Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security • Hacker News Board

Re: Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security

#11

Post by pmontra » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

hxii wrote: post #3

neilalexander wrote: post #2

The website is quite dreadful, excessively verbose in some places and totally lacking in others. It took me quite a few clicks just to learn that this is effectively virtual machines with Tor but still didn't find much at-a-glance information on what the user experience is actually like. Does anyone have any experience with this?

I thought you might be exaggerating a little bit, but... oh my, this website is quite terrible.

Maybe the desktop site is terrible, I didn't check, but the mobile one is fine. Nothing to call home about, just a site like a million of other sites, describing a product and providing download links. They made an uncommon effort to secure themselves with long long long legal documents.

Re: Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security

#12

Post by nostril » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:42 PM UTC

coldblues wrote: post #9

The website is fine. Please don't detract from the topic. Whonix is unanimously considered the best Linux distribution in terms of privacy and security. You can also run it in Qubes OS. It's intended to run on Virtualbox for now. One VM is for network access, while the other one is connected to the previous VM for said network access, and it's the one you should use. This is to prevent any de-anonymization attacks.

Indeed. For anyone who isn't convinced, I wrote up some details on our use case (creating a training data DMCA safe haven) in the Tails thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37512147

If you're serious about protecting yourself, Whonix is a requirement.

Re: Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security

#13

Post by dooglius » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

More technical overview at https://www.whonix.org/wiki/About

Re: Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security

#14

Post by taway1237 » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:55 PM UTC

Whonix is great. I use it all the time in my dayjob. I write a lot of scripts that have to interact with criminal (malware c&c, phishing website, etc) infrastructure, including APT analysis. You don't want to make an opsec fail and/or leak your IP in a situation like this. Instead of doing something fragile and error-prone, like being careful to use a proxy all the time in my code, having a VPN, etc, I just run everything in Whonix and sleep well at night.

Re: Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security

#15

Post by paravirtualized » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 6:08 PM UTC

neilalexander wrote: post #2

The website is quite dreadful, excessively verbose in some places and totally lacking in others. It took me quite a few clicks just to learn that this is effectively virtual machines with Tor but still didn't find much at-a-glance information on what the user experience is actually like. Does anyone have any experience with this?

> Does anyone have any experience with this?

Whonix (KVM) is like running Debian with XFCE, but no matter what you do, your real IP address will never leak, at any point.

Re: Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security

#16

Post by paravirtualized » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 6:09 PM UTC

baz00 wrote: post #5

Web site looks like it's trying to sell me some shitty VPN software I don't need.

Quite the opposite, they're quite adamant about only using free (as in freedom) and in this case, beer, software. And denounce the usage of VPNs at every opportunity. ;)

Re: Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security

#17

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 6:18 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security

#18

Post by sim7c00 » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

Syonyk wrote: post #8

neilalexander wrote: post #2

The website is quite dreadful, excessively verbose in some places and totally lacking in others. It took me quite a few clicks just to learn that this is effectively virtual machines with Tor but still didn't find much at-a-glance information on what the user experience is actually like. Does anyone have any experience with this?

> Does anyone have any experience with this? Only through Qubes, but I do most of my web access in a disposable (ephemeral) Whonix VM in Qubes, and it does exactly what it says on the box.

this imho is the way to use it. it is so easy once u get it set up. for me it was one of the simplest ways i found to use such systems.

Re: Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security

#19

Post by skyyler » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 6:28 PM UTC

f1shy wrote: post #4

The OS is focused on privacy... at the foot page there is a legend: "By using our website, you acknowledge that you have read, understood and agreed to our Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, Terms of Service, and E-Sign Consent." I clicked in "more information" and was directed to a long page with small print, where you have to navigate to different policies (which remain somewhat hidden if you are not careful) ... Reall…

I found the terms of service page to be fantastic.

Easier to understand than most I see.

Re: Whonix – an OS focused on anonymity, privacy and security

#20

Post by beardog » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 6:40 PM UTC

Whonix when used via Qubes DispVMs is more effective than Tails in my opinion (better protection against IP leaking), unless your goal is mainly the amnesic aspect.