NZ Darknet Market Forums

LittleIndian

Member

Registered: 2019-10-09

Posts: 97

How do you use access Tor Market?

I have been using Tails with Tor Browser on it for accessing Tor Market.

I can't use Tails now because it is not compatable with my new computer. Is using a VPN over Tor the way to go as second best option?

Keen on your set ups and recommendations. Cheers!

chitty

Member

Registered: 2022-02-12

Posts: 84

Re: How do you use access Tor Market?

I'm using a linux distribution in a virtual machine (on a Linux computer) with LUKS disk encryption and a VPN (this is for browsing things in another browser that won't display properly in tor-browser, things that you still possibly don't want on your bare internet connection (disable auto-complete in that browser)) and running tor browser in the virtual machine (so it's tor over VPN which isn't recommended but can't be too bad, and it means there will never be records at your ISP of you using tor). I found using tails was a bit of a hassle after a while since you can't write to it, can't set things up, can't make bookmarks etc. I have two versions of tor-browser, one is the compressed file downloaded from the site, extracted and run directly, the other is installed by the linux distribution package manager. One of them has javascript enabled (which is less secure), the other doesn't (that one's used for all serious tor sites that don't use javascript eg tor market). They both self update. If the cops ever found the disk image they wouldn't be getting the password for it off me, and if you keep the disk image for the VM (virtual machine) on a MicroSD card that you hide in a curtain hem when you're not using it then the cops will never know your "secret-VM" exists unless they break your door down while you're using it. I'll be learning how to use Whonix and Qubes when I get around to it (these are more secure linux distributions and virtual machine systems designed specifically for using tor).

Learning how to use all of this stuff, linux, virtual machines, encryption, etc takes some considerable time... mine probably isn't the optimal setup either cos I'm not really a computer let alone computer security guy. Like eg you can have a disk that appears to have random data on it, but you keep the bootloader or partition table or whatever on a separate device, and it's impossible for LE to prove that it has any data on it. Or you have an encrypted LUKS drive, and when you enter one password it'll show one set of data, when you enter a different one it shows another, so you can appear to comply with a LE request for the password.

But learn linux. It's worth it. If you have an IQ over 110 and you are using Windows you are doing yourself a fucked up disservice.
Just get a live-iso (linux distribution booted from a USB drive, like tails), boot it up, and search for "bash tutorial" (bash is the command and scripting language of the linux terminal).

openbsd
openbased
freebased... oh yea, you guys like that one

Encrypt every drive you use, from the first time you use it. Then when you're tired of what's on the drive (or are worried because you can't remember exactly what was on the drive) and you reformat it and install again you don't have to worry about what was on there previously because all that'll be left is scrambled data. This is probably more relevant to terrorists than small time drug users and dealers as LE may never put this much effort into decoding our computers if they seize them, but HDDs sometimes reallocate failing sectors, and SSDs keep spare cells in reserve and use wear levelling that rotates the used cells and could potentially have old data left on them even when the disk appears to you to be blank or zero written (or SSDs have trim which frees up cells when the data in them is deleted, but OpenBSD doesn't support TRIM... is that one of its security precautions?). But if you encrypt from the start then you don't have to worry. Just reformat or reinstall the drive and start again, all that will remain from what was on there previously will be encrypted data that will be mathematically indistinguishable from random data. This is probably a smallish problem with HDDs as what shows to be on the disk in the OS will be approximately what is on the sectors on the HDD (but HDDs are becoming pretty obsolete for many purposes). With SSDs there'll be somewhat more deleted files and old data in the reserve sectors, of course it depends how easy it is for LE to access that area of the disk..

Make a RAM drive, or make /tmp in Linux a ram drive (it's quite easy) and then anything you want to not appear on your computers disk you download to the RAM drive eg an image of a product for a vendor that you download from a camera, or a pgp message that you decode to a file, goes into the RAM drive, and when the computer is powered off the RAM drive is cleared. Otherwise, as you probably know, deleting a file doesn't remove the contents of the file from a computer's HDD, not sure exactly what the situation is with SSDs and the TRIM command but may be an issue.

I'm sort of experimenting with this, but if you set .bash_history to the RAM drive then there won't be a record of what you've been doing on your computer if you use the terminal a lot. Or eg if you accidentally type a password in plain text into a terminal then it won't be recorded.

Last edited by chitty (2022-03-24 15:20)

chitty

Member

Registered: 2022-02-12

Posts: 84

Re: How do you use access Tor Market?

Just to clarify, it's SSDs that you might want to use encryption on from the start, because erasing them can be problematic because the cells are overprovisioned and when you write to a cell it is likely to write to a new cell instead of changing the contents of the cell with the old data, and secure erase doesn't seem to be reliably implemented across the various manufacturers:
https://macosxfilerecovery.com/data-recovery-possible-on-securely-erased-ssds/

With a hard drive you can probably erase it reliably by zero-writing it once (or running badblocks in linux which will write a pattern to it 4 times). Decent quality USB flash drives and MicroSD cards -do- have wear levelling, could be worth buying a 2.5" USB hard drive purely for erasibility if using encryption is a problem

Last edited by chitty (2022-03-21 20:30)

mrbobdobalina

Member

Registered: 2020-12-13

Posts: 37

Re: How do you use access Tor Market?

Just buy a cheap secondhand burner laptop and take out the HDD and run tails on it from a USB.