|
Nerotik
PersonalityChallenged



Registered: 04/04/08
Posts: 386
Loc: Somewhere between me and ...
Last seen: 1 year, 8 months
|
Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. 4
#8274871 - 04/12/08 06:21 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Log in to view attachment
I have just spent five hours and finally finished a fairly comprehensive guide to setting up your computer for completely anonymous browsing. I wrote it in as simple a fashion as I could and provided plenty of screen shots so that even the most inexperienced user can set this system up. However if you still have problems or questions feel free to send me a PM or reply to this thread and I will do the best I can to get you setup. It is too big to post and you will need to restart your browser a few times so I wrote it in .PDF format and you can download it at the top of this post. If it helps you out and you feel it is a good contribution to the community feel free to add to my rating. Oh and you guys owe me for this.. Big time j/k
Edited by Nerotik (04/13/08 10:06 AM)
|
Salmonged
Stranger

Registered: 04/08/08
Posts: 217
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Nerotik] 1
#8275633 - 04/12/08 10:07 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Hey!
Thank you soooooooo much for this!
I just followed all of your steps, got Tor running, and I feel 200% more secure online now.
You guys should really check this out!!
|
Nerotik
PersonalityChallenged



Registered: 04/04/08
Posts: 386
Loc: Somewhere between me and ...
Last seen: 1 year, 8 months
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Salmonged] 1
#8275668 - 04/12/08 10:17 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
You are very welcome, I'm glad I could contribute and help someone out. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions feel free to let me know.
-------------------- Everywhere I go, I see myself.
|
Mr.Caterpillar
Curiouser & Curiouser!



Registered: 07/28/07
Posts: 233
Loc: Wonderland
Last seen: 3 years, 11 months
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Nerotik]
#8276259 - 04/13/08 12:58 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Excellent Tutorial! Lucid explanation of TCP/IP - the best and simplest analogy I've yet read. You must be a professional tech writer.
I've got tor up and running anew. Thanks!
A couple comments/questions:
1. I'm not obtaining good browsing speed using Tor, and I have clicked the change identity icon many times now. I am doing this as I watch the network view window. In the panel showing the list of active "circuits" (routing networks, no?) I find that they are almost always located in Germany. I also found that right-clicking on the circuits listed in this window allows me to close their connection. I can also see the stats and locations of the servers networked in a given circuit. So I am closing the circuits that are in Europe as much as I can in the hopes of arriving at a configuration that is faster by virtue of being located in the US (where I am), but it seems just trial and error, and further as though some randomizing factor is at play in the determination of the "circuits" that is inherent to the program. Anyway, is there anymore refined way to control the "circuits" your IP utilizes?
2. I notice that when I hit the "Torbutton" that the onion stays green both in the windows icon tray, and in the Vidalia Control panel. Is the Torbutton supposed to actually control Tor, or merely Firefox's use of Tor?
Thanks again for the great tutorial!
- Caterpillar
|
Mr.Caterpillar
Curiouser & Curiouser!



Registered: 07/28/07
Posts: 233
Loc: Wonderland
Last seen: 3 years, 11 months
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Mr.Caterpillar]
#8276322 - 04/13/08 01:17 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
OK. Now things are moving along a little faster. I'd say I've got about 70-80% my typical connection speed. It's trial and error to find a fast circuit. Do you know if there are any plugin's for TOR that help with this?
|
Nerotik
PersonalityChallenged



Registered: 04/04/08
Posts: 386
Loc: Somewhere between me and ...
Last seen: 1 year, 8 months
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Mr.Caterpillar]
#8276931 - 04/13/08 09:02 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
I am glad it helped. Unfortunately because of the very nature of how Tor works it is pretty much stuck being 'random' if it were to connect to the same network, using the same relays and exits every time than it would be counter productive to anonymity. As for 'defining new parameters' such as 'Only connect and exit using Tor relays in the U.S.' I am sure you could edit Privoxy's config.txt file to only use U.S. relays, BUT if you were to do this it would most likely only cause even more problems. Mainly because, if you look at the Network map you see the connections being forwarded from the U.S. to W. Europe and sometimes back again. So any connection you did make would also need to have the same defining parameters in place otherwise you would connect to a relay in lets say D.C. that forwards to another relay in lets say Berlin, but your machine would refuse to continue the connection to Berlin and you would have no internet connectivity. Unfortunately the very thing that makes Tor so great for Anonymity is also what causes the slow speeds sometimes, and that means random and multiple 'hops' before exiting Tor and initiating a website session. However there is hope, as more and more people use Tor and setup relays and exits than the more choices we will start to get and speeds will continue to increase. Just as a torrent is faster with more 'seeds' Tor is faster with more exits and relays. When I was writing the guide I was using an Exit located in Houston and had nearly 100% speed, but after a few minutes my exit switched to one in Germany, (This is that unknown factor you are talking about) and that happened for one of two most likely causes. Either the exit in Houston was shutoff completely or the more likely cause is that when you configure Tor to be an exit on your machine you can define several parameters, such as which protocols are allowed to exit and the maximum bandwidth allowed. So when I was connected to the exit in Houston there may have been a dozen other people also exiting from that same machine and when I started to request more and more bandwidth it exceeded what was allowed so the Vidalia suite then switched to another exit in an effort to get my requests out of the network faster or just get them out at all because that Houston exit may have only had a trickle of bandwidth left, if any. I know it sucks that sometimes you have to wait several seconds for a page to load, or spend a few minutes trying to find a good connection speed but sacrificing a little bit of time to ensure your security is a fair trade I say, even if it is a little frustrating at times, I still think it's worth it. As for additional extensions to help make your connection faster, no I don't think there are any. There are other proxy programs such as SwitchProxy but it has a serious security flaw. I strongly advise against using any other extensions, especially if you try to use them with Vidalia. Your most likely going to end up with no internet connection if you have multiple programs trying to bounce your packets around. Yes the Onion is supposed to stay green unless you click on 'Stop Tor' in the Vidalia control panel which disconnects you from the Tor network completely, clicking on the 'Tor Enabled/Disabled' text (Which you can right click and change to an Onion Icon instead of text if you want) in the lower right corner of Firefox (Not the system tray) just tells Firefox if it should use a proxy or not but your machine is still on the Tor network, your just not using it when you disable it in the Firefox window. It is setup this way so you can continue to be a relay and/or exit for the Tor network even though your not currently using it. I hope this helps answer your questions and further your understanding of how the Vidalia suite works. Sorry I don't have an easy fix for slow speeds, but it's honestly worth the little extra time especially if your doing something you don't want anyone to know about.
-------------------- Everywhere I go, I see myself.
|
Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 3 months, 8 days
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Nerotik]
#8280990 - 04/14/08 05:45 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
> I'm not obtaining good browsing speed using Tor
It varies. Sometimes you will get almost normal speeds, and sometimes it will be painfully slow. The price paid to remain anonymous...
> or merely Firefox's use of Tor?
The plugin only controls Firefox's use of Tor.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
|
AdoX
Stranger


Registered: 02/18/09
Posts: 7
Last seen: 15 years, 3 months
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Nerotik] 1
#9822106 - 02/18/09 07:47 PM (15 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Ver Helpful
|
supra
computerEnthusiast
Registered: 10/26/03
Posts: 6,446
Loc: TEXAS
Last seen: 13 years, 30 days
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: AdoX]
#9823139 - 02/18/09 10:25 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
nice, but if your trying to protect yourself from people that have the power to watch both ends of your connection(ala US govt.), doing jumps through a bunch of proxies can't really help protect you. It does help for small time agencies, but if someone is REALLY out to get you, TOR alone won't stop them.
peace
|
Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist


Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 48,392
Last seen: 2 days, 19 hours
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: supra]
#9824587 - 02/19/09 03:27 AM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
nice, but if your trying to protect yourself from people that have the power to watch both ends of your connection(ala US govt.), doing jumps through a bunch of proxies can't really help protect you. It does help for small time agencies, but if someone is REALLY out to get you, TOR alone won't stop them.
I disagree, I think tor will stop US government eavesdropping at the network level.
See http://www.torproject.org/overview.html.en
Only the last hop is in the clear, they can sniff that but they probably wouldn't know that its from you.
|
Prof. Astro
acirebma

Registered: 04/15/08
Posts: 4,084
Last seen: 6 months, 24 days
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
#9827008 - 02/19/09 02:58 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
I'm getting an error on the download. Says unavailable.
--------------------
|
supra
computerEnthusiast
Registered: 10/26/03
Posts: 6,446
Loc: TEXAS
Last seen: 13 years, 30 days
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
#9829955 - 02/19/09 09:54 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Alan Rockefeller said:
Quote:
nice, but if your trying to protect yourself from people that have the power to watch both ends of your connection(ala US govt.), doing jumps through a bunch of proxies can't really help protect you. It does help for small time agencies, but if someone is REALLY out to get you, TOR alone won't stop them.
I disagree, I think tor will stop US government eavesdropping at the network level.
See http://www.torproject.org/overview.html.en
Only the last hop is in the clear, they can sniff that but they probably wouldn't know that its from you.
The problem is that they can just as easily watch the traffic as it leaves your house for the first time, intercepting before it hits your ISP or any proxies...then figure out where its trying to go, and watch the final destination as well, making the hops useless.
Again, its much much better than having nothing at all, but not protecting if someone is REALLY interested in what you are doing online.
peace
|
abetterlie
Dubstep.breakcore.explosion.soup



Registered: 01/05/08
Posts: 298
Loc: on the internets
Last seen: 7 years, 20 days
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: supra]
#9834204 - 02/20/09 03:18 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Not to knock your guide, cos its awesome, but hasn't it been proven that tor is a pretty dangerous way to protect your anonymity due to endpoint node sniffing? I read somewhere that UN guys were using it to send emails, and the traffic at the end of the tunnels was being sniffed and compromised. I realize that this is less of a concern for guys here, but still...
http://www.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2007/11/15/3355919.html
There are better articles elsewhere but I can't find any.
Has anyone here tried using relakks? https://www.relakks.com/?cid=gb
just to note, I'm a security geek, nice to meet you, awsome to proliferate this stuff to everyone. Advocate truecrypt! FireGPG for encrypted emails with gmail! tinfoil hats for all!!!
-------------------- "I'm gonna clear the air, with the metal that's known to divide the whole atmosphere, and I love to share, them bullets come dime a dozen I kept 2 so I could have spare."
|
supra
computerEnthusiast
Registered: 10/26/03
Posts: 6,446
Loc: TEXAS
Last seen: 13 years, 30 days
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: abetterlie]
#9834625 - 02/20/09 04:57 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
abetterlie said: Not to knock your guide, cos its awesome, but hasn't it been proven that tor is a pretty dangerous way to protect your anonymity due to endpoint node sniffing? I read somewhere that UN guys were using it to send emails, and the traffic at the end of the tunnels was being sniffed and compromised. I realize that this is less of a concern for guys here, but still...
http://www.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2007/11/15/3355919.html
There are better articles elsewhere but I can't find any.
Has anyone here tried using relakks? https://www.relakks.com/?cid=gb
just to note, I'm a security geek, nice to meet you, awsome to proliferate this stuff to everyone. Advocate truecrypt! FireGPG for encrypted emails with gmail! tinfoil hats for all!!!
yeah, you were able to put it much more elegantly than I...
peace
|
abetterlie
Dubstep.breakcore.explosion.soup



Registered: 01/05/08
Posts: 298
Loc: on the internets
Last seen: 7 years, 20 days
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: supra]
#9834644 - 02/20/09 04:59 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
word, you did say what I was talking about...
also, link is broken now for some reason... rapidshare anyone?
-------------------- "I'm gonna clear the air, with the metal that's known to divide the whole atmosphere, and I love to share, them bullets come dime a dozen I kept 2 so I could have spare."
|
YuriKalevra17
LoftyGoals777



Registered: 05/13/19
Posts: 12
Loc: USA
Last seen: 4 years, 8 months
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
#26130760 - 08/11/19 08:36 AM (4 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
From what I understand, it takes a lot of resources, like federal-level resources, to identify tor users. I read a book about how they tracked and caught Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht (spell check?) by identifying a unique tor traffic pattern that could be matched to his network use. This was a multi-agency federal task force though that involved the FBI, IRS, and several other big-budget federal agencies, so I don't think it's within the means of local or regional PD.
I think tor is relatively safe but, for maximum operational security, using Tails OS (which includes Tor Browser) on public WiFi is one of the most secure, in my opinion.
-------------------- Love & Light
|
Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist

Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 48,392
Last seen: 2 days, 19 hours
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: YuriKalevra17]
#26133528 - 08/13/19 10:07 AM (4 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
If you really don't want to be tracked you bounce through several systems that don't keep logs.
Unless you keep using the same systems, it is not possible to track the connection no matter how hard you try.
|
Psilotyl
נָזִיר


Registered: 08/30/19
Posts: 469
Loc: עולם
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
#26164690 - 09/02/19 01:25 AM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
There is something called Quebes now worth looking into.
--------------------
שלום וְאור | PEACE & LIGHT
|
decaf


Registered: 08/18/19
Posts: 6
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
#26166066 - 09/02/19 10:43 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Alan Rockefeller said: If you really don't want to be tracked you bounce through several systems that don't keep logs.
Unless you keep using the same systems, it is not possible to track the connection no matter how hard you try.
This is not a safe assumption to make. Use Tor, preferably on TAILS. It's specifically designed for this
|
decaf


Registered: 08/18/19
Posts: 6
|
Re: Nerotik's Network Security and Anonymity Guide. [Re: YuriKalevra17]
#26166074 - 09/02/19 10:48 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
YuriKalevra17 said: From what I understand, it takes a lot of resources, like federal-level resources, to identify tor users. I read a book about how they tracked and caught Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht (spell check?) by identifying a unique tor traffic pattern that could be matched to his network use. This was a multi-agency federal task force though that involved the FBI, IRS, and several other big-budget federal agencies, so I don't think it's within the means of local or regional PD.
I think tor is relatively safe but, for maximum operational security, using Tails OS (which includes Tor Browser) on public WiFi is one of the most secure, in my opinion.
I second this. The configuration of your browser and your operating system will give you away and "fingerprint" you. Use tails if you want to avoid fingerprinting.
|
|