Want to remain anonymous online? Teach you how to use Linux!

Want to remain anonymous online? Teach you how to use Linux!
The information age brings great convenience and benefits to our lives, but also brings great risks. On the one hand, people can basically access all the information and knowledge known to exist with just a few clicks of a button; on the other hand, if this power falls into the hands of individual outlaws, it can cause major damage and disaster. In this article, Brothers Education will introduce several steps to protect private information online.

Before we get started, the only way to completely keep your computer safe and private is to disconnect from the Internet and turn off the power. Because devices connected to the Internet cannot be absolutely 100% secure. There are always ways to circumvent safety mechanisms, and even if there are none, tools are constantly being developed and new ways are found. So, the guiding principle here is not to ask to change a few settings on your computer and you can build an impregnable fortress, but to put in as many barriers as possible to make it difficult for any potential attacker or spy to gain access to you system or private information.

There are a few Linux tools you can use to stay as anonymous as possible (Band of Brothers www.lampbrother.net reminder: Also nowadays, this is getting harder to do, but if privacy is important to you, you already know to resist heroically importance).

1.

Tails OS The first tool we're going to introduce is Tails OS, but it's probably a misnomer to say it's a "tool" because Tails is a complete Linux distribution, not just a tool. Tails is designed to be an anonymous, self-destructing operating system that wipes out any trace of existence once you run out. Obviously, it's not ideal for an everyday distribution, but if you have something you need to access online that you want to keep private, or you want to browse anonymously, Tails is a good choice. Tails runs entirely as a live system, and once shuts down, it clears itself, rather than being permanently installed on the hard drive.

You can download the latest Tails ISO file at the link above and burn it to DVD or copy it to a bootable USB stick (the latter is much easier, takes less time and wastes less space). Linux has several tools to burn DVDs, mainly Brasero and DeVeDe. Or, if you'd rather make a bootable USB stick, you'll find Unetbootin ideal (or you can use the "dd" command in Terminal, if you're familiar with that). Once Tails is copied to bootable media, simply use it to start your computer, just like installing a new operating system or running a live system.

The Tails website seems to only allow you to download Tails with Firefox or Tor Browser. When I try to download the ISO file through Google Chrome, it tells me the browser doesn't support it. It also forces you to install the Firefox add-on which, once installed, automatically verifies the ISO download software using a checksum verification mechanism. This actually implements a good security measure, as it ensures that you don't get a broken copy of Tails that might have security holes in it, as happened with Linux Mint.

Once you boot into Tails, it walks you through some initial installation steps that are fairly straightforward and intuitive. If in doubt, consult the documentation. A key feature of Tails is that all Internet connections are automatically routed through the Tor network, further enhancing anonymity. If you're not familiar with the Tor network, we'll cover it later when we discuss the Tor Browser. Another important feature built into Tails is MAC address spoofing, which we'll cover in more depth when we discuss the macchanger tool.

In a word, if you need a temporary live operating system that, once shut down, wipes itself out (think about the self-destruction message in the movie Mission: Impossible, but it's not that exaggerated), then Tails is the place to be. select. To learn more about Tails, be sure to visit the official website.

2. Tor Browser

The next tool we're going to cover is the Tor Browser, a product of the Tor Project, an organization dedicated to ensuring online privacy and security. As mentioned above, this tool is already built into Tails OS, but you can also install it on any operating system you like, as they have versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. As far as I know, it is impossible to find it in any official Linux repositories, so you need to download it from the above URL link.

Using a normal Internet connection, traffic travels directly from the host requesting the information to the server providing the requested information, usually with several additional hops between server and server in order for the traffic to travel to its intended destination. However, this can be easily tracked, even if you delete your browsing history burn. So, what Tor Browser does is route your traffic to a number of different intermediate servers (called nodes) within the Tor network, their role is to hide the original source of the traffic, then exit the Tor network through an exit node, and finally arrive at the intended destination. As you can imagine, this results in a little slower browsing, but if privacy matters, learn to live with the sacrifice of speed in order to surf anonymously. It is recommended to use the Tor Browser only when there is a specific task or certain tasks that require the user to be extra careful, not as an everyday browser.

Tor Browser is a fork of Firefox, so you can install your favorite add-ons like Adblock Plus, uBlock Origin, and DownThemAll, but be aware: any add-ons you install may weaken Tor's security and put you at risk environment, then the purpose of using it in the first place is gone. Be careful with what you choose to install. In fact, Tor strongly recommends against installing any browser plugins. Note: Tor Browser also bypasses web filters if you happen to live in an area where the internet is censored.

Some hidden websites (aka "onions") use hidden URLs that can only be accessed through the Tor Browser. For example, the now-defunct Silk Road was one of those "onion" sites, as it was only accessible through the Tor browser. If you try to access these links through a normal browser, you won't find them. Also, some sites like Twitter will find out if the traffic is coming through the Tor network, making it almost impossible to have an anonymous Twitter account, because if you try to create a Twitter account and use it through Tor, Twitter will ask you Provide a phone number. If anyone knows of a way to avoid this restriction without buying a prepaid disposable phone, please leave a message to let us know.

It's also worth mentioning that Tor Browser is not a magic "hide me" button. It may still be tracked by your browsing habits. Be wise and prudent, and remember: whether you like it or not, every action you perform through your computer leaves a trail on the network.

It's also important to point out that recently, the FBI discovered and disclosed a Tor browser vulnerability that allowed them to track and apprehend suspects. So unless the Tor project team finds and fixes this vulnerability, Tor is still weak and vulnerable, but it still has a lot of advantages over normal browsers. Because of this, using Tor alone without running Tails OS is probably a bad idea. Be sure to use with caution.

There is also a mobile Tor solution for Android called Orbot, which uses the OrFox browser and is available for download on both Google Play and F-Droid.

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) also deserve attention due to the increased security of web traffic.

3. macchanger and MAC address spoofing

When it comes to Internet traffic, there are two kinds of addresses: IP addresses and MAC addresses. You may already be familiar with IP addresses, but probably not so much with MAC addresses.

IP addresses are generally assigned automatically by the network's router or DHCP server (home routers have a built-in DHCP server). This is basically your network address, which is subject to change at any time. This is also possible if you want to set a static IP address that doesn't change, rather than assigning addresses automatically (this is usually suitable for printers and other shared peripherals on the network.) In addition to the external IP address that all incoming and outgoing traffic actually uses (If you want to see the external address, you might as well go to IPChicken), you usually also have an internal IP address, which exists on the local network (maybe 192.168.1.x or 192.168.0.x).

However, in addition to IP addresses, there are also MAC addresses. Unlike IP addresses, MAC addresses are physically hardened into network devices and cannot be changed. Because of this, the MAC address is also called the hardware address. Internet traffic uses both IP addresses and MAC addresses to guide where to properly route data. Therefore, in addition to using Tor Browser to hide your IP address, it is also a good idea to use MAC address spoofing to hide your MAC address.

Again, it's not possible to change the MAC address the same way you change the IP address, but you can spoof the MAC address so it appears to be something else. As mentioned, this is built into Tails OS, but you can do it on other distributions as well. My favorite tool is macchanger, a simple terminal command that lets you spoof MAC addresses as you see fit. If you cannot find the tool in the official repositories (sudo apt-get install macchanger), you can download macchanger from GitHub or the GNU website.

The easiest way to use macchanger is to use the -r (random) flag in order to create a random MAC address, but from what I've been using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, I've never been able to do that. The command is executed, but the MAC address does not actually change at all. But that was a long time ago, and macchanger seems to have been updated since then. As of this writing, it seems to be working fine in Linux Mint at all, and the developers even added an automatic feature that makes it easier than ever to have your MAC address change whenever the device reboots.

Once your device reboots, it now appears to have a different MAC address, which means the address is spoofed. Combined with Tor Browser and/or Tails OS, it helps to hide your online identity as much as possible.

4. Full Disk Encryption

Full disk encryption is a rather complicated process. In short, if you want to encrypt data, full disk encryption is the way to go, because without the encryption phrase, no one can physically access any information on your hard drive.

There are many ways to manually configure full disk encryption, but they are all beyond my comprehension. Therefore, the easiest way to install full disk encryption is during the installation of your Linux distribution.

If you use Ubuntu or Linux Mint, you will notice that during the installation, when you see the "Installation Type" screen, under "Install Ubuntu/Linux Mint" there are two checkboxes that say "Encrypt new Ubuntu /Mint installation system for security" and "Using LVM (Logical Volume Management) with the new Ubuntu/Mint installation system". I usually tick these two boxes and let Ubuntu/Mint take care of the rest. A word of caution, however: if you'd rather set your own custom partitioning scheme, you won't be able to do so here, as this option will cause Ubuntu/Mint to handle the partitioning for you. It's still possible to go to the "other way" and mount your own encrypted partition, but that gets a little more complicated.

If you just want to encrypt certain folders on your Linux system, another handy utility is encfs, which you should be able to find in the official repositories. encfs allows you to create an encrypted folder that cannot be opened and viewed without the encrypted password. Beware: this doesn't make the encrypted folder completely disappear from the system, because smart people can still find the location of the encrypted folder (and probably if you know where to look for it), but if it's not encrypted password and cannot access its contents.