.
Your most likely thinking of wanting to wipe your Hard Disk Drive or Solid State Drive.
The best advice is basically what Nuggz said, but i'd go a few steps further and recommend that you do not use Winblows at all when using Tor/Silk Road. It has so much tracking built into it (windows 7/8) that i am flabbergasted that it was allowed to be released to the public (sheeple).
This may be beyond your capabilities, but i would recommend using a persistent operating system on a USB card or DVD.
'Tails' is a very good choice, it only ever keeps it's files in RAM, which, as a volatile memory set, has it's contents permanently erased when powered off, leaving no traces of anything. There are a few threads on tails on this forum if you search for them. You can download Tails from this address (clearnet) - http://tails.boum.org - it's a big iso file (~900mb) so don't download it through Tor.
If you dont want to go through that, at least switch to using Mozilla Firefox or Palemoon web browsers, these are open-source and have huge followings, you should also use 'script-blockers' available as addons from Mozilla.
Regarding your question, the best way to securely destroy information on your drive is to take an Oxy/Acetylene torch to it and turn it into a smouldering pile of molten metal. Barring that, the next best way is to do multiple-write-pass deletions. When you "delete" a file in Windows, it doesnt really get deleted, the space that the data is occupying is nominated as 'free to be used by other files', but the original data will still be there for eternity until it is overwritten by something else. LE knows how to get that data.
CCleaner is a good program to use in which you can setup a secure delete, it has a few different deletion protocols which vary on speed (heh, speed ;) ). An "Advanced Overwrite - 3 passes" is relatively fast compared to its "Very Complex Overwrite - 35 passes." routine. That means that the data being deleted is written over 35 times with random characters.
Winblows DOES NOT SECURELY DELETE FILES.
I hope this helps. ;D
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Wow! Great info.. I will setup for wipe out starting next week..
a CPU (Central Processing Unit) is a removable/upgradable 2-inch square chip that is basically the 'brain' of your computer system. It resides on the Motherboard, along with RAM (Random Access Memory) modules and countless other addon items.
Your most likely thinking of wanting to wipe your Hard Disk Drive or Solid State Drive.
The best advice is basically what Nuggz said, but i'd go a few steps further and recommend that you do not use Winblows at all when using Tor/Silk Road. It has so much tracking built into it (windows 7/8) that i am flabbergasted that it was allowed to be released to the public (sheeple).
This may be beyond your capabilities, but i would recommend using a persistent operating system on a USB card or DVD.
'Tails' is a very good choice, it only ever keeps it's files in RAM, which, as a volatile memory set, has it's contents permanently erased when powered off, leaving no traces of anything. There are a few threads on tails on this forum if you search for them. You can download Tails from this address (clearnet) - http://tails.boum.org - it's a big iso file (~900mb) so don't download it through Tor.
If you dont want to go through that, at least switch to using Mozilla Firefox or Palemoon web browsers, these are open-source and have huge followings, you should also use 'script-blockers' available as addons from Mozilla.
Regarding your question, the best way to securely destroy information on your drive is to take an Oxy/Acetylene torch to it and turn it into a smouldering pile of molten metal. Barring that, the next best way is to do multiple-write-pass deletions. When you "delete" a file in Windows, it doesnt really get deleted, the space that the data is occupying is nominated as 'free to be used by other files', but the original data will still be there for eternity until it is overwritten by something else. LE knows how to get that data.
CCleaner is a good program to use in which you can setup a secure delete, it has a few different deletion protocols which vary on speed (heh, speed ;) ). An "Advanced Overwrite - 3 passes" is relatively fast compared to its "Very Complex Overwrite - 35 passes." routine. That means that the data being deleted is written over 35 times with random characters.
Winblows DOES NOT SECURELY DELETE FILES.
I hope this helps. ;D
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CCleaner is a handy piece of software for everyday use but when it comes to wiping a HDD of any incriminating evidence which can't be recovered with Police Forensic Equipment, I wouldn't touch it with a barge -pole. ???
To safely wipe your HDD of ALL DATA, leaving it unrecoverable by forensics and giving you peace of mind, use the software, Dban. :) :) :)
Darik's Boot and Nuke: - http://www.dban.org/
How To Delete and Wipe Your Data Securely With DBAN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwCCim2V_J
DBAN wipes the entire drive -- boot sector, OS, swap space, slack space, everything. :)
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It's worth noting that it takes time to wipe one's hard drive. There are also concerns when dealing with a Solid State Drive (SSD, which is what most mid-to-high-end laptops contain these days). The way they work makes permanent data erasure less straight forward. I'm sure DBaN can handle it, just don't expect it to be finished before the cops are done breaking through your door or something like that; and remember it's a little more complex than usual with a SSD.
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It's worth noting that it takes time to wipe one's hard drive. There are also concerns when dealing with a Solid State Drive (SSD, which is what most mid-to-high-end laptops contain these days). The way they work makes permanent data erasure less straight forward. I'm sure DBaN can handle it, just don't expect it to be finished before the cops are done breaking through your door or something like that; and remember it's a little more complex than usual with a SSD.
I do remember Guru posting about this very issue where he said that anyone using a SSD to access Tor, and therefore, Silk Road, was taking a huge risk and should, for the time being, stick with regular HDD's until he was proven wrong. As he deleted all his posts, his thoughts disappeared with him when he left but I am 100% sure he didn't trust the fact that any data on them could potentially be recovered with new techniques as SSD's use flash memory, unlike conventional HDD's. As you know, the Guru knew what he was talking about and his posts always made complete sense and were very informative. :) P.S - I was going to look for some info but I'm closing up soon. ;D
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I think the most problematic would be a hybrid drive, which is pretty common these days too. They're drives that are 50% or 75% a regular hard drive, but are 25% or 50% a solid state drive. What they do is constantly analyze the data that's accessed most frequently and migrate it off of the larger, slower, cheaper regular hard drive and keep it stored on the solid state drive. They do this continually, always updating and maintaining the fastest balance. The operating system and program files will likely be on the solid state drive, and things like data or documents will probably be on the slower, less complicated hard drive. The real problem is how they do this, how they track the information, where that data is located, and how it may be recoverable even after the entire "hard drive" (in total, both parts included) has been zeroed (0s written to literally every possible location -- total erasure).
I don't have those answers, but I just thought it was worth pointing out so that people at least know there's additional concerns when dealing with these kinds of disks. Hopefully that's enough to find the answers if it's important to you.
You know, I was going to say it's a shame Guru deleted all of his posts, but it occurs to me that I'll do the same thing when I'm not around anymore. Not like it really matters anyway -- everything we say here is probably recorded in a dozen different locations within 15 minutes of our posts, but you know... just to avoid making it *that* much easier for them and all (for all I know any "help" I've ever offered here could be used to charge me with conspiracy and throw me in jail for a decade -- God I hope not though)...
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if you're really worried.
just run it from a cheap brand new laptop.
and then put the laptop in the fire.
because lets face, if ur getting done... and you somehow have time. you'll be able to destroy a small laptop faster than it takes to wipe all the drives of your pc
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SSD is safe to use as long as you encrypt it before you do anything sensitive with it. Some SSD had secure erase implemented properly and can have data wiped from them, others not though. There is some research paper where they tested a dozen or so and a few of them could be completely wiped and others could not be.
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SSD is safe to use as long as you encrypt it before you do anything sensitive with it. Some SSD had secure erase implemented properly and can have data wiped from them, others not though. There is some research paper where they tested a dozen or so and a few of them could be completely wiped and others could not be.
http://static.usenix.org/events/fast11/tech/full_papers/Wei.pdf
Every SSD I've used has been fine, and hybrid drives too (Momentus XT), but certainly you need to check or use encryption from the start.