Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: swimride on October 05, 2012, 03:43 am

Title: Tor in a VM
Post by: swimride on October 05, 2012, 03:43 am
I was wondering if anyone else uses a VM for  TOR and SR activity? I am using Linux Mint running in a Parallels VM. I have read that you shouldn't have a non TOR-ified browser open while using TOR, so I probably shouldn't even have a browser open in another VM or on my Mac?
Title: Re: Tor in a VM
Post by: Pol Pot Head on October 05, 2012, 04:13 am
I was wondering if anyone else uses a VM for  TOR and SR activity? I am using Linux Mint running in a Parallels VM. I have read that you shouldn't have a non TOR-ified browser open while using TOR, so I probably shouldn't even have a browser open in another VM or on my Mac?

Well technically you can have a non-TORified browser open while browsing on TOR and still maintain anonymousity on TOR. This gives you the advantage of being able to browse a non-torified browser for your everyday non-sketchy, Internet activities, such as chatting on Facebook, while you simultaneously have a TOR browser open.  It wouldn't compromise your security UNLESS you accidentally copy and pasted an .onion link onto the non-TOR-ified browser or if you accidentally copied a non-TORified link into your TOR browser...that might reveal your IP address. This, by the way, isn't a well known security flaw of TOR browser, so I would suspect many TOR users, who run a non-TOR-ified browser on at the same time as their TOR browser , already  made this mistake thus compromising their security.  You should check this link out for verification of this fact:

 How to Properly Set Up a Virtual Machine (VM)

http://f3ew3p7s6lbftqm5.onion/text/torguide_v1_0_1.txt

Quote
The second issue is that of human error. Even if you have TOR installed, you may accidentally forget which browser to put in
a link. You may also accidentally click on a link from another program, such as a chat program. That program might then load
the link you clicked on into a non-TOR browser. When you are using TOR, you must be careful *constantly* that every link
goes into the right browser, and that you do not accidentally click the wrong link. 

The MORAL OF THE STORY: don't accidentally copy and paste links from your TOR-browser into a non-TORified browser and vice versa. I hope this was great help to you.
Title: Re: Tor in a VM
Post by: Wadozo on October 05, 2012, 04:47 am
I was wondering if anyone else uses a VM for  TOR and SR activity? I am using Linux Mint running in a Parallels VM. I have read that you shouldn't have a non TOR-ified browser open while using TOR, so I probably shouldn't even have a browser open in another VM or on my Mac?

Using a VM for Tor is not a good idea, neither is having Tor and a standard browser open at the same time. This has been covered in the forum in a thread previously, just ran out of time to look for you. As explained by Pine in her tutorial below, a VM should be used to download files and use them without worrying about some possible Law Enforcement malware concealed within.

https://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion.to/index.php?topic=39320.0

As posted by another very knowledgeable member, kmfkewm, he details his thoughts on the issue of opening up an O/S in a virtual environment.

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=8524.msg84755#msg84755

There is lots of info on this forum concerning these topics should you want more.  :)