Deep Web - Getting To Know Each Other #1

Welcome on board, stranger!

Today we are going to continue our acquaintance with the Deep Web and will teach you how to stay anonymous with using special software. This time we will discuss Whonix and what it is.

Disclaimer! The author doesn't take the responsibility about methods written below. This article is made only for information puproses! Do at your own peril and risk!

What is Whonix in simple phrase? This is the Linux distribution kit which allows you to stay anonymous with whatever you want to do. Isn't it cool?

"How do you stay anonymous if you can do anything", - you may ask. Today we are going to answer that question.

Review & Setup

Let's get started. First of all, let's talk about why people use Whonix to stay anonymous. There is a simple explanation of that. This OS contains of two simultaneously working operation systems - "Gateway" & "Workstation". Gateway is meant to route all of the network traffic through the Tor network. Workstation is a fully isolated system that can only access the network through "Gateway". The best advantage is that whatever you do on "Workstation", whatever malware soft you're using there, can not reveal your real IP address simply because Workstation doesn't know that. Also it should be mentioned that whatever app is working, Whonix makes new Tor chain network for it.

Setting Up the Whonix OS

At first, you have to download the distribution kit from the official website here

You will be shown several results - Windows, Linux, OS X and Qubes. Choose the best one for you. Also you should be getting VirtualBox link there as well, in case if you don't have it.

After VirtualBox has been downloaded, simply click "Import" and add the .ova file downloaded. Then you click "Next" and set up OS settings. Things which are seen at the "Import Config" are not that important, you just need to click "Import".

After importing to VirtualBox you should be seeing two separate systems - "Whonix Gateway" and "Whonix Workstation".

First one you should power on is "Gateway". It is gonna act as a firewall and we have already discussed that above, it's gonna run all of the traffic through Tor. First thing you will see the window with the license agreement, just click "Understood" and "Next". The following window - same. Then you should be able to see text "Whonix Setup is completed" and just press "Finish".

Then you should see "Anon Connection Wizard" window, choose "Connect", "Next" and then "Finish".

Next thing in line you need to do is to boot Terminal and check for the latest updates. When you boot it, you will see lines with the default user account & password. The defauls are "user" and the password is "changeme".

If you want to change the password, just type in: "passwd yourpasswordhere", it will ask you for the current password to check, and then it will be changed.

Okay, so now you need to check for the latest updates. You need to type these commands into Terminal:

sudo -apt-get-update-plus dist-upgrate

Now you need to wait until the platform will be updated. It may take plenty of time.

After this is done, you need to check if everything works correct, type this in Terminal:

whonixcheck

Sometimes you may have "Warning" alerts, you need to do the same command to check on latest upgrades. If you got everything working well, good job!

Now do the same proccess in the Workstation.

sudo -apt-get-update-plus dist-upgrate

and then:

whonixcheck

Everything is going through Tor as we mentioned before. You can check it with a simple command:

curl ip.me

Everytime you write this command, it should change the IP address you're using just because it tunnels your network through Tor chain network.

Tor browser is preinstalled in Whonix, it is easily accessible but you need to update that too. Either you can do that through opening Tor and update there or you can go to Terminal and write this command:

update-torbrowser

In conclusion we can say that Whonix gives us high level anonymity which is enough in 90% of the cases. The same can be said about network security with dividing working space OS and network OS with this being a fact that we masked the usage of Tor from our ISP and from the network resources visited.

It is widely stated that Whonix and Tails are almost equal talking about anonymity and safety & security, but that is incorrect. We will talk about Tails in our next articles! Stay tuned!