
How to access the Darknet. The safe way - herbst
https://torgeek.pw/how-to-access-the-darknet-the-safe-way/
======
sarciszewski
> I see this questioned regularly, and yeah it is generally a good idea. If
> you have a VPN provider that you trust to not keep logs, it can be a very
> good addition for your security setup.

Therein lies the problem. You can't trust VPN providers.

[https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29](https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29)

~~~
celticninja
Cryptostorm are a decent VPN as they claim no logs are kept, however even if
this is not accurate, their payment/token system allows you to access the
service without linking it to you via a payment mechanism. To further cloud
things you can pay with Bitcoin.

~~~
valarauca1
Cryptostorm (I love these guys) refuse to answer how they are in legal
compliance with Canadian laws, which require VPN's to keep logs (they're
Canadian fyi).

Best case scenario: They're an illegal operation who's defying local laws.

Worse case scenario: We're being lied too.

~~~
CptThrowawy
Their alleged owner Douglas Spink and his inability to stay out of jail for
'Zoophilia brothel offences' is the icing on the Cryptostorm cake.

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tasqa
While the advice is okay, the title is a huge turn off. There is no such thing
as the Darknet. Please stop referring to the TOR network this way. It is
harmful to the community and encourages journalists to write about TOR in a
negative way!

~~~
soneca
I have a negative view of the Tor network, actually the name I use is indeed
Darknet (or Deep Web).

My take is that it is valuable to use Tor to (try at least) to escape
companies tracking and government spying.

But to visit any website only available on Tor network is not worth any effort
on my part, as I have no doubt (currently) that it is all about illegal porn
or illegal drugs and sinister scams.

Anyone care to give some counter argument to why this Tor Network deserves a
positive light?

~~~
arca_vorago
"s I have no doubt (currently) that it is all about illegal porn or illegal
drugs and sinister scams."

You have come to your conclusion based upon nothing more than feeling, because
if you had done any searching at all you would understand the answer to your
question.

Everyone has heard the metaphor about leading a horse to water. In this case,
it's more like the horse refuses to even be lead to the water but wants
someone to go get a bucket of water and bring it to them. No one should or is
gonna do it for you, especially since you have demonstrated a clearly
exemplary amount of laziness in both effort and thought...

tldr

Tor sites != illegality

tor != darknet/deep web (eg, the darknet/deep web is much broader than just
tor...)

~~~
awqrre
To me, deep web means any website not indexed by major search engines... most
of the deep web is accessible using a standard browser if you can find a link
to it (many times, those links can be found by using the search engine of that
website because most of their pages are not indexed for whatever reason)

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CptThrowawy
Nation state agencies just go to upstream providers and grab traffic metadata
there, your VPS/VPN not keeping logs won't help against a targeted
investigation. Even just downloading Tor or Tails gets your IP "task queued"
according to Snowden leaks.

You would want to both obtain and use Tor nowhere near your meatspace
identity, pref with different hardware than you usually use, and leave your
phone at home if protection from tracking is your highest priority.

~~~
herbst
Not everybody is living in the US tho.

Most countries can barely force any other country to give out consumer data
from local companies. If you do not live in a five eyes state we can safely
assume that nobody will target you that way for Tor browsing.

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zlatan_todoric
And Whonix atop of Qubes would probably be an overkill atm.

[https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Qubes](https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Qubes)

~~~
etiam
Why do you think so?

~~~
zlatan_todoric
I meant an overkill as an excellent solution atm (sorry for not being precise
- non-native here ;)

~~~
etiam
That's OK. :)

Then I believe we agree on this. I think many people would do well to include
some overkill, in cases like this, to adjust for the risk of underestimating
the difficulty 'killing' the problem.

To be fair, Qubes is arguably not really ready to be put into the hands of a
casual computer user without specific threats yet. But for those who can
handle it it seems like the most accessible option I've heard of for keeping
the underlying system safe and preventing unmasking.

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sandworm101
Accessing Tor "safely" is something over and above accessing the normal
internet safely. Advice like "don't open PDFs" isn't very helpful. Nor is
"don't use javascript" or "don't log into social media." Such inactions don't
help you access anything safely, they help you not access things in the first
place.

(1) Use a secure OS. Unless you are security guru, that should be some flavour
of linux. A liveUSB of Tails is pretty idiot proof. It worked for Snowden.

(2) Don't run any web browser, tor or otherwise, under any sort of elevated
privilege (ie not while admin).

(3) Understand how to verify a website's certificates. You can indeed log into
social media safely via tor (ie your password won't be harvested by the exit
node) if you know how to verify the website.

(4) Don't take anonymity casually. Understand why you are using Tor, what you
are protecting, who your adversary is, and develop relevant procedures. Don't
rely on easy checklists you find at Tor-for-Dummies.com.

~~~
birdperson
> Use a secure OS... A liveUSB of Tails is pretty idiot proof.

That implies Tails is very secure. Why is that? Is it because it has never
been hacked before or has Tails been shown to be virtually hacker-proof? As
someone non-technical I might be misunderstanding something. If so, can you
clarify that?

Thanks.

~~~
jarboot
Tails is intended to be run on a USB drive. This means you can take nearly any
computer, boot to usb, and have a operating system designed for security
running in the computer's RAM. Many claim that this does not leave a trace of
your activity in the computer itself.

It also comes with tor browser, electrum bitcoin wallet, and some GPG
utilities preinstalled.

------
Havoc
>Your operating system could be infected, or leaking information otherwise.

"otherwise"? Is that code for has Windows 10 written on the box?

~~~
zanny
Microsoft backported a lot of the logging and tracking to Windows 7 and 8 as
well. Not all of it, but enough to consider any computer running fully updated
Windows to be user-privacy compromised.

~~~
frik
Why does MSFT gets away with this. This is so evil. MSFT appearently spends a
lot of money on paid commenters and lobbyism in general. Thanks god that
XBoxOne, WinPhone are real flops - most aren't that stupid, for end users MSFT
& Win are a burned brand names.

~~~
zanny
> Why does MSFT gets away with this.

Go to any store, anywhere. What computers are they selling? Maybe Chromebooks,
which are showing to be wildly popular. But they also get returned a lot. Why?
Because the user expects X software to run on Y computer, and do not even know
what an operating system is because we idled in complacency on Microsofts
desktop monopoly for twenty years. Take note of how Walmart sells Ipads but
not Macbooks.

The only alternative to Windows is ChromeOS. Which is not an alternative for
even half of Widows' use cases, since there is no native application support
and its app-store restricted. Half of Windows appeal is the lack of
application lockdown to a store, albeit MS has tried their hardest with their
Windows Store to stop that.

OSX is not an alternative, Apple Stores are fairly few and far between, and
the cost of a Mac is prohibitive, and it would have the exact same software
incompatibility problems as Windows. And modern OSX is code signing
applications and is, for consumers, even more restrictive and draconian than
Windows is - do you _want_ your potential software users on iOS or OSX? I
certainly do not, because that gives Apple absolute power to stop my software
at their whim, or never approve it in the first place.

Ubuntu (or any desktop Linux) is also not an alternative, because, simply, its
not there on the shelf next to Windows or ChromeOS. If Macs are inaccessible
due to price and location, Ubuntu does not even exist - and it literally does
not, given its market segment size. If Canonical wanted serious desktop
adoption they would have to throw ludicrous money getting Ubuntu computers in
front of potential users to purchase.

So of course MS gets away with this. Nobody is trying to stop them. And I
doubt Xbone is a flop - it has sold 15 million units, half of the PS4 but
still well on track to outsell the original Xbox in its lifetime, which only
moved 24 million units in 5 years. I am insanely against consoles as a
platform and pray they die finally and give consumers their hardware back, but
that seems like a distant dream as well.

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secfirstmd
If anyone is interested, we (www.secfirst.org) just launched an Android open
source app called Umbrella, which has lessons like this, along with a ton of
other digital and physical security stuff. Everything from secure email to
dealing with kidnap:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.umbrella)

~~~
vjvj
why does this app require access to my current or saved locations?

~~~
secfirstmd
Actually it doesn't if you are using the lessons and checklists etc. It only
applies if you want to use the feature that allows you to input your location
and then pull updated physical security country data feeds from the UN and
Centre for Disease Control.

~~~
vjvj
Thanks for clarifying. It was an all or nothing option for me - i.e. if I
denied location access I couldn't use the app.

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simonebrunozzi
This article has several mistakes and typos. I find it actually hard to enjoy
reading it, and it also seems very superficial. Am I the only one to feel this
way?

~~~
herbst
Thank you for this feedback. I usually dont write, it is just a topic where i
felt that could need some noob friendly coverage and just started writing. If
i even proceed i will look into someone that proof reads my blabber. It is
also not my first language.

(i am actually even surprised about the interest)

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megraf
I'd actually recommend a SOCKS5 Proxy over a VPN.

> The SOCKS server does not interpret the network traffic between client and
> server in any way, and is often used because clients are behind a firewall
> and are not permitted to establish TCP connections to servers outside the
> firewall unless they do it through the SOCKS server.

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kauegimenes
Dont look at the comments in this blog post...

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sidcool
Quite a let down article.

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leoplct
I have Tried. There are only drugs, underage photos, scams, fake passaports
and so on. What's the point of Darknet besides illegal activtities?

~~~
hluska
This is a very poor answer and, while I'm pretty sure that you're just
trolling, Tor is important enough that your 'claim' really needs to be
rebutted.

Consider a service like SecureDrop. Armed with SecureDrop, journalists and
dissidents/whistleblowers can communicate in a more secure way.

Or, consider a publication like Propublica. They set up a hidden service so
that they could talk about censorship in China...and hopefully allow Chinese
citizens to read it without ending up in serious legal trouble.

Statements like yours are the problem and I seriously hope that you take the
time to educate yourself. Ignorance may be funny to you, but it makes it more
dangerous for legitimate activists and journalists to use Tor.

~~~
delecti
I've always interpreted "darknet" to mean the content itself, rather than Tor.
That would make the parent comment's question entirely reasonable, without
saying anything about the usefulness of Tor.

~~~
hluska
That's a good interpretation and I'd do well to keep that possibility in mind.
Sorry if I came across as too aggressive.

Based on the context, I assumed that the parent was talking about needing Tor
to access the Darknet. If that's the case, the parent would be talking about
Tor hidden services. While there are some really shitty hidden services, there
are also some amazing applications - SecureDrop is one example.

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nvrsummer
Well at least they didn't give away the real Darknet

~~~
node_gt_go
Calm down Saville

~~~
nvrsummer
Cute

