Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: windmillz on January 15, 2013, 07:20 am
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Hello,
I have thought about places I can connect to wifi that would be secure and anonymous enough to do my business with connecting to the tor network etc. I have thought about going to my local book stores, coffee shops, and even just a friends wifi for internet access. Is there any drawbacks or extra precautions I should take? The computer I am using has no affiliation to me in any way. Using a live usb bootOS.
Thanks for all the thoughts they are all greatly appreciated!
-windmillz
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Do it the same place you access these forums with Tor.
Seriously, Tor is Tor. it's end-to-end encryption and whether you're accessing the forum or you're accessing Silk Road, it doesn't look any different to the ISP/WiFi. That's the whole idea behind Tor; anonymous browsing.
On the other hand, being at a public public place where someone might look over your shoulder and see the screen, or you acting weird trying to hide your screen. . . not to mention possibly raising some flags by accessing Tor on their WiFi network (which they might be blocking for all you know) - that's a classic example of the kind of self-sabotage overly paranoid thinking can do.
look, you're on Tor right now because you're on the forum. Just go to Silk Road the same way. For god's sake don't go out to a public place using a borrowed/stolen computer (not sure what you mean by it having no connection to you...) to buy drugs online.
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First Ill tell you about this computer, truthfully I bought this computer from a friend who claims, it was a yard sale item. I have taken the hard drive out so there is no actual hdd inside, using a liveusb at bootup for these purposes. Should I worry? or purcase a brand new computer?
I would not really have any fear of hiding in a public place I feel like the "norm" busy person has many other things besides whats going on on your computer screen you do have a very valid point I will go with. I understand the concern, and its especially not worth the risk. I will do anything to remain safe and anonymous.
Also If these public wifi does not block tor, would that be a better option than say the place you possibly might ship something to in the future?
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Yes, I am quite a paranoid, just for the reason that the town I live in is infested with police. Going out on a regular day you will see enough to get anyone who just smokes marijuana to have a stroke it feels like.. I just want to do it right so I wont have to bother with those kinds of troubles and stresses!
I truthfully am not sure If this computer was stolen a friend asked another friend if they were able to fix it because their was something wrng with it, so I told him I would buy it from him seemed to be the perfect option for a good price..., would It make a difference?
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I feel like the "norm" busy person has many other things besides whats going on on your computer screen you do have a very valid point I will go with.
Hey man, just a tip; a very easy way around this is to go on to SR itself and click your "account" next to your balance (One and the same link), then click account and enable incognito. It removes the logo, pictures, etc, so that is is more SFW. Here's another breakdown for what to do:
SR -> Account (top of the page) -> Settings (on the right somewhere) -> Incognito Mode (on the left somewhere)
Hope that helped, any karma is appreciated! Take it easy!
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I don't think it really matters. If you relay your Ip to allow others to use it on Tor it will show your external IP on the network. This is the only way i can think of they can find you without a SERIOUS WARRANT and SERIOUS EFFORT.
Just for the LEO to do a phone tap they need a warrant and they need to present it to you. At least in my country. I'm assuming the same goes for hacking the shit out of your PC.
Anyways, i got the WIFI password to a local restaurant for when i'm visiting my cottage. All i do is sit outside in my car and access TOR. No one see's me, no one see's my PC. And i don't worry.
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no dont sell out of your own internet
tor traffic looks different than normal traffic, china
is blocking tor for example, dont think its perfect.
look your isp can tell your using tor and how many people exactly do you think are using tor in your area? small city probably just you.
if your using it from your house better put some more measures in place, vpn comes to mind.
and what country presents you with a wiretap? i bet they arnt very seccussful
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Is it pretty safe to buy from your "home" internet location or is it better to go moooch of of your neighbor? I doubt that im the only one in my town to access the tor network.
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If you want to do some war driving you would be absolutely amazed how many people don't have their wifi secured. Find an apartment complex somewhere and chances are you'll find open wifi.
Still many more people are still using WEP encryption on their networks. That's easy enough to crack. If you want to know more about it search for backtrack. It's a linux distro geared towards this.
If you live in a fairly dense population area you may be able to just get a high powered wifi antenna and tap in to something nearby.
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Is it pretty safe to buy from your "home" internet location or is it better to go moooch of of your neighbor? I doubt that im the only one in my town to access the tor network.
thats up to you, but its an easy step to take. like i said only a handful of people in your area are using tor networks, and there arnt many legit reasons to use it, assuming you dont live in a repressed country
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Unless you're selling some fresh kitty porn I wouldn't worry about it, but if you insist on being paranoid get yourself an alfa awus036h wireless adapter and youtube how to crack WEP passwords, literally takes minutes. If you're even more paranoid than I suggest getting a secure O/S like tails and if you're not satisfied then get yourself a vpn that accepts BTC as payment.
*completely wrapped in tinfoil*
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no one really uses wep anymore, wpa pre shared key is more likely
best use a ati gfx card for dictionary attack (only thing i can ever recommend an ati card for)
and no need for any fancy wireless card just one that can go into monitor mode... most will.
backtrack linux is setup for doing such attacks and with about 5 min of reading or youtube videos im sure you can get a few of your neigbors, businesses nearbye. also many wireless routers have wps enabled
you can use reaver to try and brute the wps key.. there are many ways into wireless.
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On the other hand, being at a public public place where someone might look over your shoulder and see the screen, or you acting weird trying to hide your screen. . . not to mention possibly raising some flags by accessing Tor on their WiFi network (which they might be blocking for all you know) - that's a classic example of the kind of self-sabotage overly paranoid thinking can do.
Good phucking grief, yeah, going down to your local lib and sitting right under the camera to trade narc.s on their slow-ass computer which doesn't even have Tor anyway not a gooooood idea.
For god's sake don't go out to a public place using a borrowed/stolen computer (not sure what you mean by it having no connection to you...) to buy drugs online.
I'll bang this ^.
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I agree with the others that this is pretty much an unnecessary layer of effort. But then, it’s not going to hurt anything and if it gives you peace of mind… why not?
- Many mcdonalds (as well as many wendy’s and burger kings, etc) has free anonymous wifi that you can use from the parking lot in the privacy of your car.
- Some cities have public wifi city-wide.
- Nearby universities. Many of them offer public wifi, sometimes covering vast portions of campus.
- Apartment buildings / college dorms still have the occasional unsecured signal you can pick up from your car.
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no dont sell out of your own internet
tor traffic looks different than normal traffic, china
is blocking tor for example, dont think its perfect.
look your isp can tell your using tor and how many people exactly do you think are using tor in your area? small city probably just you.
if your using it from your house better put some more measures in place, vpn comes to mind.
and what country presents you with a wiretap? i bet they arnt very seccussful
Mullvad is a good VPN. It's not very fast, and there are not a lot of servers, but it's reliable, and it works.
A solid VPN is worth every penny.
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ALSO TRY CYBER Ghost VPN....ITS FREE AND IT WORKS GREAT..I FORGET THE OTHER ONE BUT STARTS WITH A S SOMETHING LIKE SOLUDO OR SOMETHING, SOMEBODY WILL KNOW WHAT IM TRYING TO SAY
I user cyber ghost always even before i get on TOR lol
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I am of the belief that once we vanquish our international enemies the feds will start looking at illegal national commerce a bit closer. I also believe that if a federal agency is monitoring your internet usage & has a search warrant for your computer then they have an abundant of other evidence & you are totally fucked. Think about one of those drones circling overhead taping court admissible high def video of your activities. Do you think that they are just going to let those terrible machines just sit ? They already use them on the us-mexico boarder.
Anyway, I would highly recommend that you use something like true crypt to create a hidden partition to store any tor & pgp key related items. Create one thats only say 10% larger than needed to hold the data files. Be sure to keep it closed when you are not using it. I have never understood the USB key idea, perhaps I am missing something. Yes you can see a partition on a computer as well but whats your reason for the USB key ? You found it ?
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backtrack and ettercap ;)
Peace,
ChemCat
8)
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ALSO TRY CYBER Ghost VPN....ITS FREE AND IT WORKS GREAT..I FORGET THE OTHER ONE BUT STARTS WITH A S SOMETHING LIKE SOLUDO OR SOMETHING, SOMEBODY WILL KNOW WHAT IM TRYING TO SAY
I user cyber ghost always even before i get on TOR lol
Just signed up for cyberghostvpn. Works pretty well so far. Thanks
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http://routerpwn.com/
This site comes in handy, it offers some password generators, haven't tested all, but those I've used do work.
Another question: Does someone who uses Liberte Linux could tell me how to find out easily a networks MAC address? It seems that Liberte Linux's network manager doesn't offer this.
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Do it the same place you access these forums with Tor.
Seriously, Tor is Tor. it's end-to-end encryption and whether you're accessing the forum or you're accessing Silk Road, it doesn't look any different to the ISP/WiFi. That's the whole idea behind Tor; anonymous browsing.
On the other hand, being at a public public place where someone might look over your shoulder and see the screen, or you acting weird trying to hide your screen. . . not to mention possibly raising some flags by accessing Tor on their WiFi network (which they might be blocking for all you know) - that's a classic example of the kind of self-sabotage overly paranoid thinking can do.
look, you're on Tor right now because you're on the forum. Just go to Silk Road the same way. For god's sake don't go out to a public place using a borrowed/stolen computer (not sure what you mean by it having no connection to you...) to buy drugs online.
Tor is not invulnerable and using WiFi from random locations is recognized as a good technique for increasing your anonymity. Using WiFi from locations in a pattern can help a little, but if the feds want you and they know that you are going to connect to WiFi at one of a dozen locations the next time you use the internet for something and they can trace you, they will be able to get you if they try. If you use a neighbors WiFi it does give you the advantage of strong unlinkability if you quit using that access point and wireless adapter prior to the police getting to it, but it doesn't help a whole lot if you consistently use the same access point as wireless signals can be traced quite easily while they are being sent. I can't even recall a single case where the feds traced someone through the internet if they always connected from a new random access point and only kept online for brief periods of time. But again, there are several cases where they got people who fell into patterns of access points, and there are a lot of cases where they got people using neighbors WiFi.
Another advantage of using hacked/open WiFi is that it hides the fact that YOU are using Tor (ie: it gives you membership concealment). This can be really good for security, particularly if you are a vendor, but again the level of protection it provides you depends strongly on how randomly you use access points and how long you use any given access point. You also need to worry that someone might notice you on their wireless network and call the police, I have not heard of someone identifying this through technical means but there are stories of people calling the police when someone in a car parks in front of their house while on their laptops. So you do need to be careful with not looking suspicious while using open/hacked WiFi networks.
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ALSO TRY CYBER Ghost VPN....ITS FREE AND IT WORKS GREAT..I FORGET THE OTHER ONE BUT STARTS WITH A S SOMETHING LIKE SOLUDO OR SOMETHING, SOMEBODY WILL KNOW WHAT IM TRYING TO SAY
I user cyber ghost always even before i get on TOR lol
So pretty much you are saying if I want to trace you I should skip Tor and target "CYBER ghost", perhaps looking for the person who is using CYBER ghost to connect to Tor? LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
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whats your reason for the USB key ? You found it ?
One reason is it is easier to hide if the there is a sudden reason to hide your past habits. If I understand it correctly:
With Tails on a USB drive that never uses your hard drives, when you unplug it and shut down the computers power, there is nothing on the PC to incriminate you. At least not from stuff you did within Tails. And a thumb drive is pretty easy to hide, destroy or escape with in a hurry.
Also, You can carry it with you secretly and use it to boot most computers and access Tor wherever you go.
It may also be easier to upgrade than a burnt dvd disk.
NWN
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Do it the same place you access these forums with Tor.
Seriously, Tor is Tor. it's end-to-end encryption and whether you're accessing the forum or you're accessing Silk Road, it doesn't look any different to the ISP/WiFi. That's the whole idea behind Tor; anonymous browsing.
On the other hand, being at a public public place where someone might look over your shoulder and see the screen, or you acting weird trying to hide your screen. . . not to mention possibly raising some flags by accessing Tor on their WiFi network (which they might be blocking for all you know) - that's a classic example of the kind of self-sabotage overly paranoid thinking can do.
look, you're on Tor right now because you're on the forum. Just go to Silk Road the same way. For god's sake don't go out to a public place using a borrowed/stolen computer (not sure what you mean by it having no connection to you...) to buy drugs online.
Tor is not invulnerable and using WiFi from random locations is recognized as a good technique for increasing your anonymity. Using WiFi from locations in a pattern can help a little, but if the feds want you and they know that you are going to connect to WiFi at one of a dozen locations the next time you use the internet for something and they can trace you, they will be able to get you if they try. If you use a neighbors WiFi it does give you the advantage of strong unlinkability if you quit using that access point and wireless adapter prior to the police getting to it, but it doesn't help a whole lot if you consistently use the same access point as wireless signals can be traced quite easily while they are being sent. I can't even recall a single case where the feds traced someone through the internet if they always connected from a new random access point and only kept online for brief periods of time. But again, there are several cases where they got people who fell into patterns of access points, and there are a lot of cases where they got people using neighbors WiFi.
Another advantage of using hacked/open WiFi is that it hides the fact that YOU are using Tor (ie: it gives you membership concealment). This can be really good for security, particularly if you are a vendor, but again the level of protection it provides you depends strongly on how randomly you use access points and how long you use any given access point. You also need to worry that someone might notice you on their wireless network and call the police, I have not heard of someone identifying this through technical means but there are stories of people calling the police when someone in a car parks in front of their house while on their laptops. So you do need to be careful with not looking suspicious while using open/hacked WiFi networks.
+1!
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I googled vpn free mac and found this for mac: http://vpn-one-click-mac.en.softonic.com/mac
Does anyone know if it's good? Does anyone know a better free vpn for mac? The description on the website seems to have bad grammar. English is my second language so my own grammar isn't always great but when I see bad grammar in descriptions of goods or services I sometimes think it might not be very good.