Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: vlad1m1r on June 08, 2012, 08:10 pm
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Dear all,
With apologies to those who already know this back to front, I thought I'd put up a very basic guide to encrypting a USB stick and running the Tor Browser bundle from it - obviously if you have any suggestions about how I could make this clearer for newer users or any further comments, feel free to speak up.
On with the lesson...
==Encrypting your USB==
Naturally you will need a blank USB stick to do this. Be warned that all data already on the stick will be erased when you encrypt it.
There are a number of programs you can use to do this. If you're using a flavour of Linux such as the TAILS Live CD then you can use the built in disk Utility to encrypt the USB drive.
The TAILS website already has an excellent tutorial on how to do this : https://tails.boum.org/doc/encryption_and_privacy/encrypted_volumes/index.en.html
If you're a Windows user or want to have Plausible Denial for your encryption (See: http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability) then I suggest you download and install the Truecrypt program from www.truecrypt.org - as with TAILS the site has an excellent tutorial on encrypting a USB stick or external drive :
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=tutorial
The above link is to the beginner's tutorial. If you wish to encrypt the entire USB drive then on Step 3, choose the second rather than the first option. You'll then be given the option to choose to encrypt the drive as a whole rather than just create an encrypted container on it.
Needless to say whichever method you choose you should choose a good password to protect your USB drive. A good password in my opinion is at least 12 characters long and contains a mixture of numbers, letters and symbols. You can use the website http://howsecureismypassword.net to check how strong it is.
==Downloading and installing the Tor Browser Bundle (TBB) ==
You can download the TBB from https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en - but if you're reading this you already know this!
Make sure that it is the right version for Windows or Linux.
If you're downloading the Linux version, when asked where you want to download the TAR file, choose your USB drive. If the download location is automatic, just go your home folder, open the downloads directory and copy and paste the file into the USB drive.
Once the ZIP/TAR file is safely on the USB drive, right click it and choose the option "Extract Here". (This should be the same if you're running Windows or Linux.
If you're downloading the Windows Version it will be as a self extractive archive - just download it to your computer and double click it to run the program. You'll be asked where to extract it to, so just enter the drive letter of your USB stick e.g E:\
Whichever version you download you'll then see the "Tor Browser" folder on your USB stick.
If you're running windows just click "Start Tor Browser.exe" and you're good to go.
If you're running Linux there's a file named "start-tor-browser". Right click it and select "Properties". A new window will open. Click the tab labelled "Permissions" and then check the tickbox next to "Allow executing this File as a Program." Click the Close button. Double click the file to launch the Tor browser - you only need to give permission once, the TBB will remember!
V.