VM in the dark?

[BaKDrOZ]

Hey all,

I recently read up on an article posted about doxing and another, plus a few threads, on how to, relatively, stay in the "dark." My current computer systems class has us using virtual machines to run linux and I am wondering if that is, lets say, at least a sheet on top...?

[Shade_of_Gray]

It can be.

You can use a virtual machine and load the same protected image each time you use it, effectively starting with a clean slate. This offers some modicum of protection from tracking cookies, malware, etc.

Of course, it's probably best not to keep the virtual machine image on your machine where "someone" could find it - keep it on removable media, on your person or in a secure location.

This offers the additional benefit of giving you access to tools that don't run natively on your platform of choice. That's something else to consider.

[0phidian]

Not really, just using a vm wont mask your ip or anything like that, additionally the vm would be the same as using your main OS except all of the data is saved in vm files. Even if you deleted these files they could still be potentially recovered.

If you want to stay in the dark I suggest trying tailshttps://tails.boum.org/.
Make sure you live boot into tails, you can run it in a vm but it's not reccomended.

[BaKDrOZ]

Thanks for the replies,

Lets say i ran a vm through a OS on a removable drive, would that be unnecessary? or maybe redundant because the security of each cover doesn't stack in that way?

[Amazingred]

Something else to consider...

Ophidian is correct, when you change machines (or machine states) your web signature doesn't cloak or anything. It's effectively the same thing as logging off your laptop and turning on your roomates laptop instead.

Most people have another option than trying to ninja their internet signature. If you truly want the best chance at remaining anon in my opinion you should research building a wifi antenna. I've made dozens myself and currently keep 3 on hand. A modified satellite dish with a home made reciever (range of 1.5 miles with clear line of sight to target AP) at my house, a mini yagi antenna (the size of a mans forearm) that i keep in my car to plug into my laptop when i'm on the road, and a larger yagi that i use to transmit my home.security stuff back to the reciever.

I hate getting no-no letters from my ISP every time i download a torrent.

[limdis]

Most people have another option than trying to ninja their internet signature. If you truly want the best chance at remaining anon in my opinion you should research building a wifi antenna. I've made dozens myself and currently keep 3 on hand. A modified satellite dish with a home made reciever (range of 1.5 miles with clear line of sight to target AP) at my house, a mini yagi antenna (the size of a mans forearm) that i keep in my car to plug into my laptop when i'm on the road, and a larger yagi that i use to transmit my home.security stuff back to the reciever.

This is something I have been considering looking into recently. I'm working on a setup for my car. More details? Size, cost, etc.

[Amazingred]

I have been building these as a hobby for quite a while now playing with different designs and shapes seeing what works best. If you're looking for something homemade and portable you're best bet to start off would be a yagi or a cantenna. The cantenna is the easiest to make but i've never cared too much for them because they're touchy about losing signal and its easy to knock the connections loose while you're packing/unpacking them. Yagi's are a little more tedious to build since you have to be pretty precise with the measurements of the element placements and shapes but I've got a copy of a yagi calculator that will actually print out schematics and step by step instructions for every little detail of the design for you.

My portable yagi is about 2 feet long and is essentially flat (less than 1/2" thick) and just a few inches wide. It cost me 7 bucks and change to buy all the parts for it (1/4 inch round wood dowel rod 2' long, couple feet of heavy duty copper wire, n-type connector, a few feet of connecting cord) and gets about 13.5dBi on average. Its a pseudo-directional antenna so i just have to have it oriented in the "general direction" of where the Ap is instead of having to tune the angle and pitch like most cantenna's and its many times more powerful.

Parabolic Dish setups are probably the best performers (of the ones that i have made) with a HUGE range but they're usually made of big awkward shaped satellite dishes and don't relocate very well so you'll probably not be packing one around in your car.

The best way to start out tho is to pick up an old last generation USB WiFi adapter (has to be wireless G...thats important) and plug it into a USB extension cord. Mainly because most people don't have an external antenna hookup on their laptops by default so you'll either be buying a removable slide in card adapter or you'll have to get technical and solder a couple of wires onto you're internal wifi card (the first 2 times i did that i bricked the wifi cards). You can tap into the 2 antenna wires that come from your card up into the back of your laptop screen if you prefer but they're really tough to tap into correctly and even still doing it that way kills the signal you recieve anyway by a lot.

I paid 5 bucks for >THIS USB WiFi and used it as the reciever on a dish setup and was getting an 80 % signal from an AP over a mile away.


I'm actually working on an article to post about going into detail building a couple of different types and what kind of parts you can substitute for them that I was gonna post here in a day or so.

[limdis]

This is outstanding. I'm seriously looking forward for the submission.

I got distracted, sorry OP. In regards to running a live CD it depends on the developer. In some cases small bits of information can be stored on your RAM. From my research this is purely based on the developer enabling that option but I could be wrong. Normally running a live CD will leave next to no evidence of anything at all. However, if you download/save anything on your hard drive then obviously that is going to be there. Now, this is just on your computer. You will still need to take precautions to hide your online identity if you decide to connect to the net.

[Amazingred]

Just an update, I got a little busy this week and wasn't able to finish the article. I'll be working on it today so i'll have it out soon. Sorry for the delay.